I don't think this is something that could be programmed in by accident. Why shouldn't there be consequences for your actions?

I think the suspicion is that it *is* by accident, via the following mechanism:

You try to pray. The game decides that you probably want to remove "cursed" status, but you don't have enough piety. So it doesn't grant you that prayer. But then it doesn't grant you anything else either. If you have enough piety, the game instead removes your 'cursed' status with that prayer.

My point was that it doesn't make sense. (Clarification instead of fix would be fine).

p.s. Player needs very close to remove piety, prayers com back at very pleased. Personally it does not make sense neither mechanically nor either other way.

A penalty on current piety during prayer when cursed makes as much sense to me as blocking crowning when doomed.

???
cursing blocks crowning too. [If got through equipment, natural one would go away if prayed]

Dooming essentially blocks praying all the time - healing, pickaxes, crowning, Doomed = no prayers. I sort get the idea, doomed no help from gods.

Cursing blocking prayers at low piety level, makes no sense at all for me.

Cursed could increase the piety expenditure of prayers without blocking them. Even doubling them would let a beginner character still get 1 prayer.

Soirana - did it just block it at low piety or did it also increase the cost of prayers? Was the first successful prayer always "remove cursing"? (assuming you had enough piety for a successful prayer)

Cursed stops interfering with prayers at very pleased... that is holy water level, not the one which allows remove cursing... so, no first successful prayer never removed cursed.

Well, according to my dirty testing methods piety cost is not increased. If you know clean way to test it, well, tell and I check. I don't think this is a proper place for posting AdomBot results.

What has that got to do with anything?

I just explained it.

Assuming the multiplier were high enough, # of prayers from say... Inner Peace->Very Pleased. Would have to be donating gold pieces to control amount nicely. Wouldn't tell you about small multipliers because of the inaccuracy in your readings, but would probably catch 1.5x and up.

I can't see clear method in that. I also know the answer. Not gonna bother.

And cursed status from items works the same way. Still cannot believe nobody noticed until now.

The "prayer unheard" cost is the same for cursed and non-cursed chars, tested by counting uses of holy symbol to get to "comfortable" position after prayer.

If I understand this correctly, Soirana is referring to a char in TWL, in league of awesomeness.
I played that char and hit a karmic lizard once. No prayers were used before.
As a result, praying at 1 HP gave the message of prayer unheard.
As far as I know, prayer priority in this case is HP -> then maybe curse removal.
Since prayer was unheard, the conclusion is that cursing blocks even HP prayers, which I would say is an excessive punishment, since dooming does the same.