Nangband wants its own flavour, distinct from Vanilla's, which means new items: weapons, armour, etc. as well as actual mechanic changes. This is the page for that: weapons, armour, light sources, artifacts, etc.

• Identification
  • Pseudo-ID
• General thoughts
  • Curses
  • Combat
  • Impact on magic-users
  • Time To Live
  • Spare item activations/powers
• Charged items
  • Spellbooks
  • Rods
  • Wands and staves
  • Scrolls
• Potions / Herbs
• Drinks
• Combat gear
  • Weapons
  • Armour
• Light sources
  • Orbs
• Miscellanous or special items
  • Claws

Identification

Simplify and expand the current Angband system.

Have "lore", where any given character knows of some items fairly well and others badly (and retains some -- not all! -- lore from his ancestors). For the moment, just use this for artifacts, ego-item kinds, and "discoverables" (herbs, rods, wands, etc.). If we're linking in to a skill system, then perhaps weapons with which the player has trained will be more immidiately apparent than others. This is probably slighty tricky territory, worth skipping initially, though.

It would be interesting (?) to have different artifacts have their names written in different languages, and the character's main language chosen at random at the beginning of the game. Then, he automatically knows artifacts whose name are in his language (via engravings, obviously). This could apply to randarts, too! All of this (and the below described pseudo-id system) reduces the need for a dedicated ID quite a bit. ID should probably be rare, really (?).

Pseudo-ID

Nuke pseudo-id in its current form. Instead, make it blatantly obvious when items are good and when they're not. (As if you couldn't tell the difference between a well-made sword and a crap one.)

Map current pseudo-id states to un-ID'd item prefixes: (resulting in things like "a magic Longsword (4d5)")

• "magic" is mapped from cursed, excellent, most special/terrible
• "good" is mapped to "good"
• "average" is mapped to nothing

We're going to assume for now that "cursed" items are going to be made in such a way as to imitate uncursed items, and so the two are indistinguishable (by making everything mixed-blessing, we solve some of this, too). The current random pseudo-id is instead replaced by messages like "You realise you are carrying {a powerful[ and evil],an evil} artifact." with the slot name. You can then notate it as "an artifact Longsword (4d5)" and add the other notes in the 'I' screen.

After some time using a weapon, you get an idea of its stats (i.e. you get told its stats), but you still wouldn't know what ego-type it was, or its name, or special abilities. Identify (the spell) would tell you that.

General thoughts

Curses

Low-level items shouldn't be as consistently cursed (perhaps take away casual cursing?). Indeed, any curses are a bit of a pain, really. Eytan had the idea ages ago of making everything mixed blessing items, which is much more interesting gameplaywise.

Combat

I'd like the weapon/armour modifier system in EyAngband, just for the flavour it adds - it might be worth importing this, or not, depending.

New combat system? I think the current one suffices, though again EyAngband has something that's wonderfully streamlined.

Hitpoints need rethinking -- look at Steam.

Impact on magic-users

If we're conducting magical energy from the surroundings, then any material will to some extent provide resistance. (Take electricity as a model.) A metallic material called Radge, however, has no effect on the ability to absorb such energy -- as a result, magic-users can only wear items made of radge without penalty.

Time To Live

To allow spells to temporarily create weapons or items (e.g. food), we need a ttl field in each item to say how long it actually exists. This could be an interesting mechanic: some items might be generated by monsters as part of spells, and then dropped when the monster dies. However, when the character picks up the item, they are unaware of this...

Spare item activations/powers

State of Grace

When undead use physical attacks against you, they hurt 20% of the damage they deal to you.

Mirror

50% chance of reflecting bolt spells aimed at you.

Sustain Hunger

On-off switch. Keeps the hunger status at its current level for some 5000 turns before it needs recharging.

Sustain Self

On-off switch. Sustains all your stats for 2000 turns. Requires (turns active)*2 turns to recharge.

True Blow

Always hits. (Use on a lowish-damage artifact dagger or somesuch.)

Charged items

All magical objects/books/etc. have some "mana properties"; these are:

• "Creation cost", i.e. the cost, in mana and experience, of creating that item
• "Activation cost", i.e. the cost in mana, and possibly experience, of using that item consciously
• "Stored energy", i.e. the magical energy stored by an item

They also, obviously, have an associated spell which they are programmed to reproduce somehow (or provide the means to reproduce such a spell). All activation costs depend on the spell being used.

The overall power of the item can be determined by taking all these into account.

Not all magical objects have all of these properties. What items have what properties, and their effects, are listed below. Also, note that here, I'm trying to provide some background to the different types of item, i.e. reasoning, in both games and "world" terms.

Spellbooks

These have a high creation cost (in game terms, this translates to temporary mana and permanent XP loss). They are created by a user writing a selection of spells in a book, and essentially blasting it with magical energy and until the words have meaning.

Activation costs from spells in spellbooks are unique in that they do not have any useable stored energy, but rather the character uses the energy themselves.

Rods

Rods are pieces of carefully-sculpted metal, designed to be easily re-used.

They have a high creation cost (though not as high as spellbooks), and are created by essentially trapping the words of the magic inside the rod (this is not stored energy), and then casting another spell over it so that it picks up energy from its surroundings.

Stored energy in rods is accumulated as the character treks through the dungeon, wandering into and out of different magical fields, much like one might accumulate static on a balloon. This will require some rethink of the dungeon generation code to make some areas more "charged" than others, to enable rods to recharge variably. There may also be some totally dry places, where such things do not recharge - nasty.

Wands and staves

These have a lower creation cost than rods, because they do not recharge from their surroundings. When they are created, a certain amount of mana is invested into them and this is their initial stored energy.

Stored energy in wands and staves is just stored in the wood itself, hence when one is broken (e.g. by throwing), there is a massive release of energy. They are the only object type that needs recharging; once their initial charges have gone, they require energy chanelled into them, which is a risky and largely uncontrollable process.

Magic-users can channel their own mana when using such items rather than using the charges in the item itself.

Scrolls

Scrolls are similar to spellbooks, except they are created in such a way as even trying to comprehend the words on the scroll will set the spell off.

Creation cost is relatively low, as it is a single-use item. Activation cost is handled entirely by the object itself; generally the spell requires more stored energy in the item than is there, and tends to remove the scroll from existence and absorb its material energy during casting for that reason.

Potions / Herbs

Most potions should be replaced by herbs, i.e. PotHealing becomes some healing grasses, or CLW becomes "Flowerfoil (Cure Light Wounds)". A massive list of herb names would add flavour to the game, as then there's more variety.

Herbs will require some special-casing to display, as there will be different kinds: compare "Flowerfoil (Cure Light Wounds)" with "healing grass" (plural "grasses"). Named herbs will be relatively easy: "You have 4 portions of Rosemerry (Cure Critical Wounds).". For the special case of "healing grasses" (which I rather like), we need things like "You have 3 portions of healing grass." and "You chew some healing grasses", rather than "You chew some Rosemerry".

More powerful potions, or things that cannot realistically be potions, are replaced by are replaced by "flasks (something)", i.e. "Flask (Detonations)". (Oil would then be replaced by "Flask (Oil)".) Essentially, anything that requires some magical infusion should be stored in a flask, rather than be a herb. Flasks can be displayed as "Flask (unknown)" for when their contents are unknown, perhaps with "unknown" optionally replaced by "flavour", like "putrid green", "sweet-smelling", or whatnot.

The character can eat any herbs, or drink anything from flasks. Some substances would be obvious (oil, for example), but some wouldn't. Under no circumstances should the game be balanced such that flasks can be assumed to be "bad" effects.

This nicely unifies things; each kind of flask can have various actions defined, i.e. one for player drinking, one for when thrown, and anything else felt neccessary.

Complication: I always assumed potions were kept in glass bottles (bad for adventuring). If they're kept in flasks instead, then it would be interesting to have different sizes of flask (from "vial", perhaps, to "large flask"), which can hold different amounts of liquid (measured in "measures" for simplicity). This could replace stacking of flasks, perhaps.

See also: [http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/8017/herb5.txt]

Drinks

Heals, temporary res. fear, conf (?), and after this, does x damage, and 50% chance of puking (salt water)

mushroom of gorging that sets your food status to massively full... "D:For when your eyes are bigger than your stomach..."

Combat gear

Weapons

Weapons shouldn't break.

Various knifes would be introduced to replace the current Dagger:

• Knife (Main Gauche), 2d3
• Knife (Misercorde), 1d5
• Knife (Stiletto), 2d2
• Ballock Knife: "Cruel-looking roughsteel blade with wooden hilt"

Mace

Steel, with a leather-bound grip

Partisan

A long thin wooden staff is connected to a thin blade with thicker lines down the middle

Warhammer

A long, metal handle covered partially in a leather grip, with a a spike sticking out from the top, a blunt head on one side, and a short, curved spike on the other

Claymore

Name from "Claideamhmor" (gaelic for great sword)

Nobbler

A long wooden shaft attached to a little metal head, which has small, blunt spikes attached; designed to break enemies' bones

Armour

Generally, a nice wide distribution following a (linear?) ac:weight ratio. Heavy armour should naturally restrict DEX, without needing a pval to say as much.

Armour should be able to be generated with more variable AC. Further, enchantments should be seperate from base AC: if acid (or combat) damages armour, it damages the physical material, not the magic, so it can be repaired. Critical hits from monsters might get damage armour occasionally.

Close Helmet

Completely encloses face and head

Armet

Encloses the head, but provides more ventillation

Burgonet

Provides protection for rear and sides of head; lighter and easier to breathe in than a close helmet

Sallet

Helmet with neck protector

Mail cloak

A cape made from chain mail (clinky!)

Basinet

Large helmet with side-pivoting visor; provides ventilation with small holes; can have a chain neck-guard.

Coral Helm

A helm made of coral (some affinity with water?)

Light sources

Keep lanterns and wooden torches, but also introduce a new kind of item: orbs. These appear only as ego-items and artifacts. We will, however, remove the Phial and other Tolkien-based artifacts.

Orbs

(bonuses given here are approximate)

of Living Flame (+2)

of Burning (+3)

CON bonus, fire resistances, permalight

of Frozen Winters (+2)

of Ice (+3)

DEX bonus, cold resistance, permalight

of Nether (-2)

reputation penalty, nether resistance, permalight, actives for something

of Necromancy (artifact) (-2)

reputation, strength penalty; nether, darkness resistance; hold life, permalight, telepathy

of Slaying (artifact) [+7, +16]

Slay evil, undead; Execute dragon; base resistances

The Bloodstone (artifact)

The bloodstone glows crimson continously, casting strange shadows in the dungeon as you walk.
Permalight; not sure?

Miscellanous or special items

Claws

Claws are mounted on a metal chain, worn around the neck. These are "special" artifacts, and probably quote powerful. Names: Claw of Destiny, Claw of the Cat Lord.