[CF-Devel] Change in equip method.

[pstolarc at theperlguru.com]

On Tue, 04 Jun 2002 23:56:33 -0700, Mark Wedel wrote:

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       The basic problem is that weapons are an item that the player can more or less 
     
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     make the weapon give whatever cool stat bonuses they want - they can basically 
     
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     make them better than what monsters will have.  So a player that has a pair of 
     
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     really good improved weapons is nastier than really anything else out there.
     
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       Now there are limits on how powerful weapon the character can used based on 
     
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     their level.  (basically, number of improvements to weapon can not be greater 
     
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     than some total).  You could change this so that the two weapons improvements 
     
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     are added up and can't exceed that total.  But this brings up an even better 
     
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     idea IMO:
     
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       EGO - give each item an ego value.  Normal stuff (like plate mail, shields, 
     
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     swords) would have 0 ego value.  A players equipments ego total could not exceed 
     
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     that total which is based on his level.
     
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       this has many interesting play balancing effects.  If you say each improvment 
     
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     (weapon or armor) counts as an ego point, players may now have to decide if it 
     
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     is better to improve that weapon or that armor.  Various artifacts could have 
     
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     ego values also (dragon armor 2 or something).  Great rings similar ego values.
     
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       IMO, this has all sorts of good effects.  It abstracts to too powerful weapon 
     
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     to now be all items.  It gives an additional way to balance powerful artifacts 
     
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     (yes, this armor may be the best armor by far, but also has the highest ego. 
     
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     Maybe that other armor which isn't quite so good but has a lower ego is better 
     
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     so that I can use my extra powerful boots, etc). IT also means that high level 
     
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     players gifts of all sorts of artifacts to low level players isn't quite as 
     
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     useful.  The lower level players may be able to use 1 or 2 of the items at a 
     
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     time, but not all of them.
     
     
Nice idea here.  I would change it so that instead of being unable to
wield/wear/whatever the ego item, it would follow the AD&D rules,
which I'm assuming you got it from.  The weapon tries to control you,
which would translate in game terms as a confusion attack/reduced
confusion resist and paralyze attack/reduced paralyzed resist if their
is a large ego difference.  Also fear/turn undead if that code works
on players, though I've never seen it actually do anything.  The
lowered resists are constant, but make the attacks occur at the most
inconvenient possible time.  "You're low on HP, your bless just ran
out, and now your sword turns on you."

Basically if a level 1 character tries to wield a chaos sword, they
will be able to hold it, but will have no control over their
character, and will probably die quite quickly.

Also, make personality levels factor into this somehow.  "You convince
the chaos sword to do your bidding.  For now..."

Maybe with some playbalance testing, we could add resists to player
enchanted swords?

-Philip