Ponderousness

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

It is very cumbersome, thus slowing your movement.

Ponderousness is an ego very occasionally found on chain mail and plate armour, where it will be accompanied by a high enchantment to make the item not purely bad. The ego raises your movement delay by 1 (most species have 10 by default).

The Hat of Pondering and the Black Knight's barding also have the ponderousness ego, but they both have a number of other positive properties that may well make them worth wearing.

Strategy

Generally, an armor of ponderousness is not worth wearing. For a regular speed character, ponderousness means that you are unable to outrun enemies like ogres and hydras. A few extra AC often isn't worth the consumables you'll need to escape these situations. It can have some merit, especially in the early game.

For fast / slow characters, the extra delay is less impactful. Spriggans remain faster than usual, while barachim, nagas, and Cheibriados worshippers will be slower than usual. However, even a worshipper of Cheibriados will eventually prefer some sort of resistance in the body armor slot.

History

• Prior to 0.30, this ego could not appear on chain mail.
• Prior to 0.14, the movement delay penalty was 2.
• Prior to 0.10, Cheibriados granted an ability to convert any piece of armour into an artefact, maintaining all its former properties but adding ponderousness. In exchange, Cheibriados would greatly increase your stats and provide some resistances, not to mention making the armour immune to acidic corrosion (as well as to further attempts to enchant it!).