[FA] Jewellery

[Nick]

Thanks for all the ideas. I think this would more or less work:

- Decide to generate a ring of a given power (and I still kind of like the idea of the power being represented by the metal)
- Based on the power, choose an appropriate base type, and associated name
- Add other properties
- Until the player notices the base type (which will be soon if it's Speed, but might take a while if it's RNether), you have a Brass Ring; after that you have a (Brass) Ring of Speed.

So, this is in some ways just as if rings were generated as currently, but had a chance to get extra properties. But it feels different.

[Storch]

I think that rings of Eregion are an example of randart jewelery. They are generally nice and some of them are endgame items especially as there are no rings of power in FA. They all look the same and have to be identified, inspected and inscribed. There's no way to tell whether to go into the vault for them or not.

I like the general idea that there should be more randarts. On the other hand I like egos because they are something like balanced randarts.

I do not like the idea that shallow items should be bad (cursed) and deeper good. I think that shallow items should be weak and deep strong in both positive and negative ways.

[Nick]

I do not like the idea that shallow items should be bad (cursed) and deeper good. I think that shallow items should be weak and deep strong in both positive and negative ways.

Well put. I will be aiming for that.

[AnonymousHero]

I've played Entroband quite a lot and I must say that its autoinscribe stuff works really well for telling the player which powers an item has in a succinct way. It's not very newbie-friendly (and turned off by default IIRC), but then so little in *bands is.

Another way would be the equivalent of the equipment/(powers+resistances) matrix which is used for the character sheet.

[Seany C]

Interesting plans, Nick - I like the sound of most of it, apart from some misgivings about the identify-by-use bits (if ?ID are going soon then it'll become a shlep to find a monster that breathes X to check possible resistances for jewellery - e.g. checking if any rings/amulets in inventory have RDis before taking on Mim). Sounds alright otherwise, though.

Just one particular issue - my characters often rely on =FA in the early-mid game, esp. if travelling through wilderness with the likes of Ogre Mages and Homunculi around. Identifying these by use isn't going to be much fun if the wielding bling turns out *not* to have FA. (although the solution to this might be to tone down paralysis attacks, rather than change jewellery plans).

One last query - are you going to change ego/artifact lights, or keep them as they are?

[Atarlost]

Right. I forgot about that one. The vanilla stats don't very well match the description. It's supposed to be about healing and preserving, but was given offensive combat boosts.

[konijn_]

Rings and amulets are different from everything else. They're flavoured, but wieldable. There are no egos. <snip>

Just as an FYI, Fury has jewelry ego's and I quite like them. I will probably steal them at some point.

T.

[Nick]

Interesting plans, Nick - I like the sound of most of it, apart from some misgivings about the identify-by-use bits (if ?ID are going soon then it'll become a shlep to find a monster that breathes X to check possible resistances for jewellery - e.g. checking if any rings/amulets in inventory have RDis before taking on Mim). Sounds alright otherwise, though.

Just one particular issue - my characters often rely on =FA in the early-mid game, esp. if travelling through wilderness with the likes of Ogre Mages and Homunculi around. Identifying these by use isn't going to be much fun if the wielding bling turns out *not* to have FA. (although the solution to this might be to tone down paralysis attacks, rather than change jewellery plans).

Yeah, those are really good points, and they nearly put me off the idea. I'm now thinking I'll go to Eddie's rune-based idea, but restricted to rings and amulets for now.

One last query - are you going to change ego/artifact lights, or keep them as they are?

No plans to change them.

I've played Entroband quite a lot and I must say that its autoinscribe stuff works really well for telling the player which powers an item has in a succinct way. It's not very newbie-friendly (and turned off by default IIRC), but then so little in *bands is.

Yes, I should look into that too. And I'm seeing this approach as an alternative to jewellery egos.

[Nick]

Just a brief update on this. I've gone with blank rings and amulets, with different types indicating power. They then go through randart-like generation, and get assigned a basic theme (which will typically have a core property or two, then some likely ones, then random ones), and get assigned a corresponding ego-type. So technically, (almost) all rings and amulets will be ego items.

Curiously, I came to this arrangement because it was the easiest thing to do coding-wise, and only afterward realised that it matches my thematic intention very well. It almost seems that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-Maker...