[crossfire] Dragons, throwing skill and limitations

[Mark Wedel]

Otto J. Makela wrote:
> 
> PS. If dragons don't have hands (the logic behind "no swords", I think),
> where do they wear their rings? And why do dragon monsters often leave swords
> when you kill them?

  People have suggested all sorts of places where dragons may put those rings - 
tail, horns, etc.  While dragons can't use weapons, based on shape of hands 
being unable to properly grasp them, that doesn't necessary mean they could 
manage to put some rings on their claws.

> 
> PPS. How about a "ring/amulet of extra ring fingers" (and if cursed, remove
> ability to use two rings), or would that affect game balance too much?

  Anything that gives characters a benefit with no drawback affects balance.

  Adding an amulet that uses the amulet spot but gives them another ring 
location may be OK, especially if it has some nominal item power value.

  But if you just had a ring, which if when put on you now have 4 locations for 
rings (so you get 3 rings in addition to that one), such an item probably needs 
a decent item power - otherwise it probably does become too powerful.

  Cursed items really don't have too much impact in the game - too easy to wait 
until you get back to town to see what is and is not cursed, and also even if 
you do put on something cursed, usually not that hard to get a remove curse or 
something.

  I'm not quite sure how to fix that - I had suggested in the distant past that 
spellbooks could be cursed, and if you read them, you'll lose that spell (as a 
problem right now is that trying to read a spellbook is an easy way to identify 
it) - but with that change, I suspect players will just wait until they can 
properly detect curse on items.

  It's interesting that a lot of commercial RPG's don't have cursed items - 
maybe simply because of the reasons mentioned - if you have a way to know what 
is cursed, you'll just wait for that.  And if you don't, then you're just saying 
that players will be screwed 10% (or however often cursed stuff shows up) of the 
time.