Sunday, 16th December 2012, 16:10 by SchwaWarrior
How about this for a solution? The ability to manually equip your Mercenaries or Beogh Orcs. When adjacent to them it will show up as an Ability, 'Equip Allies', where you then select the adjacent ally to equip (if more than one present) followed by a weapon or piece of armour from your inventory that their type will use. If it's something like a Merfolk Impaler being offered a flail, or an Orc Wizard being offered plate armour, they'll refuse to accept it. Then when those allies die the items they drop were originally yours enemy, so no farming can be abused.
An even better idea, if this seems overpowered: make 'Equip Allies' exclusive to Okawaru and Beogh followers, as those are the two types of fighting gods for whom organized war tactics would fit the theme.
In any case, enemy Tengus ought to have multiple variations the way Orcs, Elves, Spriggans, Dwarves, etc. all do, and probably their own themed vault dungeon floors. They're one of the rarest enemies as-is and they're not even that flashy to make up for it. Perhaps a Swamp:5 ending with a fortified Tengu village? That'd be wicked cool.
--Schwa, your local muse forever and long-time High Elf fangirl ^_~
(also the master of Quadri-Birds)
TheProvocateur: I like how we're sprinting at a pile of greater mummies