[crossfire] Cursed items

[Mark Wedel]

On 01/31/10 04:35 AM, Nicolas Weeger wrote:
>>    But I have a feeling players will easily be able to know/defeat these
>> things.
>>
>>    As said, getting stuck with a cursed item in that dungeon would be really
>> annoying.  Especially if you thought it was a really good item (if it isn't
>> a good item, you wouldn't use it in the first place).
>>
>>    It's fairly simple to defeat that kill test - go into an easy dungeon and
>> kill that 100 creatures in 10 seconds (and I'd say more likely, you don't
>> even need to do that - most dungeons are such that you'll be killing
>> hundreds of monsters before you get something tough).
>>
>>    It may be possible to have the effect manifest itself on that tough
>> monster, but I'm not sure how one measures that.
>>
>>    But more to the point, does this make the game more or less fun?
>
> Well, then let's remove the whole 'cursed' flag concept, and only do scripted
> things... :)

  that would work.  Would require some changes to the treasurelist to be able to 
add scripts to generated items (or maybe simpler to have cursed archetypes which 
have treasure list entries, but which have no outward sign of being cursed to 
players).

  This works better with objects that normally don't merge (wands, rods come to 
mind).  Otherwise, when you have a +2 sword that doesn't merge with other +2 
swords in your inventory, you would know something is up (but don't know what 
that something is)


>>    Something similar to the occidental rings but for armor could be done.
>> Gives fairly good protection, but when you take damage of that type, there
>> is a chance it switches to a different protection.
>
>
> So scripted instead of a mere flag :)

  For the most part yes.

  In a sense, there is no such thing as cursed items, there are just some items 
that have strange effects.  Folks may consider them cursed, or may not, but 
relative to game mechanics, they are just like normal items.

  It certainly makes things interesting.

  But even without scripts, you could have some items with pluses and minus. 
For example, a sword that does +4 dam but gives wearing -10 armor.  Is it worth 
it or not (and one could adjust values to make that a difficult decision)?

  And certainly some items may basically be useless.  A wand that does something 
unexpected 50% of the time probably isn't useful.  But a wand that did that same 
unexpected stuff 5% of the time might be useful if the spell it contains is a 
useful spell (that 5% risk is a risk that is low enough you're willing to take it)