IRC commentary on Nomes

Wensley:
* Wensley> most importantly: remove hp bonus for being in walls, add slow movement outside of walls (like naga, and without slowed actions, like naga), add noise for moving through walls, remove ability to move through metal walls. true, these are all nerfs, but we need to convey that this race isn't overpowered to be taken seriously
* overall: wall-swimming is AWESOME. "I can't describe how liberating it is to be able to walk through a bunch of one-depth walls..."
* It's easy to escape from enemies by going diagonally near a corner - natural stealth means enemies won't be able to figure out where you are. It's essential, with current monster AI, to add some noise to wall-swimming.
* Bodily transformations should not work *at all* when within a wall. On the flip side, attuned nomes should probably still get slowing + extra AC in other forms.
* self-translocations should not work in a wall (-TELE effect). Banishing enemies is still fine.
* 30% more HP is too good.
* the slowing *is* sufficient penalty for being in a wall, but it's not so visible at first.
* Ashenzari is easily the go-to god for nomes due to scrying + wall-swimming
* it's easy for wall-swimming to make situations worse (met an orc priest + wizard on other side of wall when fleeing Sigmund :P )
* single-turn delay should be added to all wall entries regardless of earth attunement
* immunity to fire/ice when inside green crystal - after all, it's rare enough!
* immunity to electricity inside metal (faraday cage), provided nomes can still travel through metal in later versions
* shatter should be horribly painful when cast inside a wall ;)
* give cacodemons LRD just to make Nomes miserable =)
* dig should erase a nome's surrounding rock wall if cast within a wall.

Eronarn:
* Give nomes less stealth penalty for armour but poor stealth (like D&D dwarves)
* drop metal/crystal walls, so metal walls scare the poo out of nomes. (Wensley agrees)
* Nomes cannot eat while in walls - targeted towards Nome conjurers trying to abuse wall-swimming
* teleport resistance outside of walls might be worth it, as would barring summons while inside walls
(eh, I'm not so sure, you could still summon while just outside the wall anyways - minced)
* the real issues a) abuses where you do something, then leave LOS b) abuses where you can duck out of LOS easily every time you start to lose at no risk. If a,b are eliminated then even unrestricted wall travel would be ok.