Spellbook proposal

[skydyr]

Rather than generating all spellbooks for all classes and having most of them turn out to be junk (particularly with no selling), what if the frequency of spellbooks were turned down a bit but any time a spellbook is generated it is of the right class?

The only effect I can think of would be that some useless high level feelings would be more accurate, and you wouldn't have to re-squelch books on a regular basis because you switched classes.

[Pete Mack]

@skydyr-
Off-brand books are already made less frequent.

[Nick]

When the new classes were introduced there was some consideration to just not generating useless spellbooks. But there were a few things against it:

• If a new player started as a warrior, they wouldn't even know spellbooks existed
• Having them drop kind of advertises for the other classes, or at least reminds you they exist
• There's a long tradition of mages finding the deepest priest spellbook on DL5 that we didn't want to break

[DrWho42]

when you think about it, a dictionary could be a "spell book"

[Selkie]

For me the agony of exploring a level 9 feeling level only to find a top tier spell book you can't even read or sell is part of the rich and bitter tapestry of Angband life

[emar]

When the new classes were introduced there was some consideration to just not generating useless spellbooks. But there were a few things against it:

• If a new player started as a warrior, they wouldn't even know spellbooks existed
• Having them drop kind of advertises for the other classes, or at least reminds you they exist
• There's a long tradition of mages finding the deepest priest spellbook on DL5 that we didn't want to break

Would it be possible to make level feeling or value contingent on the item's applicability to the class rather than outright not generating them?

Going even further, I like the idea of having level feelings be customizable by the player in some regard--something as simple as having a "preferred" weapon type that weights level feeling up to something complex as the item squelcher (or even just allowing ignored item types to not factor into level feeling at all).

[skydyr]

When the new classes were introduced there was some consideration to just not generating useless spellbooks. But there were a few things against it:

• If a new player started as a warrior, they wouldn't even know spellbooks existed
• Having them drop kind of advertises for the other classes, or at least reminds you they exist
• There's a long tradition of mages finding the deepest priest spellbook on DL5 that we didn't want to break

At least regarding the last, there's also a long history of removing useless objects from the game. It's been probably 20 years or more since skulls and pottery and other trash was removed, and I don't see these books as much different, particularly as there are more of them than before. I don't see how adding a potentially frustrating event that doesn't improve the gameplay helps the game. We could just as well decide to add or subtract a random factor from the level feeling, so that a level that's a 5 could be sensed as anything from, say 8-2 depending on the roll, but I don't know that it would make the game better.

I'll concede the first point, though I actually think warriors make for a poor class for beginners.

For the second, there are already reminders whenever you start a new game and in the different classes of human that are found throughout the game (witches, rogues, paladins, etc.)

[archolewa]

At least regarding the last, there's also a long history of removing useless objects from the game. It's been probably 20 years or more since skulls and pottery and other trash was removed, and I don't see these books as much different, particularly as there are more of them than before. I don't see how adding a potentially frustrating event that doesn't improve the gameplay helps the game. We could just as well decide to add or subtract a random factor from the level feeling, so that a level that's a 5 could be sensed as anything from, say 8-2 depending on the roll, but I don't know that it would make the game better.

On the other hand, if you don't generate junk, you lose a lot of the exhilarating rush of randomly generating gear. After all the exact same argument could be applied to mundane weapons (and armor, yeah sure a [1,0] hat is better than nothing on D1, but only marginally so). Or to Helms of Piety for anybody but Priests and Paladins. Or crappy artifacts.

If you can't be disappointed, you can't be thrilled either.

As an aside, I think all of this makes for a stronger argument for the removal of level feelings than it does unusable spellbooks (or at least turning level feelings off by default). I frankly don't think they contribute anything to the game, they encourage excessively scummy behavior, and they create frustrations like this. I don't use level feelings, and finding some other class' book never bothers me, likely because I never see that glorious "9" to get excited about.

[Raerick]

It is annoying to find a good spell book that you can't use, but that is all. Just a minor annoyance.

As far as level feeling; I could take or leave it concerning treasure as it currently is. I would however suggest an alternative should it be removed. Treasure Detection could instead give a vague feeling along with its current pinpointing of object locations.

[archolewa]

Treasure Detection could instead give a vague feeling along with its current pinpointing of object locations.

I don't really like the idea of feelings (after all, sometimes what you REALLY need is a stack of CCW, and level feelings can't really help with that). However, I'd be down with a very vague item category, maybe something like:

1. Equippable
2. Invokable
3. Consumable
4. Spellbook

Then if you really need better equipment, you can prioritize the equippable stuff. If you really need consumables, you can prioritize the consumables. So more useful than just stars, but also nowhere near as useful as the Rogue's unique spell.

[Raerick]

I don't really like the idea of feelings (after all, sometimes what you REALLY need is a stack of CCW, and level feelings can't really help with that). However, I'd be down with a very vague item category, maybe something like:

1. Equippable
2. Invokable
3. Consumable
4. Spellbook

Then if you really need better equipment, you can prioritize the equippable stuff. If you really need consumables, you can prioritize the consumables. So more useful than just stars, but also nowhere near as useful as the Rogue's unique spell.

I think blatantly listing item categories would seem a little too meta. Almost like a shopping mall directory.

I was just thinking that when you use treasure detection it would print a line after 'You sense the presence of objects' with something like 'There was a strong reaction!' to indicate that one of the detected objects was good for the depth. Whether it is useful to you or not such as the case with spellbooks wouldn't be known. The weaker treasure detection isn't a level wide thing, so you would have a pretty narrow search area. You wouldn't be wasting time scrubbing an entire DL in hopes for that good item only to find out that it wasn't worth it. It puts things more in the hands of the player, but not unnecessarily so.

[Grotug]

I don't really like the idea of feelings (after all, sometimes what you REALLY need is a stack of CCW, and level feelings can't really help with that). However, I'd be down with a very vague item category, maybe something like:

1. Equippable
2. Invokable
3. Consumable
4. Spellbook

Then if you really need better equipment, you can prioritize the equippable stuff. If you really need consumables, you can prioritize the consumables. So more useful than just stars, but also nowhere near as useful as the Rogue's unique spell.

Your idea gives me the idea to expand level feelings by breaking them down into categories; as well as introduce a new character stat: item intuition; and a new amulet type: amulet of item perception <+X> (or amulet of intuition). This stat would occupy the character attribute space in much the same way that Searching, Infravision and Stealth currently do: ie. as a numerical stat that is affected by equipment and innate racial attributes but not part of the 5 core stats affected by stat potions).

The higher @'s item intuition stat the more info @ would get about the types of treasure on the level and the sooner @ would get these treasure feelings. So an @ with really good item intuition would get feelings for different treasure categories:

[B][COLOR="Red"]spell books[/COLOR][/B] 1-9
[B][COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]armors[/COLOR][/B] (the general category of AC protecting items
including cloaks and robes, but not amulets, rings, lights or weapons)
[B][COLOR="DarkOrange"]trinkets[/COLOR][/B] (amulets, rings and lights) 1-9
[B][COLOR="LightBlue"]weapons[/COLOR][/B] 1-9
[B][COLOR="Green"]devices[/COLOR][/B] (wands, rods and staves) 1-9
[B][COLOR="LemonChiffon"]Single use items[/COLOR][/B] (Potions and scrolls) 1-9

or maybe the categories should be broken down by the benefit type, rather than the item type:

Spell book
Armor Class (AC)
Resistances/Immunities
Speed
Int
Wis
Body (Str, Dex, Con)
Stealth
Item Intuition
Magical Item Activation

Major healing, annihilation, banishment and TO activations would trigger high feelings, but open wounds, magic missile and confuse monster activations wouldn't.

Searching, Infravision, light and trap abilities wouldn't get a category due to their minimal impact on treasure feelings generally.

Honestly I'm not sure which category type would be better. The latter one is kind of interesting because you could get hints as to what item it might be on the level. For instance, there might be a really powerful dragon armor on the level if your maxed out item perception let you know that the categories of AC, Resistance, Activation had high feelings.

If you were a mage looking for wands of annihilation levels with high activation but not much else might have them.

Half Trolls would be woefully deficient in item intuition, but hobbits would have an abundance of it.

Just to be clear, even if you were a level 50 Hobbit Rogue, it would still be really hard to max your item intuition stat such that you perceive all 6 item categories every single level. Sure it might be possible to get your item intuition stat that high, but I imagine it would be very difficult to achieve and require lots of sacrifices of other important stats in your equipment to do so. You could also ensure that the randart code would be hard pressed to put lots of stealth and lots of item intuition onto a single object as that might be a rather OP combination, but maybe one of the rare standart cloaks could get it (Luthien?) or maybe "Trickery could lose speed and gain item intuition and one of the Standart amulets that ought to compete better with "Trickery could gain some speed. Or leave Trickery alone and give one of the Standart amulets the addition of item intuition stat to make it compete better with "Trickery.

Also, maybe the Arkenstone of Thrain could get a really good item intuition stat bonus, but lose hold life.

[fph]

This change would encourage item swapping, which does not look like a fun mechanic to me.