Robes

[UglySquirrell]

Was wondering if some standart robes could be put in the game, I've always found it strange that my gnome is wearing full plate by endgame. Would be nice if robes had some flavour to, hooded, chain, ethereal, of shadows, of the bat, archmage( resistance to blindness, or confusion) permanance are awesome but there the only reason I I'd robes at all. Just a thought during my coffee thanks.

[ehertlein]

Something like the way cloaks are broken up into Cloak, Fur Cloak, Elven Cloak, Etheral Cloak would be a great start.

[fizzix]

There was once a suggestion that every base item has at least one standart. I thought it was a good suggestion, and wouldn't mind one or two robes.

Making a standart for each DSM type though...ugh.

[Tobias]

There was once a suggestion that every base item has at least one standart. I thought it was a good suggestion, and wouldn't mind one or two robes.

Making a standart for each DSM type though...ugh.

Maybe there could be a empty template, which allows the generation of a randart in this position, even in a standart game possibly.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Druther not mix the two. I like the "history" of standarts, and I'd also be worried about funky power skewing...altho admittedly that's not likely, given that we're talking maybe 2 artifacts at most.

I say 2, cuz I'd suggest at least 2 standart robes. One would be an early artifact...say, +8 AC (might seem high, but remember, robes only start at AC 1), fire and cold resists, regen, and slow digestion. The other...this is based on Gandalf's robes *after* his battle with the Balrog.

Robes of the White Rider (1,+35)
+4 Int/Wis
immune to fear, confusion, hallucination
resist fire, cold, dark, nether, poison, disenchant
hold life, sustain int, regenerate
activate for Dispel Evil

[Napsterbater]

Robes of the White Rider (1,+35)
+4 Int/Wis
immune to fear, confusion, hallucination
resist fire, cold, dark, nether, poison, disenchant
hold life, sustain int, regenerate
activate for Dispel Evil

That is one godly robe!

[bulian]

There was once a suggestion that every base item has at least one standart. I thought it was a good suggestion, and wouldn't mind one or two robes.

I also think this is a good suggestion.

Items which I believe do not have a standart version:

weapons:
tulwar
lead filled mace
maul
war hammer
awl pike
scythe of slicing
sling
shovel
all ammo

armor:
leather sandals
iron shod boots
ethereal slippers

iron crown

studded leather armor
metal scale mail
bar chain mail
partial plate armor
metal lamellar armor
ribbed plate mail

fur cloak

mithril gauntlets
alchemist's gloves

The other option instead of creating a whole bunch of new standarts is to eliminate some redundant base items. In particular, only a small difference exists between the following armors:
metal scale mail
bar chain mail
partial plate armor
metal lamellar armor
ribbed plate mail

10 bonus points to whoever can list the base AC of each without looking at the spoilers.

[Derakon]

In the old days, metal scale was 15, bar chain was 18, partial plate was 22, metal lamellar was 23, and ribbed plate was 28. Now all of those are bigger, and I don't know the multiplier that was used.

Anyway, we have too many artifacts already IMO.

[Nomad]

I think the main problem with the standart set is that it's almost fifty percent weapons, so you've got about 65 possible weapon arts competing for a single wield slot, compared to only six or seven possibilities in some other slots. I'd be in favour of having a big cull of the existing standart weapons and adding in a few more artefact robes, boots, cloaks, shields, etc.

[Timo Pietilä]

I think the main problem with the standart set is that it's almost fifty percent weapons, so you've got about 65 possible weapon arts competing for a single wield slot, compared to only six or seven possibilities in some other slots. I'd be in favour of having a big cull of the existing standart weapons and adding in a few more artefact robes, boots, cloaks, shields, etc.

OTOH weapon slot is for single-purpose use, so there are few few competing items for that slot at any time, while for armors it is really hard to choose between what combination of features to use. Because of that it doesn't matter if there are more weapons, you discard majority of them anyway and keep only the few interesting ones.

For example if you find Aule, there are very few weapons that can compete with that, so you discard them, but OTOH choosing between Thalkettoth and Caspanion (even that they are completely different) is not a easy choice if you can get the resist and CON of Caspanion elsewhere. Then it comes to "do I choose speed, lightness & rShard over bit better AC and other amulet than this Elessar?".

Weapon is for single use, armors are game of combinations. Not all combinations should be possible in any game.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

I agree with Nomad; there's far too many weapons. And given the extensive set of weapon egos, there's a pretty substantial overlap with the better ego types.

I also agree with Derakon's implied objection to the suggestion that "every base type needs a standart." Before I'd support that, I'd push for a *massive* streamlining on the base types...particularly weapons and armor. For weapons, we've got:

light: dagger, main gauche, rapier, short sword, spear, trident; whip

medium: cutlass, tulwar, scimitar, long sword, broad sword, bastard sword, katana, blade of chaos, awl-pike, halberd, pike, beaked axe, broad axe, battle axe, glaive, lucerne hammer; ball and chain, morning star, flail, mace, lead-filled mace, quarterstaff, war hammer, great hammer

heavy: zweihander, executioner's sword, lochaber axe, scythe, lance, scythe of slicing; 2h great flail, maul, mace of disruption

Light == less than 10 pounds; heavy == 20 or more pounds. The weapons after the ";" are the priest weapons. The most obvious place to start is in that huge group of medium weapons...16 edged, 8 non-edged. Knock out about 9 edged and shift the BoC to the Heavy group (where its damage rating belongs), and maybe 3 non-edged. With the heavy weapons, I'd strike lance instantly; it's NOT an infantry weapon, and is totally useless unmounted. I'd probably pull executioner's sword and scythe, too.

Still...even pulling 20, we'd still have 20 types. There's no compelling reason to have an artifact for each type...ESPECIALLY since artifacts can have their own unique damage dice, so we can build higher-damage daggers (like 3d4). To me, that assertion's DroneThink. We have certain clear-cut artifacts...Sting, Glamdring, Orcrist, Ringil, Bard's bow, etc. that are directly referenced in Papa Tolkien, and others that are clear from MERP. We start there. After that, tho...I'd rather see a reasonable, well-considered mix, based on depth and weight. I can, for example, think of only 2 light weapons that are fairly good for, say, the last 40 levels: spear of Orome, trident of wrath. Rather than being compelled to follow the rigid DroneThink of making "one of each"...build the set. If we find 2 or 3 daggers is a better idea than a rapier, fine.

One of the reasons why I like the notion of artifact robes is, this slot has *the most* variability; nothing else comes close. That gives a heckuva lot of freedom to create "godly" artifacts...but look at what you're going to be finding on DL 80 or so, which was the depth I'd had in mind.

[UglySquirrell]

Really like the ideas so far .
The hall exploded with light, and a lone figure with red robes stood at the end.

Each Maiar wizard had robes of a charecteristic colour. White for Saruman, grey for Gandalf, brown for Radagast, and seablue for Alatar, and Pallando.
Taken from Wikipedia.
I know the timeliness are probably off, but it seems like robes were the garb of choice with powerful wizards. There's also the Nazgul, robed figures on horseback.

[Derakon]

The main problem I have here is that the maiar are legendary figures, which implies that their robes should be suitably powerful...which in turn means that we're making the game easier again, by making gear decisions easier.

This is part of what I meant by there being too many artifacts. I guess the real problem isn't the number of entries in artifact.txt, but rather the number of artifacts found in any given game. We can have gobs of artifacts, so long as a) they're balanced, and b) you only find, oh, 20 or 30 in any given game.

[UglySquirrell]

Maybe, instead of artifacts you could remove the resistance and elvenkind. Make them something like White robes of Serenity (confusion, blindness protection, random resist) or Black robes of the Nazgul (nether, chaos resistant, aggravates creatures, attack bonus and or random resist). This would keep them usefully, but not overpowered.

[Timo Pietilä]

This is part of what I meant by there being too many artifacts. I guess the real problem isn't the number of entries in artifact.txt, but rather the number of artifacts found in any given game. We can have gobs of artifacts, so long as a) they're balanced, and b) you only find, oh, 20 or 30 in any given game.

Problem with gobs of artifacts is that they tend to turn out boring grey mass. Every artifact should be clearly distinguishable from each other (unless there is a set of items, like Paur* and *thanc).

It should never be "oh, I found YAArtifact, lets see if it is any good....I think I saw this one in my last game, but it had different name"