[CF-Devel] Change in equip method.

[Todd Mitchell]

following the comments by Mark and David;
I had too much fun thinking about this...please shoot me

>>
     
     Before I go any further, i would like to point out (and yes this is
     
     >>
     
     through experience) that a weapon arm and a shield arm are the same
     
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     thing. For example, florentine is the style whereby a fighter uses two
     
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     weapons. I know we have been over the problem of being able to equip two
     
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     weapons, but I think it worth pointing out, that perhaps just 'arm'
     
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     would be more useful in the long term =). I suppose it doesn't make a
     
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     great deal of difference (a player special florentine (sword master)
     
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     type character could be devised that maps shield arm to weapon arm but
     
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     in the interests of logic.... ).
     
     
I noticed you mentioned a two handed sword but didn't mention bows.  I found
it unusual that I could equip a bow and a shield in Crossfire.  If you
couldn't equip a bow or crossbow and a shield at the same time, mor people
might like to use throwing weapons instead which would be good.  It would
also mean that less people would use bows or crossbows however since it
would not be so easy to switch between ranged and close combat with a
shield.

>>
     
      humanoid:
     
     >>
     
      head 1
     
     >>
     
      torso 1
     
     >>
     
      weapon_hand 1
     
     >>
     
      shield_hand 1
     
     >>
     
      finger 2
     
     >
     
      >neck 1
     
     >>
     
      feet 1
     
     >>
     
      ...
     
     >
     
     
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       And the quadriped (horse or other 4 legged creature):
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
     . feet 2
     
     >>
     
      weapon_hand 0
     
     >>
     
      shield_hand 0
     
     >>
     
      ...
     
     >
     
     
     >>
     
       This is where the semantic differnce of using body location vs
     
     >>
     
       equip_location comes in.  Saying a humanoid has 2 fingers and 1 feet
     
     isn't
>>
     
      really right.  But it means that they are only allowed 2 fingers and 1
     
     pair
>>
     
      of boots.  If instead these are described as 'ring' and 'boot', it makes
     
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      more sense.
     
     
>
     
     yes, but it causes more confusion when using something which isn't
     
     >
     
     specifically called a 'boot'. You end up with items like sandles (boot)
     
     >
     
     which is what we currently have of course.
     
     
I'm all for greater differences between the races - makes things more
interesting for sure.  One thing, would a four armed creature be able to use
2 shields?   For that matter if there is not a sword_arm, shield_arm kind of
thing, but just arms, wouldnt you have to check if a shield was already
equipped on one of the arms to avoid the ol' double shield trick with
regular two armed fellas?  If you had just arms you could have a five armed
beastie with five swords (or 3 swords and a bow, or 2 bows and a
shield...gets pretty grim from a writing it view, but sounds like fun for
creature making).
I think that you shouldn't use finger 2 and feet 1 though since this is just
goofy (only two fingers and one foot? )  Since the majority of magic boots
come in pairs you could just assume that 2 is the standard (or call it
something else since seeing a quadreped with 2 feet is silly) and if feet is
not 2 then they need a special item.  (your centaur gets shoes+2 made at the
blacksmiths...)

octaped:
head 1
torso 1
hands 5 (counts for weapons and rings)
neck 1
feet 3 (no boots for you unless we assume a pair is 3 at your cobblers)

Perhaps it would be best to stick to weapon_arm, shield_arm. You can use
hand for the ring slots (the old
'one_ring_per_hand_since_their_mystic_energy_creates_interference' rule)

octaped:
head 1
torso 1
weapon_arm 1 (only one weapon  allowed)
shield_arm 1  (only one shield allowed (I assume, although you mentioned two
helms on an ettin))
hands 5 (he can still make obcene gestures at you with the other 3)
neck 1

>
     
      >  Now the only really noticable aspect to this to players would be
     
     changing
>
     
      >  the range locations.  They current range location is really a leftover
     
     from
>
     
      > long ago.  With this change, I would make it so there is only 1 range
     
     slot
>
     
      > (which horns, bows, wands, skill tools, etc, would all vie for).  This
     
     >
     
      > simplifies the code a great deal on the server, and probably makes more
     
     >
     
      > sense anyway.
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
      I know I certainly very rarely use range weapons. The only one I ever
     
     >
     
      use is the bow which gives str +1 and only for the bonus.
     
     >
     
     
     
I think that ranged weapons are undervaluated in the game since there are
not real terrain factors (no_fly_pass flag and an update to the monster
attack target routine anyone?) to encourage their use.  It should be fairly
hard to get by without ranged weapons of some sort (either as a backup to
spells or as an alternate attack method to avoid closing with monsters).
Perhaps heavy fighter types could get away without them, but the majority of
classes should find them indispensible.  You can put monsters in little
rooms to prevent them from all rushing at the players, but this isn't as
good as having actual terrain (water, barrels, tables, low walls...) that
would allow missile weapons through but block movement (except special
movement like flying).    It also might give players more time to equip a
bow or whip out that horn or wand if the monsters didn't always rush at them
but attacked and could be attacked from a distance, which might make up for
having only one ranged slot and the loss of that shield.  Ranged weapons
really expand the possibilities for combat and a great ranged combat system
should include some terrain factors.
-tm