Temp Branding Weapon Flags

[APWhite]

I was playing Zangband 240 the other day and thought of a better use of those high level branding spells. It never really made since to me that a level 50 character would need to Cold brand a sword. By the time he gets to level 50, he should have a much better weapon than that. Certainly by level 50 he would not use the cold branded weapon for income.

So I added temporary branding flags and count-down timers. It did not take too long to implement and it sure made that high-level spell slot a lot more useful. These temp-branding flags can be added to any weapon. So even an ego item with it's own intrinsic flag set can have a temp-brand flag added to it.

The Death spell of Vampirism Branding is pretty handy when going up against a slough of dragons.

APWhite

[Derakon]

I dig it. Such spells would make a natural parallel to the Vanilla Resistances spellbook, too.

[The GP Fury]

I think that's a great idea. It's something a lot of the other RPG games (Witcher, Titan Quest, etc) have implemented. It can really make a difference when stronger monsters.

[konijn_]

I think that's a great idea. It's something a lot of the other RPG games (Witcher, Titan Quest, etc) have implemented. It can really make a difference when stronger monsters.

Does that mean you are tempted back to maintaining FuryBand

[The GP Fury]

Hmm, not sure at the moment. I'm still keeping the mirror (mostly) up-to-date, but as for actually sitting down and coding again, not sure.

At the moment, real life is demanding time, trying to find a job and get a business off the ground at the same time :P

[konijn_]

Hmm, not sure at the moment. I'm still keeping the mirror (mostly) up-to-date, but as for actually sitting down and coding again, not sure.

At the moment, real life is demanding time, trying to find a job and get a business off the ground at the same time :P

Hmmm,
totally totally offtopic now, but every now and then I talk to people that do freelance photo work for the New York Times, it would seem with your portfolio you should give that a shot since you live in the Hudson Valley.

Cheers,
T.

[will_asher]

(getting back to the topic of the temporary branding idea...)
I like the idea. In fact, I am right now implementing temporary branding into DaJAngband.

I'm not sure what the best way is to do this for ammo. I don't want to keep track of the branding timeout of each individual arrow. At first I was just thinking I would keep it doing it the old way for ammo (changing the item into a brand-ego). Now I'm leaning toward the idea that it would be better to have a temporary branding spell which applies to the launcher, and remove the ammo-branding spells (except that that wouldn't make much sense for the alchemy realm which isn't supposed to be real magic).
The way I'm doing it, the branding spell could work on egos or artifacts, but it will have a significant fail chance when trying to brand an artifact, cursed item, or already-branded item.

BTW, the branding spells in DaJAngband are in different places. The prayer realm has no branding spell. The wizardry realm (currently only used by the mage and war mage) has the melee branding spell, the ranger and archer get ammo-branding spells (ranger uses nature realm and archer uses alchemy realm), the assassin gets a ammo-poisoning spell, and the thief and alchemist get a melee-poisoning spell.

[konijn_]

(getting back to the topic of the temporary branding idea...)
I like the idea. In fact, I am right now implementing temporary branding into DaJAngband.

How do you keep track ? Do you have a list of temporary branded weapons or do you loop over all the objects in existence ?

I am quite close to implement this for Hellband as well, its a good idea.

T.

[will_asher]

How do you keep track ? Do you have a list of temporary branded weapons or do you loop over all the objects in existence ?

I am quite close to implement this for Hellband as well, its a good idea.

I'll have the timeouts for temporary branding (as well as the priest's temporary blessing spell) handled as part of the recharge_objects() function in dungeon.c where it scans through all objects (in three separate scans: one for wielded equipment, one for the rest of the inventory, and one for other items).
The function is activated every 10 game turns, so the down side is that it makes speed even more powerful because the effects will seem to last longer if you are fast. Then again, it makes sense that way (if you move faster it shouldn't make object timeouts run out faster).

[rdanhenry]

Why not assign the temporary brand to the player rather than a specific item? Cast "Venom Strike" and any melee attack is poisoned; cast "Burning Ammo" and all missile attacks are treated as fire branded. This seems simpler than worrying about tying the temp-brand to specific items.

[will_asher]

Why not assign the temporary brand to the player rather than a specific item? Cast "Venom Strike" and any melee attack is poisoned; cast "Burning Ammo" and all missile attacks are treated as fire branded. This seems simpler than worrying about tying the temp-brand to specific items.

Because I already coded it.

[Rizwan]

Why not assign the temporary brand to the player rather than a specific item? Cast "Venom Strike" and any melee attack is poisoned; cast "Burning Ammo" and all missile attacks are treated as fire branded. This seems simpler than worrying about tying the temp-brand to specific items.

I would like to see that

You cast flaming weapon
You feel the need to pee
Flame comes out
You pass out

[Magnate]

Because I already coded it.

The new TMD_ flagset in V would have made this much easier ;-)

[Pete Mack]

Temporary branding is an insanely powerful spell, as it applies even to artifacts.
Assuming that there is no difference in behavior between temporary and permanent brands, temporary brands will completely eclipse the latter in usefulness. (Better off with Temp brand on a Sword of *Slay Dragon*, etc)

[will_asher]

Temporary branding is an insanely powerful spell, as it applies even to artifacts.
Assuming that there is no difference in behavior between temporary and permanent brands, temporary brands will completely eclipse the latter in usefulness. (Better off with Temp brand on a Sword of *Slay Dragon*, etc)

Well, currently the mage and war mage are the only ones who get the normal temporary branding spell and it's in a late dungeon book. The thief and alchemist get a version of the spell which is poison-brand only, and probably the majority of monsters after dl25 are poison resistant. (I did add temp. branding scrolls, but they're pretty rare.)
The fact that it's temporary is also a drawback, and with an artifact it would be very difficult to keep re-casting it before it expires becaise it often fails when cast on artifacts (minimum 50% of the time).