[crossfire] RFC: dynamic alchemy

[Mark Wedel]

  Quick thoughts:

1) I'd prefer a way to say what item I want improved, vs it improving the 
strongest.  this is more an issue for the first improvements most likely.  Or if 
it is very clear how it decides what is the more powerful object (item power) 
that may be reasonable, except you have 2 objects with power 0.

2) Limiting the improvement of the target item based on the first item probably 
isn't good.  In the case of resistances, one can find items that have very high 
resistances, but these can not be directly applied to the player or have a 
limited duration (think of the potions here).  If I can take that potion of fire 
resistance (90% resistance) and apply it to a sword or other permanent item, 
that would make things way out of whack.  Even 75% fire reistance on an item may 
be too powerful.

  This is more a case if the player has a mechanism for making those items. 
While there are some good items out there right now, there are some effectively 
limitations because they would go on the same place on the body (dragon plate 
mail gives good protection, but you can only wear one suit of armor at once). 
If I can make a hat, boots, gloves, belt, etc of fire resistance, many 
limitations may be easily overcome (OTOH, there really isn't anything that 
prevents those items from showing up in maps.)

3) I'd also think it is nice for items improved not to be tied to the player as 
previously state.  However, I was thinking that what could be done is that based 
on the power of the item, there is a random chance it becomes tied.  In this 
way, a player could make items for others, but not really powerful ones.

  That said, IMO, the need to make some objects god given is no longer relevant 
with the item power code.  At one point, I think that was to make it so that you 
couldn't give really good stuff to low level players.  While item_power doesn't 
prevent that gift, it effectively prevents the low level character from using it.

  IMO, if we really want more multi player cooperation and interaction in 
crossfire, we really shouldn't limit what players can trade, etc.

4) Stats are currently ints.  Changing it so that the max value is much higher 
is IMO not a worthwhile task.  They could probably be changed to floats with a 
lesser amount of work.  Another approach is the mimicing of floats via random 
numbers.  If that item should really improve it by .1, you make a random roll 
with a 10% chance of it increasing it, the rest, it does nothing.  For alchemy, 
this could be good enough, and adds some luck and 'oh cool, it worked this time' 
factor.

5) For most custom objects (white dragon scale armor) there is no way to know if 
it has been modified from the normal one.  The only thing you can really find is 
if it has been modified from the archetype, but lots of things on maps are 
already modifications from an archetype (almost all generated treasure is in fact).