User talk:Red kangaroo/YANIs/Items

What if the root password detection is xyzzy?

Catullus (talk) 23:41, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I was actually thinking about it before and I think it doesn't need to have its effects changed if it would copy itself.

You have a very low chance of finding it in a game that assigns it the right appearance, plus it's only found in a portal branch that may be rather dangerous unless you are lucky or powerful. You would be able to generate mostly unlimited number of scrolls with it, but if the BUC of created scrolls was randomized, this may require some investment into uncursing. From large amount of ?rpd you could have three benefits I can think of:

• blanking and writing other scrolls, but I generally never lack blank scrolls, as magic markers are rare while bad/useless scrolls or paper golems not so much,
• polypiling, but than you still need to spend other resources and have a bit of luck to actually get anything useful, so I don't see that as too large of a boon either, and
• the levelport effect, which is the only one I'm concerned about with balance.

Levelport is rather easy to achieve with scrolls of teleport already and unlimited with the Orb of Fate, plus you also need to curse your ?rpd and confuse yourself. It may, however, be worth making the levelport uncontrollable, so that it is a good panic button, but not so much for general movement.

-- Red kangaroo (talk) 21:53, 4 March 2016 (UTC)