svn branch

[Pete Mack]

Why are you starting warriors with a sword at all? I'd give them a Rapier, which should give two or three blows. The perfect weapon for a bar-room brawler setting out on an adventure.

[Derakon]

Er, rapiers are swords...

[Twilight]

Why are you starting warriors with a sword at all? I'd give them a Rapier, which should give two or three blows. The perfect weapon for a bar-room brawler setting out on an adventure.

Why not remove most of the roleplaying starting weapons by giving daggers to all classes, except for priests (mace?). This because the overwhelming majority (I believe) of all non-newbie Angband games starts with players selling their starting weapon if it's not light enough for more blows.

This removes tedium, albeit slight, from the game and is this not a dev goal?

[Pete Mack]

Er, rapiers are swords...

Right. What I meant was: why not start them with a weapon they can actually use? I thought of dagger, too, but that is a little too far from roleplay.
And for many warriors, Rapier is the best starting weapon (if they can't quite get 4 blows with a dagger.)

[PowerDiver]

Right. What I meant was: why not start them with a weapon they can actually use? I thought of dagger, too, but that is a little too far from roleplay.
And for many warriors, Rapier is the best starting weapon (if they can't quite get 4 blows with a dagger.)

I say start everyone with a whip. Then when some monster drops a dagger, it is an upgrade. Those who insist on starting with a better weapon can prioritize their starting money that way.

[Nick]

I say start everyone with a whip. Then when some monster drops a dagger, it is an upgrade. Those who insist on starting with a better weapon can prioritize their starting money that way.

When I was a lad, we started with a plastic spoon. And we were grateful.

[Pete Mack]

Starting equipment is one place where I think it's best to be newb-friendly.
Nevertheless, I see your point. Maybe we need to brink back broken daggers to make Nick happy.

[Twilight]

I say start everyone with a whip. Then when some monster drops a dagger, it is an upgrade. Those who insist on starting with a better weapon can prioritize their starting money that way.

It's of course a better game design to make more upgrades available instead of starting with a dagger. This as well as the priest issue, so I like this.

I must have thought oldschool when whips had a bigger die ... or nah I admit just threw out dagger as the basic weapon without much thought.

When I was a lad, we started with a plastic spoon. And we were grateful.

You were lucky! When I was young we used to dream of starting with a plastic spoon. We had to use a toothpick and considered ourselves fortunate!

[Derakon]

You were lucky! When I was young we used to dream of starting with a plastic spoon. We had to use a toothpick and considered ourselves fortunate!

I'd take 1d2-10 piercing damage over 1d3-6 subdual damage any day.

*ducks*

[ewert]

Well honestly, the starting equipment should be so that you can just press > and get going for most race/class combinations. Rapier, hard leather and wicker shield or something like that to still have a semblance of "roleplay" elements. Basic spellbook and dagger or mace. Dagger, leather and cloak for rogues. Shortbow some arrows and dagger for rangers, etc. You could make them {inherited} and not have the shopkeepers pay anything for them ... (except spellbook so it stacks without silly flags).

Then for all classes maybe scroll of phase door, 1 WoR, potion of CLW...

[Zyphyr]

When I was a lad, we started with a plastic spoon. And we were grateful.

Anything less than a Spork is simply unacceptable.

[AnonymousHero]

When I was a lad, we started with a plastic spoon. And we were grateful.

(all with an appropriate Yorkshire accent, obviously.)

Oh, we used to dream of spoons! All we had was toothpicks...

(and so and so forth...)

[Derakon]

I just finished clearing a red dragon pit at 3100' (which included 9 Great Hell Wyrms). I got 11 randarts (plus one from an ancient white dragon that dropped by while I was cleaning up), a gold DSM of permanence (resistance to confusion! Finally), a Rod of Healing, innumerable un-ID'd ego items, and two stat gain potions.

Whatever happened to the drop tables, they're way more generous than they should be.

EDIT: "When activated, it magically renders you well-fed, curing any gastrointestinal problems." Okay, who's responsible for that one?

[ewert]

Lol 11 randarts? ... Funky. Since the ego items will most likely be in the drop good/great category, that ought to be unchanged. The rod and stat gain pots are probably due to changes in item distribution that they were more likely to drop. But 11 randarts? I have a feeling something funky is going on with randarts, I'm not having the same feeling of getting tons of artifacts in my standart game now ...

[Magnate]

Lol 11 randarts? ... Funky. Since the ego items will most likely be in the drop good/great category, that ought to be unchanged. The rod and stat gain pots are probably due to changes in item distribution that they were more likely to drop. But 11 randarts? I have a feeling something funky is going on with randarts, I'm not having the same feeling of getting tons of artifacts in my standart game now ...

Hmmm, that'll teach me to react too quickly to feedback here. A few people noted that randarts were less common than standarts, so I increased the alloc_prob on the lower two categories of randarts - and lo, now you are all drowning in them. Bother.