rings of escaping

[Estie]

When they first appeared, I used them as early RoS for non-meleers. Since both ranged to hit and spell fail are affected by equipping them, they are a pure money item for me.
Having to spend a turn to equip them before that extra speed kicks in reduces the situations in which one would be useful to almost zero. Also, a speed potion is much better in every way, so having none of those is kindof a prerequisite for even considering to take a RoE down into the dungeon. And that is rare, at least the way I play - I treasure !speed and always try to have at least one, for emergencies and/or for tasty kills.
Maybe they get used more in ironman.

[nullfame]

Having to spend a turn to equip them before that extra speed kicks in reduces the situations in which one would be useful to almost zero. Also, a speed potion is much better in every way, so having none of those is kindof a prerequisite for even considering to take a RoE down into the dungeon. And that is rare, at least the way I play - I treasure !speed and always try to have at least one, for emergencies and/or for tasty kills.

Probably everyone plays different. I treasure !speed to the point of not using them. In the first 40 I would rather ?dd or ?tl. Soon _speed are found. Only if I'm out of the staff and pretty deep do I even carry the potions. I save potions for when I want to melee charge drainers.

Losing 1 turn to equip =escaping is not a big deal. If one more turn is going to put you in danger you should have been fleeing already. =escaping is perfect for the early "tasty kills" such as normal speed orc uniques. He is barreling down the hallway while you pelt him with arrows. When he is one turn away, equip. Get some distance. Remove. Repeat. Save that !speed.

[Derakon]

I use !speed in the early game (better to use it and live than not use it and die, certainly), then once I find _speed I stash all my !speed in the home for Morgoth. Everyone else, I use a charge from _speed (or, if I'm lucky enough to find it, -speed) and then drop the staves somewhere safe while the fight goes down.

[TJS]

I quite like rings of escaping, especially when I can't find any potions of speed. They do seem to currently punish warriors more than anyone else by preventing melee, but allowing spells and archery. A 50% fail of any magic device, melee or archery sounds about right to me.

Could make them more interesting by making them +1d5 speed instead.

[fizzix]

I quite like rings of escaping, especially when I can't find any potions of speed. They do seem to currently punish warriors more than anyone else by preventing melee, but allowing spells and archery. A 50% fail of any magic device, melee or archery sounds about right to me.

Could make them more interesting by making them +1d5 speed instead.

i'd rather have them +6 speed, with the 50% fail as mentioned above, and +12 speed with 75% fail (for two rings). You could still do a painfully slow hack-and-back if you wanted, but I don't see that as an abuse. Still, I think this greatly reduces their ability so that I'll wind up using them as often as I use a =teleport, as in, maybe once every 10 games. Now, I'd say I use them about once every 2 games.

[Zikke]

=teleport are already the ring for escaping dire situations and nothing else...Like I said, I'd sure like worse penalties, but I think the 50% fail on everything is too much. 50% fail on rod/staff/wand/artifact activation, sure. 50% fail on scrolls,potions not so much.

You're right. The potions and scrolls should remain 100% success as always.

[TJS]

i'd rather have them +6 speed, with the 50% fail as mentioned above, and +12 speed with 75% fail (for two rings). You could still do a painfully slow hack-and-back if you wanted, but I don't see that as an abuse. Still, I think this greatly reduces their ability so that I'll wind up using them as often as I use a =teleport, as in, maybe once every 10 games. Now, I'd say I use them about once every 2 games.

I quite like the fact that you can use two with no further penalty. I also think that potions of heroism and equipment with rFear should mean that the rings don't cause fear. Let's face it 90% of early rings and amulets are completely useless and just become a chore to identify with no real pay off (especially since loads of them are cursed).
All the useful jewellery seems to be skewed to the last 10 dungeon levels for some reason.

Just make them rarer if people think they are overpowered.

[Estie]

Probably everyone plays different. I treasure !speed to the point of not using them. In the first 40 I would rather ?dd or ?tl. Soon _speed are found. Only if I'm out of the staff and pretty deep do I even carry the potions. I save potions for when I want to melee charge drainers.

Losing 1 turn to equip =escaping is not a big deal. If one more turn is going to put you in danger you should have been fleeing already. =escaping is perfect for the early "tasty kills" such as normal speed orc uniques. He is barreling down the hallway while you pelt him with arrows. When he is one turn away, equip. Get some distance. Remove. Repeat. Save that !speed.

Are you really recalling down with a RoE in your inventory ? I can see using them the way you described, but the old ?phase does the job as well. And I have a stack of those anyway.
Now if I happen to carry one for the purpose of selling it, I might consider using it - same as a wand of sleep monster. But yes I guess everyone plays differently, and managing habits is a large part of winning.

[Derakon]

I quite like the fact that you can use two with no further penalty. I also think that potions of heroism and equipment with rFear should mean that the rings don't cause fear. Let's face it 90% of early rings and amulets are completely useless and just become a chore to identify with no real pay off (especially since loads of them are cursed).
All the useful jewellery seems to be skewed to the last 10 dungeon levels for some reason.

Just make them rarer if people think they are overpowered.

If you did this, then there would be no reason to use any rings other than Rings of Escaping. Everyone would be running around with a stack of !Heroism in their inventory and two effectively-Rings-of-Speed (+4) on their fingers -- and they'd be doing this even in the mid-late game. Speed is seriously powerful, and if you're going to hand it to players early on then it needs to come with massive drawbacks to prevent it from being unbalancing.

The only jewelery that's skewed towards the late game is the actual Rings of Speed and the Rings of Power. There's tons of rings earlier on that are very useful:
* Constitution
* Damage
* Intelligence (if playing a mage-type)
* Acid, or the other branding rings
* Strength/Dexterity (for extra blows and/or stat sustains)
* Free Action / Resist Poison (situational, but can be important)

Heck, sometimes I even find myself with a Ring of Resist Fire on a finger, because I simply haven't found another source yet.

What there aren't are rings that are very useful before you get to 1000' or so. IMO that's just fine. Nothing is very useful before 1000' or so, nor should it be. Your character is still getting started; finding powerful gear at this stage lets you skip most of the early difficulty of the game.

[fizzix]

If you did this, then there would be no reason to use any rings other than Rings of Escaping. Everyone would be running around with a stack of !Heroism in their inventory and two effectively-Rings-of-Speed (+4) on their fingers -- and they'd be doing this even in the mid-late game. Speed is seriously powerful, and if you're going to hand it to players early on then it needs to come with massive drawbacks to prevent it from being unbalancing.

The only jewelery that's skewed towards the late game is the actual Rings of Speed and the Rings of Power. There's tons of rings earlier on that are very useful:
* Constitution
* Damage
* Intelligence (if playing a mage-type)
* Acid, or the other branding rings
* Strength/Dexterity (for extra blows and/or stat sustains)
* Free Action / Resist Poison (situational, but can be important)

Heck, sometimes I even find myself with a Ring of Resist Fire on a finger, because I simply haven't found another source yet.

What there aren't are rings that are very useful before you get to 1000' or so. IMO that's just fine. Nothing is very useful before 1000' or so, nor should it be. Your character is still getting started; finding powerful gear at this stage lets you skip most of the early difficulty of the game.

you forgot =SI.

I would say that I wear =FA and =rpois for at least some of the game in at least 50% of games and =SI in about 10-15% of the games. I wouldn't mind stat gain rings of no higher than +1-2 that show up earlier. I also think rings of bodykeeping/soulkeeping could appear much earlier than they do. =accuracy, =damage and =slaying can also show up much earlier, but with very small gains. Leaving =escaping as is and moving it to dlevel 50 depth seems reasonable also. You can even rename it as =quickness or something. If you want you can add the severe penalties to =teleport, give it a higher pval and call that a ring of escaping.

[PowerDiver]

How about allowing melee and shooting but with 50% possibility for both to complete not able to attack (with turn loss if you try) and -25 to_hit penalty with removal of all to_hit bonuses you already have? Also big penalty to activate anything. That's for ordinary fear.

Terror (which is what those rings do) should make impossible melee and shoot and to use spells, staves, rods and wands. Scrolls and potions should remain error-free. So basically you could only run and escape.

Let's please not talk about ordinary fear. If after using altered rings of escaping for a year, people want to revisit ordinary fear, then go ahead but for now let's focus on aspects related to +speed.

In real life, I know people who fight *only* when terrified. Also, rules involving intent invariably turn out to be bad IMO. One of the reasons for this proposal is that I hate trying to make value judgments about what is offense vs defense. IMO if you quaff !heal in the middle of a fight so you can continue longer, that's offensive e.g. There is an infraction in US football called "intentional grounding" which led to all sorts of arguments until they changed it to be defined by fixed rules independent of intent, but kept the name.

I don't like the idea of someone going through loot after clearing a pit, recharging wands and identifying items, doing it all at double speed because of wearing rings of escaping. It shouldn't be allowed.

We have scrolls of dispel evil and potions of dragon breath. Presumably the list will increase over time. Are you going to disallow those? What about unidentified scrolls and potions?

How about a scroll of light. Can you read that? What if a snaga steps near? What if the snaga is invisible and you don't know about it? What if you detected an invisible susceptible to light 10 turns earlier? Rules involving intent simply suck.

[ChodTheWacko]

I certainly would like a +10 (or +5) speed ring that allowed only movement (and taking off/wearing stuff so you can take it off and/or put on another one)
I very much like the idea of being able wear it and run away from monsters faster than you.

- Frank

[fizzix]

I don't like the idea of someone going through loot after clearing a pit, recharging wands and identifying items, doing it all at double speed because of wearing rings of escaping. It shouldn't be allowed.

Why is this so objectionable. Because of turncounts? Because less monsters spawn on the level? This seems like such a minor concern.

We have scrolls of dispel evil and potions of dragon breath. Presumably the list will increase over time. Are you going to disallow those? What about unidentified scrolls and potions?

There are so few scrolls that attack monsters and only one potion. Not only that, but both are rare and don't come in stacks so that they are useless. This seems like such a small concern as well. Not only that, I think that using to =escaping and breaking an orc pit and reading 4 ?dispel evil should be a valid strategy.

The big concern is archery and spellcasting. Fix that and see if people bother devoting a slot to =escaping just so they can sort through loot faster. Yeah, comp characters that care about turncount might, but should we really be making gameplay changes based on how we compare performances in competitions? I don't think so.

[PowerDiver]

One more thing. I think it is absurd that if you are stuck in a cul-de-sac while terrified that you just have to stand there and let whatever slowly kill you. It is too difficult to define what constitutes cornered -- if there are 2 spaces, should you be forced to move back and forth between them? What if the "escape path" is to run up to a death mold? I much prefer a 50% fumble rate to being forced to just stand there taking punishment.

[Atarlost]

If the game remembers the last 2 or 3 tiles the player has been in and treats them as obstructed for the purpose of determining if the player is cornered that should work in most situations.