Idea: copying spells to equipment items

[Therem Harth]

Yes, this is one of those silly ideas pioneered by ToME 2. But I still think it would be interesting to have in V, or a similar single-dungion variant.

In T2, some equippable items (mostly ego or artifact) have the SPELL_CONTAIN flag. You can copy a spell onto such an item; chuck the spellbook; and cast it from the item instead, if said item is wielded.

So you can have stuff like a Mage Staff [Manathrust], or a Dwarven Lantern of the Magi [Sense Monsters], etc.

The question in my mind is, what subset of items could handle this, in a way that's not totally unbalanced? It'd be nice to have e.g. gauntlets of Orb of Draining; but I don't think casters should be able to just throw out all their books.

Then again, maybe they should? It'd be interesting to have e.g. a "gimmick rogue", with a limited subset of spells always at the ready.

...

Alternatively, a variant idea: spells cannot be cast from books, and must be transcribed to an appropriate item to be usable.

And maybe furthermore: once an item has a spell on it, you can't change or remove the spell.

Hmm. I will have to do some code diving.

[Estie]

In tome2, I very rarely used that feature. Maybe I´d copy a spell from a rare book like vision to an amulet and store at home, so if my book burned up I could still have the spell while shopping for a new book. But basically, a new, more complicated method to store spells that doesnt let you get rid of at least one book is pointless ?

Dont get me wrong, I like the idea, I just think it has to offer some kind of advantage to not be pointless, and saving an inventory slot would be the natural one.

[Therem Harth]

@Estie

Freeing inventory slots was still the main idea.

I think you're right about the second idea though - too restrictive, and more thematic/flavorful than actually useful.

[Derakon]

The problem with freeing inventory slots is that you had to use equipment slots to do so. There were very few items that were worth wearing on their own and could have spells inscribed into them.