FayAngband 1.1, "Tough but Fairy"

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Hey, we could call it a Training Hall!

Donating different kinds of objects would boost different stats or skills.

Inspecting an object would tell its training benefits. Only items of some value could be donated.

There would be a limited amount of object slots in the Training Hall, perhaps divided into Good Items, Ego Items and Artifacts.

[ekolis]

Hmm, speaking of spellbooks, is there really any reason why Acid/Lightning bolt spells are higher level than Fire/Ice bolts, and have higher fail rates, but do not do more damage? I suppose this might work if lots of monsters resist fire/ice, but not so many resist acid/lightning, but from what I've seen in my limited play experience, that doesn't seem to be the case...

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Hmm, speaking of spellbooks, is there really any reason why Acid/Lightning bolt spells are higher level than Fire/Ice bolts, and have higher fail rates, but do not do more damage? I suppose this might work if lots of monsters resist fire/ice, but not so many resist acid/lightning, but from what I've seen in my limited play experience, that doesn't seem to be the case...

Fire mages and frost mages have the elemental spells in opposite order of difficulty, starting from easy and ending to "not available". Acid and Lightning are a bit more difficult on average but on the other hand they are available to both types of spellcasters. So I wouldn't say they are more difficult to cast.

No element is supposed to be better than any other. Basically you should always use your best element unless the monster has resistances or vulnerabilities.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Some more brainstorming around Training Hall.

There would be item slots, like this:

100 gp
500 gp
1000 gp
2000 gp
5000 gp
10 000 gp

When you donated an item, it would fill the most expensive slot possible.

Item type (only) would determine the bonuses it gives.

- Spellbooks for Lore
- Weapons for weapon skill with that weapon
- Armour for max armour weight for spellcasting & jumping
- Cloak for Stealth
- Boots for Jumping
- Stacks of Scrolls for Mapping
- Stacks of Potions for Alchemy
- Stacks of Powder Vials for Throwing

The flavour is that you donate an item (or a stack) to a professional who is interested in that kind of items, and he trains you.

[ekolis]

What's this about "jumping"? I don't see any jump command...

[ekolis]

Oh, hey, I think I found another bug... I was playing a rogue, and I found several instruments during my trip to the dungeon. However the only one I can sell to the general store is the lute; I can't sell the horn or drum that I found!

[Mikko Lehtinen]

What's this about "jumping"? I don't see any jump command...

Coming up in the next version!

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Oh, hey, I think I found another bug... I was playing a rogue, and I found several instruments during my trip to the dungeon. However the only one I can sell to the general store is the lute; I can't sell the horn or drum that I found!

When playing rogues, you probably want to switch depth in feet on. Then check character sheet for Min Depth. That's the price of the cheapest item you can sell. (Inspect items to see their price.)

Rogues can only sell expensive items. That's to prevent boring "game of shopping".

[ekolis]

Hmm, would be nice then if the game told me that I can't sell some item, instead of the price, when I examine it!

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Hmm, would be nice then if the game told me that I can't sell some item, instead of the price, when I examine it!

Right! That's what Buzzkill told me too.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Alright, the Library/Training Hall idea keeps transforming. Here's the newest version.

The empty building would get three new doors: Library, Tavern, and Training Hall.


Library

Donate spellbooks to gain bonuses to Lore table, as per buzzkill's idea.

Numbers not at all clear yet. Perhaps change Lore table to 30/40/50/60 and give +1 for each donated book.


Tavern

Donate instruments to gain temporary morale bonuses to stats.

Each instrument (there are six) is associated with a different stat. The morale bonus is equal to instrument plusses. You only get the bonus from the highest level instrument of each type you donated during this town visit.

The bonuses disappear when you return to town next time. Here's a reason for staying in the dungeons longer.


Training Hall

There are two new proficiencies that use Lore or *Lore* points: Tactics and *Tactics*. When you use Tactics or *Tactics* you get special effects with melee weapons for as long as you stay on this dungeon level.

In the Training Hall you may donate ego melee weapons to gain a 50% chance of getting special effects with that weapon type when Tactics is on, or artifact weapons to gain 100% chance when *Tactics* is on.

Effects are dependant on the weapon type. Swords attack all surrounding enemies. Daggers get super-effective ambush criticals. Spears and quarterstaves may attack enemies two squares away from you. Axes and clubs push enemies with a force dependant on your STR and the opponent's weight; pushed monsters may hit walls or other monsters for extra damage.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Of these three ideas, Tavern is the simplest, and therefore it will probably get implemented. Musical instruments are junk for everybody but Bards, and I really want to get a new use for them.

I'm not sure about the other two ideas. They are fun, but you always have to pay a price for added complexity.

I feel FayAngband 1.2 is getting very near my sweet spot in the features/ease of play scale. I have to be extra careful when implementing new features.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Hey buzzkill, I think I found a way to implement your idea more cleanly.

What if spellbooks in inventory gave bonuses to Lore?

To ease inventory problems it might be best to only give bonuses for the highest level book you carry.

Or maybe we could only count the highest level book that you cannot cast spells from. (Because you already intimately know the secrets of your own school of magic.)

[buzzkill]

What if spellbooks in inventory gave bonuses to Lore?

What I think you'll run into is players finding a spellbook that gives enough points to use lore, immediately using lore, and then immediately dropping the book because there will probably be another on the next level. I don't know if that's what your looking for, or not. I'm not in love with it, but I'm assuming it's a lot easier to code, correct?

To ease inventory problems it might be best to only give bonuses for the highest level book you carry.

Let the player worry about inventory woes. I'd worry more about if carrying around a bunch of (common) 3rd or 4th books would be unbalancing.

Or maybe we could only count the highest level book that you cannot cast spells from. (Because you already intimately know the secrets of your own school of magic.)

If you're going to go this route, then yes. Especially since casters (with books) are going to have decent lore stats to begin with... well most casters.

Here's a slightly different take. What if finding unusable book gave bonus 'book lore' points that could only be used on that level or maybe even carried forward for the entire dive. You would use only the necessary amount of lore point to achieve the desired result. So if you had INT 10 and WIS 10 and had accumulated 6 lore book points, using identify or cave lore (which I've never used) would only use two (of the 6) 'book lore' points, or the player could save them up for greater proficiencies. Maybe you even rename alien spellbooks to "a Book of Lore". Hmmm, I guess that's almost the same as what you suggested :||.

Love the bar and training hall ideas too.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Maybe I should modify the Lore mechanic to make room for the Library.

The simplified Lore table would look like this:

INT + WIS
22 Lore 1
33 Lore 2
44 Lore 3
55 Lore 4

Three Lore proficiencies would be always available: Identify, Dungeon Lore and Tactics (the Tactics may perhaps be used twice per level for increased benefits).

No more *Lore*. *Identify* and Identify Pack would no longer be available as proficiencies.

Every time you visit the town, you may go to the Library and try to either *Identify* an object or to Identify Pack. The base success chance in percentages for both is (INT + WIS)/2.

You may also donate spellbooks to the sage. Every time you take the stairs down, the sage does some research based on the books, and adds a bonus to your next identify roll. (I feel the books should be more important than INT+WIS here.)

I want to insert a hard choice here: every time the player visits the town he may choose to either study in the library or to relax in the tavern, but not both. Perhaps visiting a Healer to restore all stats and to cure disease could be a third option.

I'm also planning to add a little house band manager minigame.

The player may change the band's sound by donating different instruments. For example, if you donate a +4 drum, the music is more likely to give a big morale bonus to STR. A bard character may of course choose to play together with the band, using his equipped instrument.

A house band with more instruments will give a morale bonus more often, but the bonus will be chosen among all the instruments the band has, and is therefore very random. A house band with a selected few instruments doesn't succeed as often, but when it does, the bonus is likely to be bigger and/or affect stats that are important for the player.

The success chance is 1d6 <= number of instruments. You get one reroll.

If the band succeeds, choose one of the instruments randomly. That instrument gives its morale bonus to you. For example, Drum +2 would give +2 to STR until you return to the town next time.

Of course the band manager may also fire musicians if necessary.