The Tavern

I think it'd be convenience to be able to memorize spells from spellbooks on the floor.

That's...inconsistent. In order to memorize a spell character must read a part of a whole book. So I think he would hold that book in the hands - not laying on the dungeon floor, turning pages =)

Dunno. I have an awful hard time reading from a book open at my feet. And that's assuming spellbooks are textbook size- it'll be harder if they're the size of paperback novels. ...maybe it would work for the short races? XD

The real question though, is what does this add to the game? You save, what, one turn picking the book up, and one dropping. As a tradeoff, when you hit M above your book stash, you have to scroll through a thousand spells to find the one you want. I don't really see the advantage.

Here's how a high-level DEWz (many spellbooks, low strength) might memorize a new spell.
(1) drop most of your stuff so you have room to pick up spellbooks.
(2) pick up spellbooks.
(3) memorize
(4) drop spellbooks.
(5) pick up stuff.

If spells could be memorized from the spellbooks on the floor, the steps would be:
(1) memorize

Not a huge savings, but it would be convenient.

Don't get me started on realism! You're standing over a stack of books. Yet, the only books you can read are those in your imaginary backpack? I think it would be easier to read book on the ground in front of me than to take a book out of my backpack, flip through it, put it back, take another book out, etc, and keep doing so until I find the book with the spell I want to memorize. I might instead take all of the books out of my backpack, put them on the floor, and check them out.

If you want to check out a "realistic" inventory management system, dig up the old RL "Omega". It's buggy as all get-out, but the inventory system has an "up in the air" slot and it take longer to look deeper into your backpack. It's also a big pain.

I'm having a really hard time seeing any even slight downside so I'll add it to the Wiki unless I hear otherwise.

Reading scrolls and drinking potions off the floor would also be convenient but could slightly affect game play. The only example I can think of it mummies, but their potion decaying curse needs work anyway.

the decay curse is gone in trunk

but you indeed forgot potion destruction by cold

MrMisterMonkey wrote:the decay curse is gone in trunk

but you indeed forgot potion destruction by cold

Scrolls and potions which are on the floor already have a chance to be destroyed if you cast cold/fire over or past them. I did it to a heal wounds potion between myself and an enemy the other night, with throw frost.

I'd really, really love to be able to M while standing on books though, they're just so goddamn heavy and finding spells can already be a chore once you've got 6-10+ books.

Edit: if someone still wants a reason this is a potential positive change:

Major design goals

* gameplay supporting painless interface and newbie support

I have nothing against the feature request... I just don't understand the complaints I'm hearing.

Why do you ever need to carry multiple books of significant weight, expect perhaps bringing them back to your stash? You only need one book to memorize a spell, and unless you're forgetting tons of spells for a rebuild, it's not like you ever have the points needed to memorize very many at a time.

Are people picking up huge stacks of books because they don't know which one houses the spell you want? You can find specific spells in your stash with ctrl F, which tells you which books they're in, and if you mouse over books on the ground while standing over them the you're told it's contents. You don't have to pick 'em up and paw through them manually.

minmay wrote:People carry around spellbooks because you can't tell what your success rate with a spell will be outside of the memorize screen.

That should probably change.

You can see spell success if you search for a book then examine it. I would like to be able to see it with ?/S too though, yeah.

smock wrote:I think it'd be convenience to be able to memorize spells from spellbooks on the floor.

I agree. I think this is would be a good improvement to the interface. Standing on a pile of books and pressing M seems very convenient to me.

Do we want to keep the idea that picking up books is necessary to identify them?

I definitely don't want identification from afar. Of course, memorising over the book would not do that.

mageykun wrote:You only need one book to memorize a spell, and unless you're forgetting tons of spells for a rebuild, it's not like you ever have the points needed to memorize very many at a time.

Are people picking up huge stacks of books because they don't know which one houses the spell you want? You can find specific spells in your stash with ctrl F, which tells you which books they're in, and if you mouse over books on the ground while standing over them the you're told it's contents. You don't have to pick 'em up and paw through them manually.

That's exactly what I do: when want to memorize a spell (maybe I'm not sure which one or maybe I don't recall which book it's in -- is Sublimation in Unlife or in Death?) I pick up all my books. It sounds like you have a better system. I knew about ctrl-F but I just never used it to find spells in my stash, only to search for spells in book in stores.

dpeg wrote:Do we want to keep the idea that picking up books is necessary to identify them?

I definitely don't want identification from afar. Of course, memorising over the book would not do that.

I guess. We just (M)emorise from books in inventory and known ones on the floor.

galehar wrote:
dpeg wrote:Do we want to keep the idea that picking up books is necessary to identify them?

I definitely don't want identification from afar. Of course, memorising over the book would not do that.

I guess. We just (M)emorise from books in inventory and known ones on the floor.

After thinking more about it, I realise why it is a very good question. If we want to be consistent, then if you can memorise from a book on the floor, it means you can read from it. And reading from a book is enough to id it. But as read-iding a book is a free action then it means you might as well read-id any book you step over before considering if you want to pick them up. Then you might as well auto-id books as soon as you step on them. But that would be a bit weird and not really useful.
So I say we keep the idea that picking up books is necessary to identify them, even if it means a minor inconsistency (you can read a book from the floor only if it is identified).

galehar wrote:Then you might as well auto-id books as soon as you step on them. But that would be a bit weird and not really useful.

And a piety killer for Troggies using auto-explore, or at least it negates the piety bonus for burning unidentified books. Then again, it's a rare Troggie who really needs the extra piety from burning books.

mageykun wrote:Are people picking up huge stacks of books because they don't know which one houses the spell you want? You can find specific spells in your stash with ctrl F, which tells you which books they're in, and if you mouse over books on the ground while standing over them the you're told it's contents. You don't have to pick 'em up and paw through them manually.

It's kind of touchy to mouseOver a book on CAO. The things that seem unnecessary because you play tiles and have other UI improvements available are not necessarily suggested in order to only help players who utilize tiles online.

The Tavern

Memorizing from spellbooks on the floor

Memorizing from spellbooks on the floor

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