[CF-Devel] acid and repairing of weapons

[Mark Wedel]

 The thing with acid is tricky.

 At low levels, it beats up a bunch of your items, but for the most part, the
items it might destroy are pretty common (not to hard to find a replacement helm
+2 for example).

 At mid levels, you have better stuff that may be harder to replace.

 At high levels, are your stuff is basically immune because of the type of
object (ie, artifact), with adamantite/no material.

 So at low levels, having it cost a lot isn't very useful, as the player won't
be able to afford it anyways.

 But I have various thoughts:

 Acid is most nasty for new players (and not characters).  That new player
doesn't know what that rust monster/black pudding/green slime look like or what
it does.  So they are merrily going through the dungeons killing everything in
sight.  They then run into that monster, and before they know it there set of
nice +2 stuff is now all -3.

 Experience players know what those monsters look like, so if they see one, they
know to choose alternate tactics.  And if they have played the map before, they
may even know what door it is behind, etc, and adjust accordingly.

 So to me, that is the problem with rust monsters and grim reapers - you get
toasted the first time.

 Some of this could perhaps be improved along the same suggestion of paraylze -
monster gets one chance to hit you with it, then your immune for some amount of
time.  If this was done for acid/drain - ie, youu get hit, something may get
corroded, but then your immune for X amount of time, this would give newbies at
least a chance to learn and change tactics.  The monster could still attack and
do damage.

 But in terms of repair:  An alternate idea would be to have an 'enchanting'
service.  This service would only enchant up to the value that you might
normally find (or maybe just straight +2 for everything) at some price.  For
example, enchanting from -4 to -3 might be fairly cheap, and -3 to -2 likewise
fairly cheap, but that +1 to +2 could be pretty costly.

 This basically takes the place of repair, and also means that some of the
'mundane' but somewhat rare items can be made if the player has the money (maybe
you've been unlucky and haven't been able to find that +2 jack boots for
whatever reason, but have a pile of cash - have them custom made for you).