boots of wormtongue and curse

[Sky]

i just found the boots of wormtongue, a pretty decent +3 speed (would bring me to +7), the stats are (-1, -1) [2, +0] <+2, +3> {cursed}

now, as i understand it, objects can be uncursed in 4.0 by enchanting them to a positive stat value; for example, if you use mormegil (IIRC) which is (-20, +20), you need to enchant it until it's (+1, +20) which then uncurses it.
If you have a piece of armor, say, [5, -10] and you enchant it to [5, +1] then it uncurses it.

But how do you do this with something which does not have any negative stat? You can't raise the (-1, -1) anyway, so, is it just that you need a single Enchant Armor scroll to bring them to [2, +1] ?

[Derakon]

I'm pretty sure that the curse-breaking effect of enchantment scrolls occurs regardless of the pluses on the item. Since Wormtongue is boots (i.e. armor), scrolls of Enchant Armor can break the curse on them.

[Pete Mack]

You can break the curse with scrolls of armor enchantment. For artifacts, it is roughly 1/4 successful.

[Sky]

so, if you enchant mormegil ONCE, you could in theory use it, as a (-19, +20) ?

[Derakon]

so, if you enchant mormegil ONCE, you could in theory use it, as a (-19, +20) ?

By my understanding this is correct.

EDIT: indeed, even if you did not successfully enchant it, you could still break the curse.

[Pete Mack]

It used to require positive AC and a successful enchantment, but scrolls of enchantment were readily available at the alchemist.

[Sky]

hmmm...

ok, so.

i got hit by a stat swap that left me with 17 STR, overweight, slowed, so i needed a way out and the boots give +3 spd, so i put them on.

i now cast 3 Enchant Armor and 1 *Enchant Armor* and the boots are [2,+6] but still cursed ...

[Derakon]

Keep trying. It'll work eventually. The only effect of the curse is that you can't take them off, so it's no big deal right now because you don't want to take them off, right?

[Sky]

i died.

i suicided, really.

got drained down to 7 STR, my base speed was -9 while carrying just the very basics, and 80k to go to level up. wound up using a stupid number of CCW and Speed just to kill a few mob, but i would likely never have made it to next level.

I managed to get the boots up to [2, +9] but they were still cursed. I did try a test character with wizard mode and yes, they can get uncursed, it's just a matter of luck.

[Grotug]

Seems pretty unlucky. I usually uncurse regularly cursed artifiacts with one or two (sometimes 3) regular armor enchantment scrolls.

[quarague]

Another question on removing curses. One can also use remove curse from a spell or staff. This does have a chance to destroy the item if the removing fails (which IIRC is not specified in the spell description). As enchant scrolls do not have this risk, this would make them strictly superior to remove curse (at least for those who are aware of it). Enchant scrolls are usually readily available, making remove curse fairly useless. Am I missing something here?
My remove curse experience came from version angband-4.0.3-384-gb14d9ec, the first with rune id.

[Sky]

Not sure what you mean; can staves or spells be cursed?

[quarague]

What I meant was the following. You have a cursed item, boots of wormtongue or something else that you wish to uncurse.
If you try to uncurse with the 'remove curse' spell, whether self cast or from a staff, there is a chance that the cursed item will be destroyed. I experienced that in the version mentioned above. If however you try to uncurse with enchant scrolls, you have no risk of loosing the item according to what was said in this thread.
This seems bad to me because it means 'remove curse' is strictly inferior for removing curses than 'enchant'.
Additionally the remove curse description does not mention the risk of destruction and the enchant description does not mention the chance to uncurse.

[Grotug]

I am wearing boots of wormtongue currently and am ready to upgrade to the boots of speed in my home <+7>. I have read about 8 enchant armor scrolls and have buffed the armor class of the boots several times but the boots remain cursed. I thought I recall that reading the scroll usually works after a couple tries. Hmm, not sure what to do. Wait for an *enchant armor* scroll I guess.

[Sky]

i tried this on Gorlim, and it worked the second time. essentially the break curse and enchant feature are distinct, the stats of the item do not affect the break curse chance. just try again ...