Cthangband Future Development

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These are some of the ideas I'm thinking of including in later versions of Cthangband. Feel free to email me about other ideas or reactions.

Change to not allow identify to be cast on objects already identified.
Make the level limit on advancing skills softer - it will be possible to raise a skill higher than currently allowed on a level, but it will take much longer.
Remove the current system whereby toughness advances with damage taken, and change it to a system whereby toughness advances with damage inflicted.
Change the current weapon slot and shield slot to right and left hands. It would be easier to wield two-handed weapons with two hands, and harder to wield them with a shield. The left hand could hold a shield, a cloak, or a weapon, but would not necessarily get full defensive value from cloak or weapon, that being determined by the Two-Handed Fighting skill.
Since there are no Angels in the latest versions, the "A" letter is unused. Change golems to "A"rtifices, thus freeing up the "g".
Redo the monster files to make them more suited to the Dreamlands. Right now, there are very few Dreamlands monsters. This would include providing more variety of cats and ghouls, which is why I'd like to free up "g", so I can provide ghouls as a separate category. Other critters to include are gugs, ghasts, web-footed wamps, zebras, yaks, cats from Saturn, and zoogs from Dream-Quest. It might be reasonable to simply transpose icky things to beings from Ib, which were described as weak and squishy when wiped out by the men of Sarnath.
Squelching.
Making it easier to get from one town to another, for higher level characters (after it ceases to be dangerous and merely becomes annoying). Perhaps provide *Recall* scrolls and spells.
Display what the wilderness dungeons and towers are on the "M" map after they have been visited. (So you know Koth is right between Nir and Dyath-Leen at a glance, once you've been there.)
Rangers will get a wild spirit to start, not a choice of wild or life.
More useful display for skill levels, including what can be raised and what can't be.
Updated main-???.c and makefiles.
Make cursed items more interesting, with some "stealth" cursed items (removable, but not obviously cursed).
Remove good monsters.
Provide some expensive and uncertain way to "cure" chaos features.
Allow ego lanterns, whose power will depend on whether they're fueled or not. Have an artifact lantern. (This will complicate things; right now, the program knows whether the light source needs fuel by whether it's an artifact or not.)
Are belt pouches too powerful? Five areas that can be used to store rare potions and scrolls, render them immune to theft and elemental attack, and from which they can be used almost instantaneously?
The skill system should provide for gradual improvement of skills and gradual increase in effectiveness. Right now, this is violated in two ways. First, either you can use a hermetic spell/mindcrafting skill/hedge magic cantrip/spirit favor or you can't; this is most important for non-combat effects (an unreliable healing effect isn't all that useful, but getting the skills to cast Identify even unreliably is a milestone). Second, the number of blows increases as a step function, and a character with 30% skill in a weapon is likely to be more than twice as good as a character with 29% skill. The solution for the latter is fairly simple: smooth the blows and shots functions. The solution for the former is more complicated: there should be very good reasons not to try the magical effect without the requisite skill. These effects need to be fairly permanent: knocking points of characteristics permanently (so that a Restore won't work) sounds adequately forbidding.