Nightlies embark on long journey towards 3.3

[Magnate]

Okay, what's the problem with disenchanters that we're trying to solve? The only one I can think of is that they're unfairly penalizing players who haven't memorized who all the disenchanters are. This gets back to the whole monster memory thing. So here's my proposal: when the player is hit by a disenchantment attack, they get a message "A cloud of static builds up around you!" and nothing else happens. This sets a timer to 100 normal-speed turns or so. If the player is hit by another disenchantment attack before the timer expires, then the disenchantment goes through (and the timer goes back to 100 turns).

In other words, this gives the player a one-attack warning that the monster can disenchant. The big problem I see with it is that it effectively nerfs the rare breathers, since they're unlikely to breathe more than once before dying.

Leaving aside the metagaming issue, the problem is that people's gaming experience is spoiled by having their lovely hard-won artifact (or gloves of power, or whatever) disenchanted. Enabling them to repair that with a (very rare) scroll was the idea behind introducing the item.

I'm still not really sure what I think about this. The above solution seems unnecessarily complicated (I think it's the first time I've ever read an idea of Derakon's and not immediately thought "yes!") ... I think I like Eddie's idea of artifacts ignoring disen, leaving it as permanent damage for ego items. If we go that route I vote it should affect ego jewelry as well - and pvals ...

[bulian]

I thought the idea was to make 3.3 harder. If you really want these scrolls, remove rDisenchant from the player and make it item specific, so e.g. the AC on gil-galad can't be reduced. I personally thought the acid damage to artifacts bug from that one pre 3.2 nightly made the game more interesting.

[Derakon]

Magnate: aww, I'm not flawless in your eyes any more?

Triiva note: artifacts didn't used to have implicit immunity to degradation from acid attacks. That was only granted to items that provided acid resistance. Thus the acid resistance on many armors that don't otherwise give basic 4 resists. Oddly enough, despite this acid resistance is the second-rarest of the basic 4 in artifact.txt (32/38/43/48 electricity/acid/cold/fire).

[d_m]

Unrelatedly, nightlies should now provide more information on the birth screen.

At this point all the "useful" information about a race/class should be displayed. Feel free to chime in if you think important information is missing, with the caveat that there isn't very much space, and that detailed explanations should probably go in help files (internal or external).

[camlost]

Alternately, we could move disenchantment to another effect, like mana drain, charge drain, removal of temporary buffs from the player, or addition or random negative buffs. This retains its "anti-magic" status, but moves it to temporary statuses rather than a permanent effect (unless you die).

I think that this is a more elegant solution than scrolls of repair item.

[Antoine]

I never thought disenchantment was broken in the first place. If you end up with Cambeleg (+5,+3), it's your own fault anyway.

+1

A.

(padding)

[Magnate]

Magnate: aww, I'm not flawless in your eyes any more?

Put it this way, I'm no longer quite so worried about discovering long-lost relatives through Angband!

[takkaria]

I never thought disenchantment was broken in the first place. If you end up with Cambeleg (+5,+3), it's your own fault anyway.
Having Restore Item available in the stores to clean up acid damage makes a degree of sense, although I would have done this simply by removing enchant weapon (to_dam) from the stores.

The reason restore item is there was because I took away enchantment scrolls from the town. Given the goal of making the game harder, I'm not sure having it in the town is particularly helpful... I think it would be sensible if it was only available, rarely, in the dungeon.

[takkaria]

Alternately, we could move disenchantment to another effect, like mana drain, charge drain, removal of temporary buffs from the player, or addition or random negative buffs. This retains its "anti-magic" status, but moves it to temporary statuses rather than a permanent effect (unless you die).

I think that this is a more elegant solution than scrolls of repair item.

I like this idea, though there is still a place for just removing bonuses from items. 3.3 will be revisiting status effects so something like this would fit in quite nicely...

[celem]

I rather like disenchantment. I fall into that catagory of player who has no monster memory (on character or in my own head) and the first warning that ive met a new disenchanter is usually the bombing of my bow of power or melee artifact.

Yes it sucks, but its fun. I tend to patch acid damage to ego's up with enchant scrolls from the dungeon. Artifacts that fall but stay above +10....well, I learned a lesson didnt I?

P.S. Lesson was Death Molds suck.

Since mention was made of revisiting status effects anyway. I guess disenchant could be worked into this somehow. Maybe artifacts get disenchanted as a status (i.e. they recover it) while lesser objects take permenant hits.

[Max Stats]

Actually -5000 was the highest possible (not anymore). That you got by drinking potion of death. I don't think I have done that, but I bet there has been someone who has.

*Raises hand.*

[Nick]

Alternately, we could move disenchantment to another effect, like mana drain, charge drain, removal of temporary buffs from the player, or addition or random negative buffs. This retains its "anti-magic" status, but moves it to temporary statuses rather than a permanent effect (unless you die).

I say have it do these things AND wreck items.

[Derakon]

Mm, I'd say that it should simply be able to damage all equipment and destroy any consumable (/ de-power any equipment in inventory). Seems plenty nasty enough to me.

After that, if you still want to make disenchantment nastier, add antimagic hounds...

[Nick]

After that, if you still want to make disenchantment nastier, add antimagic hounds...

From O:

N:624:Hound of Tindalos
G:Z:G
I:130:10d69:30:40:0
W:77:3:0:7000
B:BITE:HURT:1d18
B:BITE:HURT:1d18
B:CLAW:HURT:2d6
F:FORCE_SLEEP | FRIENDS | 
F:INVISIBLE | PASS_WALL | 
F:ANIMAL | NO_SLEEP
S:1_IN_5 | POW_0 | 
S:BRTH_NETHR | BRTH_DISEN | BRTH_TIME
D:"They are lean and athirst!"

[camlost]

I say have it do these things AND wreck items.

Now that's the sort of evil maintainer talk I was hoping for!

Perhaps hit everything, each with a percentage chance (modified for damage, quantity, and slot) including potions, scrolls, books, temporary buffs, and [equipped] items.

"That's 4 rolls on the major blunder table, and 3 rolls on the minor blunder table!"