[Slashem-devel] Balance issues

[J. A. H. <al...@av...>]

Hi guys,

As many of you will be aware, Robert Schneck and I have been discussing some
balance issues in rgrn. In particular, Robert wrote:

> I collect magical armor and
> tools (unicorn horns are the most common), then polypile the armor
> until I have my ascension kit (using the few found potions of restore
> ability on these, usually), then polypile the tools until they disappear
> or become magic markers, which I use right away.  (I'll keep some
> other tools if I hadn't found them anyway, too.)
>
> Maybe non-magical items obtained from magical originals should (have a
> chance to) stay polymorphed and not revert.  You could occasionally
> obtain desired items without spending a potion of restore
> ability, but getting magic markers and ascension armor would be harder
> this way.

At the time I was concerned that this suggested fix would be ill-advised due to
the fact that gnomes could subvert it using the tinker technique. On further
reflection, however, I believe that it's actually upgrade_object() (used by
both the tinker technique and dipping into potions of gain level) that is too
powerful.

This was conceived as a "poor man's polymorph". Since the new algorithm that
the NetHack dev-team introduced to limit polymorph abuse (ie., reducing the
likelyhood of morphing a non-magical item into a magical item), it has in
practice become the rich man's polymorph.

I propose, therefore, that we implement Robert's suggestion and also tune down
upgrade_object() so that non-magical objects never become magical by this means.

I've been through the conversions and listed the problem ones with suggested
replacements:

Object                  Currently upgrades to        Proposed replacement
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robe                    Robe of protection/          Leather armour
                        robe of power
Dwarvish cloak          Elven/Oilskin cloak          Oilskin cloak
Orcish cloak            Elven/Oilskin cloak          Dwarvish clock
Oilskin cloak           Cloak of protection/         Orcish/Dwarvish cloak
                        invisibility/magic resis./
                        displacement
Dwarvish iron helm      Helm of brilliance/          Dented pot/helmet/
                        helm of telepathy            orcish helm
Leather gloves          Gauntlets of swimming/       Stays as leather gloves
                        Gauntlets of dexterity
Sack                    Oilskin sack/bag of holding  Oilskin sack
Tin whistle             Magic whistle                Wooden flute
Wooden flute            Magic flute                  Tooled horn
Tooled horn             Frost horn/fire horn/        Bugle
                        horn of plenty
Wooden harp             Magic harp                   Wooden flute
Flint                   Luckstone/Healthstone        Rock

One other possible enhancement would be to seperate the tinker technique
and the effects of potions of gain level. Potions of gain level are rare
enough that I'd be happy to let them create magical objects out of non-magical
objects if the tinker technique did not.

Any thoughts?

-- 
Ali Harlow                              Email: al...@av...
Research programmer                     Tel:   (020) 7477 8000 X 4348
Applied Vision Research Centre          Intl: +44 20 7477 8000 X 4348
City University                         Fax:   (020) 7505 5515
London                                  Intl: +44 20 7505 5515