I voted against this because it would just be too easy.
Although I think that in ADOM there are perhaps too many cursed items generated (at least in the beginning) I find that equiping an unidentified item and finding out that it's cursed brings a little mini-quest into the game.

It becomes like a part of the game that you have this bad item stuck on you when you really wanna equip that blessed equivalent that you found shortly after.
Becomes part of the "story" to find a scroll of uncursing or whatever means you find to remove it.

Cursed items are such a traditional part of roguelike gameplay that it's not something I'd want to see removed or toned down greatly. Some of the ideas you have for random additional effects from cursing are quite nice though. Having those on top of normal cursing would be fiendishly fun >:)

I always imagined the trapping function of a cursed item to be more will-power than physical mechanism. (This explains how you can have equipped a cursed bow, sword, and shield and switch between them but never drop any of them--the item does something to you where you can't will yourself to let it go.)

Anywho, what if the you-can't-let-go function were dropped? (or just not always a function of the cursed status) That way, you don't automattically know an item is cursed by trying to unequip it. You have to learn it's cursed through play. Like, you keep getting poisoned from creatures who should be able to do that so well. Or the sword suddenly springs spikes from the handle into your hand! Ouch! It was a trapped weapon all along! Argh!

That kind of thing!

Hmm, what if all cursed items caused bad luck without binding on use? What if they only had a chance to cling on the PC which is predefined on generation to lower benefits of savescumming?

I'm quite happy the way it is too. Cursed items only really matter during the first part of the game anyway, before securing enough blessed SoI. Do we really want increased bad luck at that stage?

I claim that not all cursed items have to be unequipable. Cursed items all have various bad effects, but the 'undroppable' effect is always there; whereas it's somewhat unneccessary. If this was my game, I would drop the 'undroppable' effect, in favour of cursed items becoming more useful. I will also add that autocursing should be used more carefully. In ADOM1, Ring of Weakness was autocursing. Wearing a blessed ring would automatically curse it - what use it is that it drains PC's strength only to 6, when, when you wear it, it will instakill you? Maybe only by 2s of weight of difference? (what im saying is, even tho ring is less dangerous when blessed, it will curse itself right away, not giving you a chance to do anything about it).

You miss the entire point of the ring of weakness and all cursed items - trying new things on is dangerous, so it's best to identify items before equipping them. It's one of the many dangers of the game, and certainly not something I want to see removed.

I agree, but I think the effects of cursed non-wearable items should be toned down a little. Currently in ADOM a cursed potion or scroll usually has an effect opposite to expected. They often backlash drastically on the PC, like a potion of invisibility that blinds him/her for example. That's a little exagerated IMO.
Cursed items should have just reduced effect/lasting power!

That's far less fun! I love all the different opposite effects things have - some of them are quite funny (like the cursed invisibility potion - you suddenly can't see yourself, hah). Again it's one of the perils of the game, especially early on before you can easily ID and uncurse stuff.

Cursed items don't really just stick to you, you usually can't remove them because what they are - cursed. Something binds it to you, a ghost or whatever. I like it, it's a harsh punishment for picking up random stuff and I say no to this.

Maybe cursed artifacts could have some unique effects beyond the inability to remove them? You could create artifacts that cannot be uncursed by normal means, but require you to achieve a certain feat before you can get rid of it, or gain its benefits.

I don't have any suggestion about this but I disagree that curse item is a peril. It is a peril just for a newbie not knowing a little bit the game or eventually for a very low level character in a deadly situation requiring to attempt anything including use item of an unknown state.

But if it's not a peril, it's certainly a game mechanism. Perhaps a newbie could get some ingame hints and few tools to manage unidentified stuff. The first thing is some hints about altar and identifying curse state, including hints about altar alignments. But as altar isn't guaranteed and even less an altar of a same alignment, a few more tools and associated hints could be provided at the beginning.

I'm not a roguelike specialist, only played a lot Moria but some long long time ago and a little rogue. Recently I quickly tried ToME and now Im' on IVAN, clearly influenced by roguelike but also specifically by Adom.

But even if I'm not a roguelike specialist, I think that about respecting rogue traditions I'm very suspicious about it. If Adom had applied this rule it would have been much less good i think. In many area Adom broke some roguelike rules, I don't see any reason to justify Jade doesn't push further this.

You've all got good points. One thing has bothered me for some time however. How is the character able to pick up a cursed item (obviously with his hand) and put it into his/her bag without the curse preventing it by causing the item to get stuck in the hand?

The way I see it, it isn't that the cursed item sticks to your hand as if it was covered in glue. You can't put it down because of a psychological barrier, like an addiction.

In that case high willpower should help get rid of them and the activation of a curse should take up time. The required Wi value for each item would be assigned at creation.

Possibly instead of BUC status, you can have multiple kind of curses, of which zero or more can be applied to an item. These curses don't do anything else other than what each individual curse does. Possibly there can also be a bless flag for the item (so items can possibly be both blessed at cursed at the same time). Some of the possible curses could be:

• Unable to unequip
• Stat drain over time
• Half effect
• Sometimes activates when you don't want it to (and half the time it does this random activation it doesn't waste a charge) (also, if it requires a choice, such as direction, the choice is chosen at random when it activates at random)
• Activation sometimes fails (and half the time it does fail, it doesn't waste a charge)

I agree with having different forms of curses on a weapon. I especially like the idea that is present in ADOM in the form of "backwards" effects from a cursed item, such as the cursed potion of invisibility acting like a potion of blinding instead.

Also, I would like to see curses that aren't all bad. For example, you find a pair of bracers with forked lightning etched on them. When you equip them, they have a binding curse on them so you are unable to unequip them, similar to the current curse effect. However, they also have another curse on them. When ever you strike a foe with unarmed combat or a conductive metal weapon, you apply a bonus percentage of electrical damage to your attack (say 25% extra damage) but it also has feedback which damages you (say 50% of the electrical damage). So for example, you attack with your weapon and it then rolls a 1d(result/4) which does that much damage to your target and half of that to you.

Or it could be a masked effect that appears to be beneficial until you use it in a certain manner. For example, you find an amulet of magical reserve. When you first equip it, it can be unequipped as normal and it seems to lower the PP cost of all your spells. However, what it is actually doing is draining that extra PP into itself until it reaches it's maximum charge and violently erupts in magical energy.

As I see it, not all curses are flat out bad (though some, like the stat draining ones, should be). However, they should definitely add more character to the game than simply being stuck.