[CF-Devel] rodlike and wandlike items

[Mark Wedel]

Todd Mitchell wrote:

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      Since the messages were hardcoded and type specific I was proposing a (I
     
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      thought) trivial change to address them.
     
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      I had no problem making items based on the rod or wand type, but the
     
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      messages were type specific
     
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      (the pipe of mass wonder was based on the horn and would say "no matter how
     
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      hard you try you can't get another note out" when it was out of power.)  I
     
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      was proposing a change to leave the type specific messages but have a
     
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      generic instance for other items based on the type but not of the same
     
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      appearance.  You don't want your 'jewel of summoning' to say "the wand says
     
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      poof" when it is out of charges or your 'snail idol of slow' to say "The rod
     
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      whines for a while, but nothing happens."
     
     
  I'd prefer not to have another item type just to print some slightly different 
messages.  Such a change may not be quite as simple as you may thing - all code 
instances that use type of ROD or WAND also need to get updated, not just that 
small snippet (this is for things like apply, monsters, identify, etc).

  I'd much rather just change that small area of code to do some more generic 
message.  At least for wands, it now goes 'the <name> goes poof', so that should 
be generic enough.  Likewise, for rods, it says 'the <name> whines for a while'.

  Perhaps for horns, maybe something like 'no matter how hard you try, you can't 
blow through the <name>?'  presumably, anything of type horn is something you 
blow in, so should be generic enough?