Cloak of the Thief

Version 0.22: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

A pitch-black cloak which allows its wearer to excel in the arts of thievery, and can be evoked to release thick clouds of smoke for a hasty escape.

the +2 cloak of the Thief

+2 cloak

-2 slaying
See invisible
+50 Stealth
Can be evoked to emit clouds of fog (+Fog ability)

Desirability

Being able to generate clouds of smoke and fog on demand is incredibly powerful when used correctly - it allows you to ignore all threats that are not within a 2 tile radius of you, almost like a better version of the Darkness spell, which, while not so useful for ranged characters, is really strong for melee builds and most definitely worth the -2 slaying. Even for ranged characters the ability to block line of sight to a full-screen fire giant or golden dragon makes this cloak useful quite often.

History

Prior to 0.15, this cloak only penalized damage (-3), not accuracy, and provided a slightly higher stealth bonus.

Prior to 0.12, this cloak provided small bonuses to EV and dexterity, as well as evocable invisibility and levitation, but lacked the fog effect.

Prior to 0.10, the -3 damage slaying penalty was much more severe, as slaying bonuses and penalties were multiplied by your skills.