Re-examine rings of cat/dog

[takkaria]

Complaint was that they're a bit useless.

[magnate]

So are mouse and reckless attacks. With the exception of Escaping, the new rings need a boost to the positive and a limit on the negative, so that they're an overall boon, otherwise they'll never compete for precious ring slots with plain single-stat or single-resist rings.

[anonymous]

I find rings of reckless attack to be much, much better than any single base resist or most stat rings so I disagree with you there. I don't care either way about =mouse/cat but rfear is such a small benefit and stealth so important that =dogs really need help. Maybe RFear plus a +1 to speed for every -1 or -2 to stealth, on the reasoning that in Angband dogs move quickly?

[MarbleDice]

Could change =Dog from "rFear/-4 stealth/-10 AC" to "rFear/-1d3 stealth/-2d4 AC" or something similar.

[magnate]

Replying to MarbleDice:

Could change =Dog from "rFear/-4 stealth/-10 AC" to "rFear/-1d3 stealth/-2d4 AC" or something similar.

IMO even that's not usable. Rfear is very much a niche ability - not something for which you'd bother to carry a swap. IMO stealth is way more important than rfear or AC, so even with +10AC I still wouldn't use it. Something like rfear, +1d3 stealth, -10M5 AC would be ok.

What is =Cat?

[magnate]

From Oook, we should look at adding rings/amulets which boost stealth. There could be two types of each: ones which have a drawback (say -3d3 to hit and dam) and deeper/rarer ones which don't. Fox and snake have been suggested as names.