Experiences with Frog-knows

[Malak Darkhunter]

Clubs weigh about 1 lb I´d think, at most 2. 4 lbs is what a troll might use. The ridiculous weights have been adressed before, but in this game the only thing that really matters is carrying capacity (and making that more realistic probably wouldnt add much quality to the game if any) or attacks/round factor, for which only relative weights matter.

That being said, dividing all weights by, say, 4 might be a good idea; adjusting the code so the rules dont change shouldnt be hard.

I personally think that weapons should be more competitive to one another...str/dex and number of blows are all factored into the weapon weight and also the damage dice. I feel like some weapons get the shaft are about useless imo...lucerne hammers and tulwars being a few...heavy weight and low damage output making them undesireable weapons. And also their isn't even an artifact that is a tulwar..so they get the shaft.....but all in all they have to be balanced, heavier weapons shouldn't get as many blows as lighter weapons in example,
But I think adjusting damage dice and making some weapons more "similar" to other weapons to make them more competitive is entirely possible, and is something I have tweaked with from time to time.

[taptap]

Not sure if you misread my (misleading) puctuation above; 1 lb, at most 2 (end of sentence). Four lb is what a troll might use (just for clarification).

I just say lead-filled mace.

[Estie]

2.4lbs is a light-weighted cricket bat. If that helps.

Not sure if you misread my (misleading) puctuation above; 1 lb, at most 2 (end of sentence). Four lb is what a troll might use (just for clarification).

The only clubs I know of that were used in warfare were those by the germanic tribes fighting roman legions around 0 BC. They were short and light, bent things more akin to a piece of wiry root than a baseball bat. Unless I am mistaken, their elastic property means that the end that hits is accellerated on impact, much like a whip.

I never read or heard anything about their weight but from memory of a video of people re-enacting germanic life they looked surprisingly light.

My impression is that the ideal weight for a onehanded weapon is about 2 lbs. If the material is soft bronze, make a solid shortsword, if its hard steel, make a slender longsword, if you fight armored men, make a club with penetrating metal head (warhammer), but the weight remains more or less the same. The reason for this is, I suppose, that speed is of the essence.

The only time when it gets heavier is when 2 handed weapons get used against heavily armored enemies where speed is sacrificed for weight: polearms, twohanded swords, and those should weigh something like 5 lbs, not 20.

http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_spot_poleaxe.html lists some polearms, museum pieces, with weights ranging from ~3 to ~7 pounds.

[MattB]

Clubs weigh about 1 lb I´d think, at most 2. 4 lbs is what a troll might use. The ridiculous weights have been adressed before, but in this game the only thing that really matters is carrying capacity (and making that more realistic probably wouldnt add much quality to the game if any) or attacks/round factor, for which only relative weights matter.

That being said, dividing all weights by, say, 4 might be a good idea; adjusting the code so the rules dont change shouldnt be hard.

2.4lbs is a light-weighted cricket bat. If that helps.

[Estie]

Clubs weigh about 1 lb I´d think, at most 2. 4 lbs is what a troll might use. The ridiculous weights have been adressed before, but in this game the only thing that really matters is carrying capacity (and making that more realistic probably wouldnt add much quality to the game if any) or attacks/round factor, for which only relative weights matter.

That being said, dividing all weights by, say, 4 might be a good idea; adjusting the code so the rules dont change shouldnt be hard.

[MattB]

use them for melee instead.

Why not?

.

[Carnivean]

I also found parts of this thread interesting. Thanks for the necromancy Matt.

Junk items as atmosphere or indicators of monster activity would be good to have in the game. The current squelch mechanism makes it pointless to add them in as items though. I'd see one, squelch it, and never see them again. Perhaps there needs to be a term window that shows descriptions of things that you see?

You see:
piles of skeletons
broken armor, rent by claws
fresh corpses, charred
burnt tapestries on the wall

Meaning something like a dragon has a history of being here, and recently too.

My suggestion would be to make wands and staves much heavier, so that the real value of stacks of rods is their lower weight. Currently wands are 1lb, staves are 5lb and rods are 1.5lb. I'd put wands up to 4lb and staves up to 8lb and see how it played.

Sangband prevents staves stacking, but also allows them to take two fire or acid baths before being destroyed ("damaged" and "badly damaged"). This is another possibility.

Reading this section, I was struck by the fact that staves are one size fits all. The are all wooden, with the same chance of destruction on recharge. Why aren't there metal staves (that resist fire), and are unlikely to combust on recharge (combustion due to too much magic of course...)? Metal staves would weigh much more than wooden ones, so you'd be penalised for carrying too many of them, and carrying only a few means disenchantment would be more of a threat. Creating a metal staff would obviously be more taxing (as metal is less innately magic than metal or something) so they would be rarer.

Then you could you find mithril staves. Almost indestructible, lighter than even wooden staves, but rarer even than mithril armour.

I'd like to see the ability to recharge staves with different spells or powers at a cost. You have this object (a staff) that you've imbued with the power to hold a magic. Why wouldn't it be able to hold a different spell? Actually I can think of reasons, but that doesn't preclude the possibility. Find a metal staff of confuse monster, drain it of charges, use x game mechanism to imbue a new power of, say, speed. The mechanism could be a shop (different spells have different costs) or a spell, or a rarely found scroll.

Also a quick note on the weights. Wands of almost every depiction are oversized pencils, so I have no idea how a weight of even 1lb could be justified. 4lbs would be ludicrous. Might as well call them clubs at that point, as use them for melee instead.

[MattB]

Just trawling and I came across this 3 year old post.
I thought it had great ideas and should be reconsidered.
I'd vote for all of them - skeletons, coffins and statues.

I'd prefer flavour junk to be in the shape of more 'dungeon furniture' like chests; things that might have traps on, sometimes turn out to be monsters, or could be smashed or opened to reveal monsters/items. Have skeletons lying around that sometimes come to life if you step too near them, coffins that can be opened and might contain an undead or a treasure, statues that you can sometimes smash to get treasure and other times turn out to be disguised golems, etc.

[Timo Pietilä]

Found jelly pit with potion and some scroll in it. I was sure it wasn't jelly pit until I opened the door (because there were items inside).

It seems that pits lost their capability to contain items at some point (early) in development only to get that back in very late versions.

[Timo Pietilä]

Not that the *thancs needed any help in that regard...

Not that much. Now they are almost Sting-rivaling weapons. Way better than most other low level artifacts, and definitely better than almost all low-level egos. You need to get HA or Westernesse and actually need the WIS or the STR/DEX/CON bonuses before those beat *thancs.

My current char would much more like to have a 3.3 *thanc than F-K Glamdring.

[Derakon]

Not that the *thancs needed any help in that regard...

[Timo Pietilä]

To hit, and damage bonuses were a lot smaller too. Found the short sword "Giletter" its Dagmor in the newer versions I think (+4,+7) Dagmor is (+13,+11) also found the quarterstt "Eriril" (+5,+5) now its (+13,+15) not sure why damage was increased so much, did monster hp get a large boost since the older versions?

No, those were supposed to make low-level artifacts more interesting. Useless to useful.

[UglySquirrell]

To hit, and damage bonuses were a lot smaller too. Found the short sword "Giletter" its Dagmor in the newer versions I think (+4,+7) Dagmor is (+13,+11) also found the quarterstt "Eriril" (+5,+5) now its (+13,+15) not sure why damage was increased so much, did monster hp get a large boost since the older versions?

[Timo Pietilä]

Sound not only stuns but causes confusion to movements. This really hurts. Nexus hounds appear sooner, or it feels like it. I just got my STR swapped with DEX. All items with bonuses seem to have small bonus up to 1600' (max +2 in any of the things that affect stats this far). Artifact are a lot more rare.

[Storm-Sky]

You know I love angband, but I still play moria often, so if you want to go way back try druid moria colorized. The options and UI are not nearly as good as angband, but in a way it was a whole lot simpler, with less junk, but it still had good items. It still had your skeletons on the floor and broken weapons, but that was really most of the junk you saw and that adds something to the game. The first couple levels were challenging but it got fairly difficult as you went down.
Not having accsses to restorative potions in town all the time, or enchant weapon scrolls, consumables, is what made it difficult, and also there was no poison resist. If angband could blend the old ways with the better bugfixing and ui of the new versions it would be great.