priest weapons and nexus scramble

[fizzix]

Making nexus scramble into a random +1/-1 effect would probably be too much of a nerf, but I agree you're on the right track; personally I think even a +5/-5 effect would be reasonable without being debilitating.

I played with it as a +1/-1 for a while and my experience confirmed your hypothesis. +1/-1 is not large enough to be noticeable. +5/-5 might be too much though. My best idea was to do something like +2/-2 but weight it so that higher stats were more likely to be drawn from and lower stats were more likely to be added to. I had trouble getting that to work, mostly because of the dumb 18/xx scaling system.

However, nexus is still an interesting status effect without stat scrambling at all, which is what I've since defaulted to as my preferred play choice.

[scud]

I like the add one/lose one potions - they have a good resale value.

Translation: I don't use them and if people want to use them thereby increasing the chance that a nexus swap will ruin their character, I consider that to be a valid play-style choice.

Absolutely; the effects soon stack up when you're ignoring the unwanted potions. Playing a ranger I've just maxed my four significant stats (the Augmentations seem to be flowing very readily at 2300-2400') but my base WIS and CHA are 13 and 15 respectively. I still don't have nexus resistance and appreciate that a bad scramble would leave me horribly exposed while I try to claw my stats back.

I've recovered from worse positions – I recall a priest who suddenly found himself with WIS 10 – but it takes time. I've also *never* managed to persuade nexus-breathers to re-scramble me.

I'm happy with the current 'unlimited scramble'.

[debo]

I'd prefer it if nexus had something like 90% efficacy when unresisted, and 0% when resisted. That way it would actually be a viable strategy to try rescrambling your stats back.

My first V character ever lost because my str and cha got swapped, and I think I had 3 base strength after it was over. I was a High-Elf Warrior and suddenly couldn't do shit for damage. What was I supposed to do? Go to the shallower floors where stat potions don't exist and grind for 6 eons?

I just suicided that char. I think nexus is bogus, especially for newbies who don't know it's coming -- I'd almost rather have a 1/6 chance of instadeath :P

EDIT: Found him, it was my int and str that got swapped http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=11912

[fizzix]

I'd prefer it if nexus had something like 90% efficacy when unresisted, and 0% when resisted. That way it would actually be a viable strategy to try rescrambling your stats back.

I think the stat scramble options is a 1 out of 10 (or maybe 12?) roll. And you do get a saving throw roll even if you don't resist, so it's far less than 90% effective.

[Derakon]

What if we moved the stat scramble to chaos and made it always happen? Chaos breath is more rare than nexus breath, and usually by the time it's common the player has made good progress towards maxing their stats. And besides, it makes more sense to me to have body-scrambling be an effect from raw chaos rather than from the teleportation-centric concept that nexus appears to be.

[scud]

And besides, it makes more sense to me to have body-scrambling be an effect from raw chaos rather than from the teleportation-centric concept that nexus appears to be.

I've consumed enough cheap sci-fi to know that teleporters are capable of much worse than attribute scrambling.

[Oramin]

What if we moved the stat scramble to chaos and made it always happen? Chaos breath is more rare than nexus breath, and usually by the time it's common the player has made good progress towards maxing their stats. And besides, it makes more sense to me to have body-scrambling be an effect from raw chaos rather than from the teleportation-centric concept that nexus appears to be.

If you don't want the current version of a complete scramble then why not, instead of switching it from nexus to chaos (which already has interesting side effects), make it just 2 stats. Or you could make Sustains a little more useful (I basically ignore them in 3.3.2) by making sustained stats immune to Nexus switching.

[Mondkalb]

If you don't want the current version of a complete scramble then why not, instead of switching it from nexus to chaos (which already has interesting side effects), make it just 2 stats. Or you could make Sustains a little more useful (I basically ignore them in 3.3.2) by making sustained stats immune to Nexus switching.

That's not a bad idea. It would finally make even rings of bodykeeping useful. I don't ever use them as of now.

[debo]

I think the stat scramble options is a 1 out of 10 (or maybe 12?) roll. And you do get a saving throw roll even if you don't resist, so it's far less than 90% effective.

I should have been clearer -- I _want_ it to be way more effective, so that sitting there and doing the risk/reward thing of being breathed + scrambled multiple times vs getting your stats back in reasonable order can be attempted. Right now I can sit there and let a nexus vortex hit me +inf times and it'll take forever to get just a few scrambles.

[Mondkalb]

Let us have a nexus potion!. (or mushroom)

[Timo Pietilä]

By the way, has anyone ever succeeded in finding a second nexus breather and getting themselves 'unscrambled'?

A.

I have, but I took it as challenge and it took me quite a long time: teleport-effect is more likely than scramble and finding that group of nexus hounds again takes time. Also I'm not sure I got literally "unscrambled", just fixed the bad stat I got. Swapping same two of the six stats so that original order remains would require quite a bit luck.

I have sometimes when I was still playing really slowly (before point-based, just random roll) deliberately allowed nexus scramble because I had 18/100 CHR while all other stats were relatively low. Even that it too took quite a bit time, getting CON/STR/DEX/Spellstat immediately maxed was worth the time.

[PowerWyrm]

In my multiplayer variant, wands/rods of polymorph used on a player have the same effect as a nexus breath. In this case, it's easy to undo a scramble by asking another player to do it. Porting that to V would fix the problem... but you can't target yourself with stuff in V right?