Buff unrandarts

[evilmike]

how's this for a sword that buffs you:

the +5 double sword of This is a Cool Good Idea {+Permahaste +MUT +Curse}

[khalil]

how's this for a sword that buffs you:

the +5 double sword of This is a Cool Good Idea {+Permahaste +MUT +Curse}

I presume that's sarcasam?
The singing sword buffs would only activate when it screams, which may be to late to save you. Plus, bezerking would count as a buff it could inflict on you, which makes it a bit iffy for casters. Plus, Only one buff per combat in which it screams.
If that's still a bit OP, than add a cooldown period too.
Also, doesn't MUT only take effect if you put the item down? If so, why would I ever want to put that item down?

[mumra]

MUT affects you all you time. The unwield effect happens additionally to discourage swapping.

[dassem]

This is another thread where I suspect the responses depend on what role you think unrandarts should play. Are they for interest only? Only useful in specific situations? Or should they be the best in class?
Personally, I think "all of the above" - some items should fall into each category. Add interest first.

I love items with a dilemma. The new robe of Folly is fantastic. Archmagi and +5 Int, but -MR. So, I have a great DS with Firestorm, Icestorm, and Shatter online who might get paralyzed by every Lich he sees.
Same for some of the other items (Gong, Maxwells, Obsidian, ...).

I view some items as falling into a category almost like "cursed" - insanely powerful, but just with one slight flaw that might lead to your downfall. You should aim to make the "should I use this?" question as difficult as possible.

On a slightly different take for this topic: To prevent people seeing the same unrandarts too often, I might add a flag that prevents the items from turning up in Pan, Hells, or Zigs. So, one would either find them at a (potentially) useful point or not at all...

[Mankeli]

I love items with a dilemma. The new robe of Folly is fantastic. Archmagi and +5 Int, but -MR. So, I have a great DS with Firestorm, Icestorm, and Shatter online who might get paralyzed by every Lich he sees.
Same for some of the other items (Gong, Maxwells, Obsidian, ...).

With Shield of the Gong the dilemma is whether you wan't to ditch it into deep water or lava.

[khalil]

I went and tested the singing sword thing, and it seems to be about as op as it could get. I basicly had haste and regen active 100% of the time.
Making it work better: One buff/brand spell cast when it starts screaming, and it can't cast another until twice the amount of time the brand/buff will last for.
On the upside, it won't use brands/buffs that are bad for the wielder, like holy wrath for undead or vampiric for worshipers of good gods. The sword is inteligent, and I really can't think of a reason for it to try and screw over the PC.
If it does roll up a effect that would be bad for the wielder, I'm going to have it either not cast one at all and have the cooldown a quarter of what it would otherwise be, or just have it default to vorpal/str buff respectively, cuz those two are boring and mundane.
The idea I'm going for is while it can cast haste on you, and it can turn into a longsword of speed, it might just give a temporary three point buff to your int or turn into a posion weapon when you're fighting undead.
Also, pain and antimagic aren't going to appear at all, pain because you need high necromancy for it to be usefull and antimagic because that would bork casters.

I love items with a dilemma. The new robe of Folly is fantastic. Archmagi and +5 Int, but -MR. So, I have a great DS with Firestorm, Icestorm, and Shatter online who might get paralyzed by every Lich he sees.

Excuse me, I need to go update my copy of the code. The only way this could be more awesome is if I got the hat of pondering on the same charicter. Choices like that are the best part of any game.
Also, have you tried summoning/necromancy? Paralysis doesn't mean much when there's a wall of dragons/large abominations between you and the monsters.

[tazoz]

How about adding ignore target's armor to Knife of accuracy, it's a unique ability for a weapon, already coded in and would make knife extremely useful with enough slaying or as a stabbing weapon.

Some suggestions:

Ring of shadows: reduce sight by 1 (The change to Robe of Night was great)

Brooch of shielding: permanent condensation shield. (Instead of current abilities)

Dagger of chilling death: Chance to cast refrigeration, -2 fire res.

Salamander hide armor: immunity to fire clouds and walk of lava, -1 cold and remove rage.

Hellfire: arrows become fireballs.

[Kate]

Ring of Shadows could probably just be removed, there are a bunch of stealth-themed with decent effects already (robe of the Night, cloak of the Thief in particular) and duplicating effects from those is pretty boring.

Hellfire: arrows become fireballs.

I've been wanting to code this for ages but unfortunately throw.cc is a mess (even once I had it working, the messaging was totally wrong, although that is the case for various branded missiles a lot of time at present anyway). Patches welcome!

[khalil]

Hellfire: arrows become fireballs.

I've been wanting to code this for ages but unfortunately throw.cc is a mess (even once I had it working, the messaging was totally wrong, although that is the case for various branded missiles a lot of time at present anyway). Patches welcome!

Would a fire based version of exploding darts that does the damage of a fireball count?
I could probably do that.

[mumra]

Would a fire based version of exploding darts that does the damage of a fireball count?
I could probably do that.

That's kind of completely different to the proposal which was referring to the unrand crossbow "Hellfire"...

[khalil]

Would a fire based version of exploding darts that does the damage of a fireball count?
I could probably do that.

That's kind of completely different to the proposal which was referring to the unrand crossbow "Hellfire"...

I mean that's what effect the bolts will have. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

[mumra]

Would a fire based version of exploding darts that does the damage of a fireball count?
I could probably do that.

That's kind of completely different to the proposal which was referring to the unrand crossbow "Hellfire"...

I mean that's what effect the bolts will have. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

Right, mentioning exploding darts made that a bit confusing It seems conceptually easier to make the arrow just trigger the Fireball spell effect than trying to manipulate dart effects...

[Kate]

Well bolts are just beams so it's not hugely complicated to make the beam explode (as if it were explosion-branded, that's how I implemented it too) and change the flavour and so on. The difficulty IIRC is more in making the messaging make any sense at all (which it currently doesn't for ranged weapons in general but I'd rather not make that worse).

[khalil]

The difficulty IIRC is more in making the messaging make any sense at all (which it currently doesn't for ranged weapons in general but I'd rather not make that worse).

Can't we just nick the message from exploding darts? That one makes sense.

[mumra]

The difficulty IIRC is more in making the messaging make any sense at all (which it currently doesn't for ranged weapons in general but I'd rather not make that worse).

Can't we just nick the message from exploding darts? That one makes sense.

I think the problem isn't coming up with a message, it's in implementing it.

[khalil]

The difficulty IIRC is more in making the messaging make any sense at all (which it currently doesn't for ranged weapons in general but I'd rather not make that worse).

Can't we just nick the message from exploding darts? That one makes sense.

I think the problem isn't coming up with a message, it's in implementing it.

Yes, but the code for the dart's message on hit shoudn't be that hard to CTRL-C...

[njvack]

Yes, but the code for the dart's message on hit shoudn't be that hard to CTRL-C...

Patches welcome!

[khalil]

Yes, but the code for the dart's message on hit shoudn't be that hard to CTRL-C...

I hope this doesn't sound too mean, but it sounds like you both A. haven't paid much attention when using exploding ammunition, and B. haven't looked at this part of the code at all.

I've never really used them, just been hit by them.
EDIT
You were right about me not having looked at the code. Just went now and...
Wow.
I keep forgetting just how long DCSs has been in production, and how convoluted and incomprehensible code can get in that time.

[mumra]

I keep forgetting just how long DCSs has been in production, and how convoluted and incomprehensible code can get in that time.

So maybe next time an experienced Crawl developer like MarvinPA tells you part of the code is a mess, you might decide to trust him?

[khalil]

@Murma
Why would I want to do that? It makes way too much sense.
</joke>
Yes, I'll stop.