Making the game harder, take four: curses

[camlost]

if we have remove curse, then it should only work on pval-flipping, cannot_drop, or nullify. it would be good to have a more interesting way to break curses though, so if anyone has any ideas...

It seems like a feat of strength should allow a player to uncurse an item. The best I can come up with is to kill a unique. They're usually reasonably hard, easy to identify (both for the code and for the player), and represent (in theory) a major victory without adding in "quests".

[Philip]

It seems like a feat of strength should allow a player to uncurse an item. The best I can come up with is to kill a unique. They're usually reasonably hard, easy to identify (both for the code and for the player), and represent (in theory) a major victory without adding in "quests".

You hit Brodda, the easterling.
Brodda, the easterling dies.

Would probably have to be killing a unique, where monster level has to be playerlevel times x.
x would depend on playerlevel, grade of item, and dlevel of item. The last two, and maybe Gothmog, Ancalagon, Vecna and other nasties like the final two could always work, regardless of any other thing.
Uncursing the Glaive of Pain by killing a unique makes sense, like it does for all sentient weapons.

[fizzix]

Uncursing the Glaive of Pain by killing a unique makes sense, like it does for all sentient weapons.

Would you have to kill the unique with the glaive? That might be very difficulty if the glaive was badly cursed, but perhaps a worthy challenge. Can you just swap in the the glaive for the deathblow? What happens if you kill the unique with a different weapon? Do you then lose your chance to uncurse the weapon?

Going back a ways. There seems to be a lot of dislike towards sticky-curses that have negative effects. But, I think it's more the uncursing mechanic of them that's problematic. I think an uncursing mechanism of reaching 5 levels deeper would work. Or maybe have some monsters you want to kill. Maybe it's too far for V, but I do like temporary quest monsters. For as long as you are wielding this sticky-cursed weapon you will have at least 5 vampires on every level you go to (below depth N). You must kill all 5 vampires. The trick is then to make the weapon good so you get a reward (perhaps a large XP boost is sufficient). Maybe these mechanics are bad, but I do think there is a place for sticky curses on bad items.

[camlost]

You hit Brodda, the easterling.
Brodda, the easterling dies.

Would probably have to be killing a unique, where monster level has to be playerlevel times x.
x would depend on playerlevel, grade of item, and dlevel of item. The last two, and maybe Gothmog, Ancalagon, Vecna and other nasties like the final two could always work, regardless of any other thing.
Uncursing the Glaive of Pain by killing a unique makes sense, like it does for all sentient weapons.

We could bandpass or low-pass uniques both from summons and from random creation based on dungeon level. There's no compelling reason for uniques to show up when they're no longer relevant anyway. If we want some sort of cutoff, what about simply using the artifact (or generation) depth and the unique depth and nothing else (or maybe a fixed difference).

Or course, all this only applies if using uniques as scrolls of remove curse is reasonable.


Re:fizzix, I had assumed that killing a unique would uncurse the entire player inventory. Or we could work out different ways of uncursing armor, etc.


Edited for tone.

[Philip]

Would you have to kill the unique with the glaive? That might be very difficulty if the glaive was badly cursed, but perhaps a worthy challenge. Can you just swap in the the glaive for the deathblow? What happens if you kill the unique with a different weapon? Do you then lose your chance to uncurse the weapon?
Stuff largely irrelevant to my post

I had sort of assumed that the weapon is really good, just has nasty drawbacks, like cut self, summon x monster, turn you into a ferret(all stolen from FAangband). Killing the unique would solve the worse problems, although being turned into a ferret may mean you will require a psychologist to talk to.

[buzzkill]

Maybe the anchorage effect should persist for a couple of turns after taking it off. Maybe not.

I feel that this should hold true (or at least be considered) for all cursed a items, form the dagger (-1,-1) all the way to the top. I'd go so far as to say that this want (of the curse to persist) is the origin of the sticky curse.

Obviously, if you wield a cursed weapon, and you realize immediately that it's cursed, then you're going to set it down if you can. Thus, in a fit of un-inspired non-creativity, the sticky curse was hastily adopted for use in Angband. No doubt it's a holdover from old school D&D, adopted by the creators of rogue-likes long ago. If worked for D&D because of the wide ranging (unlimited) discretion of the DM. It only works for Angband because no one ever came up with a better solution.

A better solution, as Takkaria (as well as a few others) mentioned, is to have the cursed effects stick rather than the item itself (or small % chance of both). Thus, the curse isn't negated by simply dropping the item, and yet the character has the opportunity to continue his quest, though somewhat inhibited by the lingering curse(s).

I'd recommend a XP burden (or some other feat that must be accomplished) rather than just a time limit, else you'll just introducing another type of scumming to the mix (rest until curse is lifted).

... and that's post number 1776, a fine year in American histroy.

[Hariolor]

It seems like a feat of strength should allow a player to uncurse an item. The best I can come up with is to kill a unique. They're usually reasonably hard, easy to identify (both for the code and for the player), and represent (in theory) a major victory without adding in "quests".

From a player's perspective, I'd prefer somethink more akin to item XP. As you use an item, the curse dissipates, then eventually reverses (or it flips entirely as a one-time event when a threshold is reached, as you will).

For weapons, XP is gained by attacking with it. For armor, gained by being hit while wearing it.

Accessories (rings, etc) are harder to make scum-proof (activations/time worn are infinitely scummable). Maybe jewelry, then, is a better (and more thematically appropriate) candidate for permanent/unreversible curses, as opposed to weapons and armor which could have more dynamic characteristics?

[Derakon]

If we want to go with "kill to remove curse" then I'd just say that XP gained while wearing the cursed item counts towards removing the curse. Is this gameable? Sure. Is it going to be worthwhile to constantly switch right before delivering the killing blow? Probably not. If you really want to discourage that kind of behavior, IMO it'd be better to move to a system where XP is rewarded for fighting enemies in addition to just killing them -- say, half the total XP is rewarded on monster death, and the other half is rewarded for dealing damage to the monster.

[Hariolor]

... If you really want to discourage that kind of behavior, IMO it'd be better to move to a system where XP is rewarded for fighting enemies in addition to just killing them -- say, half the total XP is rewarded on monster death, and the other half is rewarded for dealing damage to the monster.

I think this is what I'm getting at above. Is it feasible to code so that every blow attempted (for weapons) and attack received (for armor) add to a counter on the item. Basically XP for the items themselves, unhinged from player xp?

[kaypy]

half the total XP is rewarded on monster death, and the other half is rewarded for dealing damage to the monster.

You'd want to be careful with that- monster regeneration could have wacky effects on the damage reward... Less critical if this is just curseXP and not realXP, but even so...

[Zyphyr]

You'd want to be careful with that- monster regeneration could have wacky effects on the damage reward... Less critical if this is just curseXP and not realXP, but even so...

If you do it for realXP, it takes one extra field in the info for each specific monster (as opposed to info about the general monster type) to cover the situation :XPAwarded. Whenever you award some XP for damage, increase that amount. When the total reaches whatever the maximum allowed is, you stop giving more. When the creature dies, award max(FullXP-XPAwarded,0).

[Estie]

The mechanics of curses is closely related to that of identifying the object´s properties. There has been talk about changing the current system by spell to one of by use (early game)/instant knowledge (late game). Is this still being considered ? For if so, it seems to me that this should be implemented first and discussion about how to make curses work should come after, with a reliable basis to work on.

[Magnate]

The mechanics of curses is closely related to that of identifying the object´s properties. There has been talk about changing the current system by spell to one of by use (early game)/instant knowledge (late game). Is this still being considered ? For if so, it seems to me that this should be implemented first and discussion about how to make curses work should come after, with a reliable basis to work on.

That's interesting, because Nick said the opposite.

[Nick]

Here are a few of the properties of the FA curse system that seem relevant:

• Some ego types are generated with random curses; some have fixed (and known (and often unremovable)) curses
• The curse removal spells are not 100% reliable, and multiple attempts to uncurse may destroy the item (yes, even artifacts)
• Curses are not detected by normal ID, but are mostly apparent very quickly after wielding
• Some curses can be negated by positive abilities (eg random paralysis doesn't matter if you have Free Action)
• Negative pvals aren't regarded as a curse
• There is still a sticky curse, but it's one of many, and never unremovable

[Nick]

That's interesting, because Nick said the opposite.

Well, so I did - and I think that I still think that. Classically, the big reason for IDing things was to avoid wielding cursed stuff. If "cursed" now means something different, that kind of forces a redesign of ID.

It probably also reflects the fact that I don't really know how I feel about ID, whereas I'm pretty happy with the FA curses implementation.