Rune-based ID

[wobbly]

Could make them raise shop prices or be the 1st item thieves steal (not serious suggestions)

[Derakon]

Amulets of Adornment are totally pointless now. Er, not that they ever weren't, but since they have no runes they're now auto-identified from the start, so there's no chance of the player ever being fooled into picking them up or wearing them.

We could give them the ignore-electricity rune.

[Nomad]

Amulets of Adornment are totally pointless now. Er, not that they ever weren't, but since they have no runes they're now auto-identified from the start, so there's no chance of the player ever being fooled into picking them up or wearing them.

[Nomad]

No problem with the change. But Gnomes lost their minor racial advantage.

Well, they still get a tiny edge, since they get to ID the wands/staves without wasting a charge, and without the risk of any unwanted effects like from use-testing a Staff of Teleportation.

But talking of minor racial advantages, I think rune-based ID also opens up ways to give the races and classes some additional flavour by giving them inherent knowledge of one or two suitable runes: Half-Orcs and Half-Trolls might know Slay Orc and Slay Troll, Priests could recognise Blessed weapons, Paladins would know Slay Undead, etc.

[sandtrap]

Observation: Wand & Staff ID on use / Gnome

No problem with the change. But Gnomes lost their minor racial advantage.

I don't see it as a big problem.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

It seems we have lost the special flavors that used to be reserved for certain artifacts. E.g., Narya which used to always be a "Ruby Ring", now is listed merely as a "Ring". Was this intentional?

[Nick]

My thinking was that there are some runes that are both rare and tricky to identify by use, like resistance to nether/chaos/disenchantment and some status protections. While it's certainly true that you could just wait until you have an item with that rune and then read a ?Identify on it, the "learn a random rune" scroll can also serve to patch holes in your knowledge and thereby mean that you won't be 99% done with the "identification game" but at 3000' and still having to hold onto ?Identify so you'll be able to fill in the last few gaps.

In other words, I'd expect players to get most of the way there via ID-by-use and using the occasional ?Identify, and then get the rest of the way there via the Scroll of Runes. It should, correspondingly, be more rare than ?Identify.

They still look like marginal utility to me. After all, if you are having trouble identifying a rune, maybe it isn't very important. I'm inclined to leave them out for a bit, and see if the need seems to arise.

For the rest, it looks like we've got to the stage of filling up the corners. I'll put up a new build once I've settled all the outstanding issues.

[debo]

There's a very noticeable difference between a +1 digger and a +6 digger. Your average starting shovel isn't good for much beyond rubble and magma veins, while a highly-enchanted digger can let you bore through granite even if you're relatively weak. I don't see a compelling reason to throw away that spectrum. Remember that half the classes can't cast Stone to Mud.

The other half of the classes can bash easily through granite with normal weapons pretty early on. I literally don't remember ever carrying a digger in Vanilla, and I don't think I've ever looked at a digging pval on a weapon as any sort of overriding reason as to why I should keep it. However, I do appreciate the desire to not change too many things at once

I was hoping one of the outcomes of this rune-id thing would be "wow we have so much useless stuff and now it's finally super annoying because I have to ID it all. Let's remove some."

[logos]

My thinking was that there are some runes that are both rare and tricky to identify by use, like resistance to nether/chaos/disenchantment and some status protections. While it's certainly true that you could just wait until you have an item with that rune and then read a ?Identify on it, the "learn a random rune" scroll can also serve to patch holes in your knowledge and thereby mean that you won't be 99% done with the "identification game" but at 3000' and still having to hold onto ?Identify so you'll be able to fill in the last few gaps.

In other words, I'd expect players to get most of the way there via ID-by-use and using the occasional ?Identify, and then get the rest of the way there via the Scroll of Runes. It should, correspondingly, be more rare than ?Identify.

Perhaps instead of identify rune scrolls, bring back potions of self-knowledge which instead of full knowledge grant knowledge of a single rune of a carried/worn object; and have individual scrolls of dictionary/learning that grant knowledge of a specific rune - say 'Scroll of the rune of Nexus', or 'Rosetta papyrus of Disenchantment' for more flavor.

[Nomad]

There's a typo in the name of the rune "encha[n]tment to hit".

[Derakon]

With stone to mud in the game, does digging even need to be a pval? Can't it just be a flag? "Digs good" or "doesn't dig good"

There's a very noticeable difference between a +1 digger and a +6 digger. Your average starting shovel isn't good for much beyond rubble and magma veins, while a highly-enchanted digger can let you bore through granite even if you're relatively weak. I don't see a compelling reason to throw away that spectrum. Remember that half the classes can't cast Stone to Mud.

[debo]

With stone to mud in the game, does digging even need to be a pval? Can't it just be a flag? "Digs good" or "doesn't dig good"

[Carnivean]

Would it be possible to distinguish shovels, picks and mattocks from rings etc so that the tools have pluses to digging known and rings etc don't? In other words differentiate a tool built for digging from a rune giving pluses to digging.

+1 digging is the base value, so shouldn't be any different from xDy or base AC, which is to say no rune involved. Perhaps this should be described differently? Maybe +0 for normal, with bonuses starting at +1?

[spara]

I understand that the basic diggers give pluses to digging, which is a rune, but it still feels a bit strange to have those items saying @ doesn't know their powers. Seeing a shovel in store and wondering what's it for is weird.

Would it be possible to distinguish shovels, picks and mattocks from rings etc so that the tools have pluses to digging known and rings etc don't? In other words differentiate a tool built for digging from a rune giving pluses to digging.

And yes, those consumables still have {??}.

Edit: I find those {??} for potions, rods, scrolls, staves and wands to be pointless and a bit annoying. They are not runic magic any way. Or are they?

[Derakon]

I'm actually not sure we want this.

Currently we have learning by use, and learning by scroll for unknown runes on objects the player has. This new scroll would allow the player to learn runes on objects they don't have - does this have any practical advantage over the first scroll? You only need to know a rune if you have an object with it.

My thinking was that there are some runes that are both rare and tricky to identify by use, like resistance to nether/chaos/disenchantment and some status protections. While it's certainly true that you could just wait until you have an item with that rune and then read a ?Identify on it, the "learn a random rune" scroll can also serve to patch holes in your knowledge and thereby mean that you won't be 99% done with the "identification game" but at 3000' and still having to hold onto ?Identify so you'll be able to fill in the last few gaps.

In other words, I'd expect players to get most of the way there via ID-by-use and using the occasional ?Identify, and then get the rest of the way there via the Scroll of Runes. It should, correspondingly, be more rare than ?Identify.