ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I was in Level 4 of Old Forest when I found a 'hole in the ground with a ladder' sprite. The log message said 'there is a damp cave here'. Going down, I found a wide open space with a bunch of bandits in it, at least two of which were rare, and the one I inspected was a dozen levels higher than me (I was 15, he was 27). After getting to see more of the level, I found even more bandits, with additional rares.

There was no message saying anything like, "Are you sure you want to descend the ladder? Certain death awaits.". This seems strange to me, given that there are already messages like that for vaults, this level change was an even sharper increase in danger than most vaults represent, and after the first round, leaving was not an option, since you can't change levels with negative status effects on, whereas you can always at least try to run from a vault you've opened.

I think that if there are warning messages for opening vaults, there should definitely be a warning message for whatever this was.

(I hope this is the right board/sub-forum for this post. If not, please move it as appropriate.)

What? Just go back up the ladder.

It's not like it takes any time to use stairs.

Of course going back up immediately is an option. My point was about being more consistent in terms of signaling. If the user gets an explicit message when they are about to open a vault, I think they should also get a message when entering a level with an even higher jump in danger level.

But you do get a message when you're in any severely out of depth area

In embers there are lots of level change vaults, but they always start with you next to a sealed door that leads to the vault.