Current master post-4.1.3

[Nick]

Originally Posted by gglibertine

I just encountered a similar issue -- there was a red star that turned out to be not an object, but a mold. Could the issue be that molds are being identified as objects because slime molds are objects?

OK, thanks, that might help me track that down.

[Chud]

Originally Posted by khearn

You wouldn't be able to see a lot of detail using sound, since sound has a pretty long wavelength, and the size of the details you can see is proportional to the wavelength, so all humanoids would pretty much look the same.

Not necessarily - you're assuming only the human hearing range. If you have Ears of the Bat, well, some bats can hear as high as 200kHz, which would give a wavelength of 1.7mm if I'm correct. (In 20-degree air.)

[Sphara]

You can SHIFT+DIR fast-travel through webs without tearing them up. Again, I don't know if this is a bug and furthermore, this behavior actually provides smoother gameplay. Especially, since a pack of Mirkwood spiders usually leave quite a webby scenery after they are killed.

[fph]

Just a random comment: many of the recent changes go in the direction of making the game more Tolkien-themed, but the necromancer at the moment feels more like a Dracula knock-off: fears light, turns into a bat, bites monsters to drain their life... What's next, vulnerability to wooden stakes?

I don't have specific suggestions on how to reduce this effect, though.

[PowerWyrm]

Commit b6ebf27 (timed monster disenchantment), typo in look_mon_desc:

if (mon->m_timed[MON_TMD_HOLD]) my_strcat(buf, ", disenchanted", max);

should be:

if (mon->m_timed[MON_TMD_DISEN]) my_strcat(buf, ", disenchanted", max);

[fph]

Another random piece of feedback on necromancers: I realized that I basically never cast Create Darkness. In the very first levels, 3 mana for a spell that just creates darkness is a lot (especially when compared to the priest's Call Light, which costs only 1), while in the later levels the spell penalty matters a lot less and it feels like a waste of a turn.
What if "create darkness" was instead the side effect of another spell that does something useful? For instance, something like "channel the light nearby into a bolt that damages monsters for XdY".

Maybe a different version of Dark Spear, moved earlier, or a ball effect to replace Noxious Fumes (another spell I basically never cast, because who wants to become poisoned to kill a couple of worms or clear mushroom patches?).

[Derakon]

What if the necromancer just had their own darkness aura, like some monsters do? So they're automatically in darkness all the time unless a monster with a strong enough light aura gets close. That does away with a lot of the fiddliness of staying in darkness, but means that you can make the penalty for stepping into light much more extreme, like "taking significant damage every turn" or "automatically blinded".

[wobbly]

Dark aura might be ok. Damage from light is taking them even more into vampire teritory. Stealth bonus or penalty might be ok. At least that takes some sting out of not being able to see as far.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Originally Posted by Derakon

What if the necromancer just had their own darkness aura, like some monsters do?

That sounds to me more like a "race" based innate quality rather than the "learned" skill of a class. Maybe an advanced necro would gain such ability after reaching a certain level, like rangers extra shots or warriors overcoming fear, but I don't think it should be from "birth".

[jevansau]

One other necromancer disadvantage, particularly with randarts is the number of artifacts rendered unsuitable because they have a small bonus to light radius.

Speaking of randarts, one thing that really needs to be looked at is max depths - particularly bad for lights, but can also be an issue for other weaker object types.