V 3.5 now in feature freeze

[Timo Pietilä]

Sure. As far as I can see you cannot phase door into a vault and if you are inside it will always put you outside of it. This means that the standard rules of what phase door do are broken when it comes to vaults.

That's not rule change, it is just rule. You can't teleport into vault. Not even when you are already in the vault. That's what actually makes vault a vault: no easy access. Vaults are also the only place in the dungeon where you can encounter permanent walls (besides town and dungeon borders).

For consistence reasons that teleport rule should work for monsters too, tele-to or phase door for them should result you or it outside of vault, and teleport away should also always move monster outside of the vault.

[Timo Pietilä]

They were an interesting concept -- figuring out a way to give players early access to permanent speed that isn't gamebreaking -- but I think they need to be reworked and not overlap so heavily with the existing fear effect.

Rings of escaping: Makes you faster, immune to physical damages, but also unable to do any damage yourself? Should impair spellcasting, maybe zeroing your mana? Also no missile weapons (zero the range, you can use missile weapon, but range is zero so you can only target your own spot). Like having impenetrable cocoon around you. Elemental damages still get thru.

Not sure what to do with activations, wands, rods and staves.

IMO you could just get rid of those rings and terror effect. In my opinion both are irrelevant for the game. Not needed, so unnecessary add-ons that just make game more messy.

[TJS]

That's not rule change, it is just rule. You can't teleport into vault. Not even when you are already in the vault. That's what actually makes vault a vault: no easy access. Vaults are also the only place in the dungeon where you can encounter permanent walls (besides town and dungeon borders).

For consistence reasons that teleport rule should work for monsters too, tele-to or phase door for them should result you or it outside of vault, and teleport away should also always move monster outside of the vault.

I wouldn't call phasing into a vault "easy access". Would be very dangerous indeed. I don't see any gameplay reason why you wouldn't allow it, it just means that if you don't have a digger/heavy weapon or stone to mud they are impossible to get to even by the very risky method of teleporting in. In other words an interesting risk/reward opportunity is removed and one of the standard gameplay device of teleportation is fudged to make it happen.

As far as consistency goes, either permanent walls can be teleported through or they can't. The idea that they only work one way doesn't make sense.

[PowerWyrm]

I wouldn't call phasing into a vault "easy access". Would be very dangerous indeed. I don't see any gameplay reason why you wouldn't allow it, it just means that if you don't have a digger/heavy weapon or stone to mud they are impossible to get to even by the very risky method of teleporting in. In other words an interesting risk/reward opportunity is removed and one of the standard gameplay device of teleportation is fudged to make it happen.

As far as consistency goes, either permanent walls can be teleported through or they can't. The idea that they only work one way doesn't make sense.

This would make any form of teleportation a russian roulette and nobody would use it anymore. You don't really want to teleport inside a vault like Castle Death with dozens of monsters in LOS which get a turn before you can react. Pits already allow this, which is a nightmare... I remember getting a char killed with over -3000 hps because an unlucky teleport landed him inside an undead pit where there was one empty spot.

[TJS]

This would make any form of teleportation a russian roulette and nobody would use it anymore. You don't really want to teleport inside a vault like Castle Death with dozens of monsters in LOS which get a turn before you can react. Pits already allow this, which is a nightmare... I remember getting a char killed with over -3000 hps because an unlucky teleport landed him inside an undead pit where there was one empty spot.

-3000 ha ha. At least you can't say that you nearly survived.

Teleportation is risky anyway in case you end up in a pack of gravity hounds, I have no problem with the small risk of landing in a vault. It's all part of the danger of death that Angband is all about. Remove all those marginal risks and you've not got a lot of game left.

The way you're talking you sound like you might want to prevent landing in an undead pit as well. Where's Buzzkill when you need him?

[Timo Pietilä]

As far as consistency goes, either permanent walls can be teleported through or they can't. The idea that they only work one way doesn't make sense.

It's a vault. Vaults are supposed to be hard to get into, but not necessarily hard to get out (not a prison). Of course a change where you deny <u>all</u> teleportation inside a vault could be acceptable to me also. No easy cleaning vaults. I have also suggested that earthquake and destruction are prevented from touching vault area. IE. Vault is "protected" from tampering.

[TJS]

It's a vault. Vaults are supposed to be hard to get into, but not necessarily hard to get out (not a prison). Of course a change where you deny <u>all</u> teleportation inside a vault could be acceptable to me also. No easy cleaning vaults. I have also suggested that earthquake and destruction are prevented from touching vault area. IE. Vault is "protected" from tampering.

Only being able to teleport into a vault is hard to get into safely.

It's definitely harder than just using stone to mud to get in, which is trivial once you have a wand/the spell.

Unless by hard to get into you really mean "impossible for the first 20 levels or so and then incredibly easy afterwards".

Edit: Now a vault with permanent rock all the way around that you can only get into by teleporting. That would be hard to get in.

[Timo Pietilä]

Only being able to teleport into a vault is hard to get into safely.

It's definitely harder than just using stone to mud to get in, which is trivial once you have a wand/the spell.

Unless by hard to get into you really mean "impossible for the first 20 levels or so and then incredibly easy afterwards".

Teleportation would be easier: you can do that half-way thru the dungeon and out of LoS. Couple of tries would be enough for big vaults (except for vaults with no clear spaces).

Roleplaying a little: you are equipped with a tool that these vaults are not protected against. It's surprise to their designer. After all no monster uses that spell (there are monsters that tunnel, but that's the hard way to get into vault).

I play mostly priests, they don't have the spell and I rarely carry wand either. Half of the classes don't have access to that spell.

[TJS]

Teleportation would be easier: you can do that half-way thru the dungeon and out of LoS. Couple of tries would be enough for big vaults (except for vaults with no clear spaces).

It's harder to do safely though isn't it as you could land anywhere. If you had a choice of stone to mud or phase door to get into a vault which would you choose?

Roleplaying a little: you are equipped with a tool that these vaults are not protected against. It's surprise to their designer. After all no monster uses that spell (there are monsters that tunnel, but that's the hard way to get into vault).

I'm surprised the vault designers haven't seen the wands of stone to mud lying about the dungeon (sometimes inside the very vaults they are sealing up). If I was designing a vault I'd be more prepared for someone tunneling in than teleporting in.

I play mostly priests, they don't have the spell and I rarely carry wand either. Half of the classes don't have access to that spell.

Ah yes I forgot priests don't have it, but I always carry a wand of stone to mud or a ring of delving so I can get in to vaults. If I could teleport into them then I'd still carry them as it would be too dangerous without being able to predict where you land.

[Nomad]

Anyone else having trouble with "!" inscriptions? I'm playing the 6acf027 version and I'm finding that while {!*} still works fine, the individual {!r}, {!q}, {!u} inscriptions I put on important consumables to avoid using them by accident don't seem to have any effect any more.

[donalde]

this is very minor bug:

'l'ooking scroll in BM

a Scroll of Acquirement {unseen}
Bought from a store.

Can be destroyed by acid, fire.

When read, it creates a good object nearby.

good object? thought it creates at least excellent?

[MattB]

What's with Crebains and Crabans?
Apart from anything else, if you can see them they're Crabans, if you're only aware of them they're Crebains. What's up with that?

[molybdenum]

What's with Crebains and Crabans?
Apart from anything else, if you can see them they're Crabans, if you're only aware of them they're Crebains. What's up with that?

The pluralization code was updated for monsters. Can you attach a screenshot of the dungeon and maybe the monster list?

[PowerWyrm]

this is very minor bug:

'l'ooking scroll in BM

a Scroll of Acquirement {unseen}
Bought from a store.

Can be destroyed by acid, fire.

When read, it creates a good object nearby.

good object? thought it creates at least excellent?

This is correct. It only creates "excellent" if the object has enchantments like armor or weapon. But you can get stuff like deep books, rings of speed and some kinds of amulets too.

[PowerWyrm]

What's with Crebains and Crabans?
Apart from anything else, if you can see them they're Crabans, if you're only aware of them they're Crebains. What's up with that?

Can't reproduce that in the latest version. I always get "Crebain" in the monster list. What you have seen is probably a "single" monster (Craban) compared to a group of them (Crebain).