Trim pointless monster gear
- Code:
a - [D:14] an orc corpse (skeletalised by now)
b - [D:14] an orc corpse (skeletalised by now)
c - [D:11] a book of Maledictions
d - [D:11] a staircase to the Orcish Mines
e - [Orc:1] a chain mail
f - [Orc:1] a chain mail
g - [Orc:1] a club
h - [Orc:1] a club
i - [Orc:1] a club
j - [Orc:1] a club
k - [Orc:1] a dagger
l - [Orc:1] a dagger
m - [Orc:1] a dagger
n - [Orc:1] a dagger
o - [Orc:1] a dagger
p - [Orc:1] a dagger
q - [Orc:1] a dagger
r - [Orc:1] a dagger
s - [Orc:1] a dagger
t - [Orc:1] a dagger of venom
u - [Orc:1] a dagger of venom
v - [Orc:1] a dire flail
Dozens of +0 daggers and clubs and chain mails are not interesting. Every +0 item that generates after the first one is useless clutter, and the overwhelming majority of these items exist because they were given to monsters.
The only reason to generate all non-plain orcs, Vaults humans, etc. with body armour, and all draconians with cloaks, is theme - nobody cares about the gameplay difference between orc warriors with scale mail and orc warriors with chain mail. But it's not good theme. Why does the game consider every orc wizard and wight's plain robe to be notable enough to be an in-game item, but not that ogre's loincloth? Are all the monsters without explicit armour items naked? If so, we have to change Duvessa's tile again.
I shouldn't need to know what monsters are wearing unless it's something actually special, like uniques' signature gear.
It would be a great improvement to the interface if most geared monsters didn't start with gear, and just had appropriate innate AC/damage instead. (This would be a buff to those monsters that manage to find gear on the ground, of course, but not a significant one). If the gear is actually important for theme (uniques) or in a way that can't be trivially baked into the monster itself (reaching etc.) then it's justifiable, but otherwise it should really be removed.
Major offenders:
DE_MAGE_WEAPONS, DRAC_MAGE_WEAPONS, FAUN_WEAPONS - melee from the monsters that use these is irrelevant either way. They don't need weapons.
IRON_WEAPONS, GARGOYLE_WEAPONS - the difference between the weapons on these monsters is too small to be significant. Get rid of them and increase these monsters' base damage.
Gnoll shaman weapons, Spriggan druid quarterstaves, orc high priest weapons, non-classed draconian weapons, merfolk aquamancer rapiers, merfolk javelineer spears, orc sorcerer/kobold demonologist/necromancer/wizard daggers, blood saint weapons, imperial myrmidon weapons, melee weapons for primarily ranged monsters in general - Just give them a little more base damage instead. (Orc priest and orc wizard weapons are at least relevant on the first few dungeon levels.)
All armour and shields on non-uniques, except for bardings. Deep elves, orcs, Vaults humans, and draconians are especially bad (because there are tons of those monsters so they create tons of items), but the rest are just as pointless too. Just increase the monsters' innate AC and decrease their innate EV instead. Bardings are an exception, though they're so vanishingly rare that players wouldn't notice if they were removed as monster gear anyway.
If you want, you can compensate by increasing the ego chance and/or number of floor weapons and armour. I don't think the strategies of "dip into Orc for plate armour" and "dip into Elf for a buckler" are worth preserving.