I have to say (and I'm a newbie so take this with a grain of salt if you wish.) But I personally think having to have potions, scrolls, roots, pills, and about a bazillion other concoctions on you just to survive every situation imaginable is a big waste of time. You spend lots of time going to get them, lots of money buying many of them, just to have them all sac'd when you die. And sometimes they fail even if you do try to use them. *shrug* It gets real annoying.

So with that said, I do have a question about using things when you are badly maledicted.

Refresh items: Having never used any of them, I'm assuming they do things like restore mana and movement right? If you have one on you and you are slept, plagued, cursed and all that good stuff (you know, like what hero necros do to you). Are you still actually capable of using them? I mean, I tried quaff recall potion after waking up from a necro sleep and I was maledicted BIG TIME and it said the potion failed. Tried it again...same thing. I couldn't move so I couldn't flee. I had some scrolls, but I figured with my mana like -47 I wouldn't be able to recite them anyway since my brain was gone. I also had some roots but didn't know if I could eat the things since I couldn't move and they were in my backpack. If you can't move can you get things from a pack? I gave up and just sat there and died since I had no idea at all what to do about it.

I'm sure there must be ways of surviving this stuff, but learning it all is really hard, must take literally years of experimentation. I think it's easier to just die and get back to doing whatever you actually enjoy doing in the game. Learning what all the items do, where to find them, how and when to use them...I just don't think I want to spend my limited playing time doing all that. If I can't flee and quaff a potion or run like a bat out of heck, I just die and get it over with. It's not fun dieing, but then neither is taking an in-depth 4-year course on CF items and roaming around for hours looking for them. (you could graduate from college with less study ). Ok I'm done with my whining now, so if you could answer my questions, I'd appreciate it.

Oh and to all you IMMS who work hard at making CF what it is, despite the above complaints I do really like playing the game. So thanks!