curse scrolls

[fizzix]

You used phase door as an example and I think that it illustrates my point well. A failed phase door is bad enough (assuming used as a low level escape). Tacking on 5 turns of blindness could easily lead to death, or at the very least another turn wasted curing the blindness (if potions can carry similar hidden curses, then the problem is compounded).

Yes, this is a sticking point and it is a problem. It also possibly leads to some things that do not make intuitive sense. This part being that the ?phase does work, and so does the ?mass banishment, but it comes at a price. I guess you might argue that the player has the ability to scan the scroll and say, yup that's a phase door, but there's an invisible triggered curse as well.

The way I've imagined this working in the little bit of brainstorming I've done is that you would have an edit file with a list of curse effects. Each effect would have the class of items that it applies to (tval) and a level (or level range). It could also have an allocation probability if that's deemed important. Cursed items would be restricted to curses that are their level or below, or maybe gaussian centered about their level. So something like ?phase would only be able to take the very weakest curses. Perhaps even blindness is too strong of an effect.

Here are some low level options for phase and the like.

Darkens room
Teleports player
Deals 1d5 + 5 damage (explosion)
Light poison
Light cut
Wake up monsters

Here are some mid-level curses:

Drain random stat
Timed blindness or confusion
teleport level
earthquake
Deal 5d5 damage (explosion)
Target random direction
Summon single monster
Trap creation
Polymorph target

Here are some high level curses:

Perm reduce stat
Disenchant/ de-affix item
Summon multiple monsters
Destroy the item (useful for non-scrolls)
Destruction
Heal target monster

[fizzix]

Great minds think alike. I suggested this during your last sojourn and got shot to pieces - but that was before the advent of v4 so it might be possible to try it now. I still think it would work much better than sticky curses. We could also, with a little work, make adding and removing affixes temporary for lighter curses and permanent only for the worst ones.

I don't think this solves the main problem. That there is a workaround for curse scrolls and the workaround is tedious. It's an improvement for sure, but still not ideal.

[Magnate]

I don't think this solves the main problem. That there is a workaround for curse scrolls and the workaround is tedious. It's an improvement for sure, but still not ideal.

You're quite right - I wasn't disagreeing with your ideas, merely agreeing with Gabe's ;-)

[CunningGabe]

I don't think this solves the main problem. That there is a workaround for curse scrolls and the workaround is tedious. It's an improvement for sure, but still not ideal.

I think the main problem isn't this, exactly, but that there is a tedious workaround and that in the current implementation, reading a scroll of curse weapon is really bad. If the scroll of curse weapon is sufficiently non-hosing, then I'd wager most people won't care enough to bother taking off their equipment before reading an un-ID'd scroll.

I guess what it comes down to is that I support ID-by-use, but I also like that you have to be a little careful with it. We've toned down several bad items in order to make ID-by-use acceptable; I don't see the problem with just doing the same with the curse weapon/armor scrolls.

[Derakon]

I agree with Gabe. Curse Weapon in particular can effectively "kill" a character if they find it at the wrong time -- any character young enough to not have a valid alternative to melee effectively cannot kill anything.

Curse scrolls should either render an item sticky or blast it into uselessness; doing both is excessive. Or they should do something else entirely. But at least the either/or leaves the player with an interesting scenario: having to stick with a weapon until you find *Remove Curse* while it becomes increasingly obsolete, or having to find a new weapon to replace your blasted one.

[Nick]

If curses are going to be made more varied, Curse Weapon/Armour can be revamped in line with that.

If not, why not?