[crossfire] Cursed items

[Nicolas Weeger]

>   Even if the spell (and skill) were removed, it probably wouldn't mean
> much so long as the detect curse tables still exist.

Unless the tables aren't infaillible and cost a lot?
If it's 10 000 diamonds each detect, and it can fail (or curse the item?), 
then it gets really expensive to check :)


>   I think one problem is that players acquire so many items on an even
> normal outing that it is a sure thing that at least some of them are
> cursed.  Right now, the people that usually seem to get hit by cursed items
> are new players who don't have the resources to get rid of them and don't
> know that it is fairly easy to know what is and is not cursed.
>
>   Couple thoughts come to mind:
> - Reduce occurrence of cursed items greatly (<=1% of items).  In this way,
> it would be fairly rare for players to find cursed items.
> - Remove detect curse methods or make them much more expensive (identify
> will continue to work)
>
>   That may make it worth it for players to try to equip items (instead of
> identifying them) when they sell them, since they get more money but don't
> have to pay for the identify.

Maybe...



>   Even if cursed items are impossible to identify, I suspect players will
> just wait until they are in town to see what they are - It would such to
> use one in a dungeon and find out you are in bad shape because you are
> stuck wearing crappy armor.
>
>   Live action RPG tends to have cursed items because the GM can control
> when the curse takes effect - there is no way to detect it, and usually
> manifests itself only in life or death situations.

So it's up to use to add such things :)
A perfectly normal sword - but after you killed 15 opponents, it'll bite you 
on the hand, making you unable to use a weapon for some time.
A shield that has a nice armor - and after 1 day, you suddenly morph into a 
werewolf.



>   A more interesting approach in crossfire is that curses are undetectable,
> but in rare circumstances the item does something unexpected.  For example,
> a cursed wand might 5% of the time fire in the wrong/random direction.  A
> player may still find that wand useful.  Weapons could suddenly
> disintegrate, but until it does so, may be a nice weapon (and when it does
> fall apart, just means the player needs to equip something else)
>
>   So in other words, cursed items still have some positive use - they
> aren't all bad.

It really depends what the 'cursed' status is supposed to mean, I'd say.
If "cursed" is just "can't unequip", then maybe it's limited.
If on the other hand we got a list of potentially bad effects somewhere, then 
it could be really fun.




Nicolas
-- 
http://nicolas.weeger.org [Mon p'tit coin du web]
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