[CF-Devel] race/classes notes/thoughts.

[Peter Mardahl]

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       I've been playing a troll barbarian lately, and a few notes.
     
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       His natural intelligence is -3 (shown with the statistics command).  Not a b
     
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      problem, as that the fix_player (or someplace) is smart enough to raise it to
     
     
I would rather that there be a "hard" minimum of 1 on a troll's intrinsic
stats.  I'll toss this one in the hopper of "things to fix".

However, I would also like to see a change in behavior for potions
so that they'll raise negative "intrinsic" stat values.

***

Regarding food/body parts:  body parts aren't really that useful
for food because they're heavy and suck up inventory slots.  I hate
paging through inventory so I keep my items carried to a minimum.
That means one type of food.

For player convenience, so that players do not have to figure out
"is this food old or not?" all the time, and have stuff rotting on them
all the time, I would say "no" to aging food.  It's good "reality",
but I'd rather things stayed where I put them, and not have to
do things like
"sniff food"
"cook food"
"eat food"

which I consider pretty much hoop jumping and not much benefit
to fun game play.

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       Not having the literacy skill makes some things difficult.  What immediately
     
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      came to mind was the hall of quests in the castle of scorn - without literacy
     
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      you can't read the information scrolls.  I knew from past experience where th
     
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      goblin and ogre hole were, but I wonder if it might be better to make those
     
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      scrolls readable by anyone, or use magic mouths?
     
     
Like Ballots in Florida, noble rank isn't for everyone.  I think being
literate is a reasonable prerequisite for participating in the noble
rank quests.

However, I don't feel too strongly about it and if there's a consensus
against me on this one, I won't object to someone changing the hall of
quests to use magic mouths.

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       This question might more belong the the non developer list, but I'm lazy so 
     
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      grouping it here.  I've noticed that pretty much skill scrolls and stat potio
     
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      have disappeared from shops (its been a while since I've actually played a
     
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      character serious compared to working on crossfire).  After the newbie tower,
     
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      goblin hole/quest and ogre hole/quest, my 6'th level barbarian has around 140
     
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      platinum.  What do people generally spend the money on?  The only thing I can
     
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      really think of is to search for a good ring/amulet.  The character already h
     
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      a +3 sword, +1 plate, +2 boots, girdle of damage (reward for quest), +1 helme
     
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      and shield, most all of it found, since in term of mundane items he is in pre
     
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      good shape (and going to the shops, it is unlikely he will find anything much
     
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      better than most of that).  With an int of 1 (-2), he obviously isn't going t
     
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      be casting spells anytime soon.
     
     
Well, for a troll, I actually like to load up on better armor
I buy myself +2 helm, +2 shield, +(best armour I can find in a shop)
+boots.  +3 sword is good enough that I wouldn't bother looking.

If I've already got all that AND money then I'll go hunting for wyverns and
get myself a scale and have a dragonshield.

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       One thought I had would be to stock a portion of the shops with non random
     
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      merchandise.  Ie, the armor shop will always have a +2 shield and helmet (at
     
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      least when initially loaded), if your willing to pay for it.  You could actua
     
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      set a stack of 10 items for that matter.  Maybe different shops should stock
     
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      different good items (so perhaps the shop in scorn is a shield shop so has go
     
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      shields all the time plus the usual random stuff, while the shop is santa
     
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      dominion is a good helmet shop, etc).  I just wasn't interested in doing town
     
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      hopping looking for something good in all the shops, but something like that
     
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      might add character.
     
     
I like this idea.  In fact, I made a "basic spells shop" in scorn, which
you may not have seen, which supplies basic attack spells:
icestorm, burning hands, small/medium/large snowstorm/fireball and
small/large lightning, and cause light/medium/serious/many wounds.
All at about 3x their normal shop price, the price you pay for
convenience.

Put in your "good" but "non-artifact" items at a premium price so people
can just exchange money for convenience.

PeterM