For a while I've been saying I'm going to revamp curses in FAangband,
with the level of detail I give being roughly "remove sticky curses and
add more interesting curses". So now I think I have a slightly more
fleshed out scheme, and would like to hear opinions.
e. Occasional summoning
This is in vanilla potential instadeath. At least in past summoned monsters could act in same turn they are summoned, which can kill you instantly (for example player without FA and carrion crawler).
I don't know if this is the case in FA or in latest versions of the vanilla.
For a while I've been saying I'm going to revamp curses in FAangband,
with the level of detail I give being roughly "remove sticky curses and
add more interesting curses". So now I think I have a slightly more
fleshed out scheme, and would like to hear opinions.
1. "Cursed" no longer (necessarily) means "can't be taken off". It can
mean a range of things, including
a. Random teleportation
b. Aggravation
c. Experience drain
d. Random poisoning
e. Occasional summoning
f. Induce fear
g. Random hallucinations
h. Occasionally drops from the player's hand
i. Can't be unwielded (this is now nasty, and would have to be used
with care)
j. ...and others
*applause.* This has needed doing for a long time.
2. Remove Curse and *Remove Curse* still exist, but act differently:
i. It asks for an item.
ii. The item can be in any of the usual places - equipment,
inventory, floor.
iii. For any cursed item, the player can attempt once to uncurse
it; if this attempt fails, it is cursed for good.
iv. Obviously, *RC* has a better chance than RC; also player
level/INT/WIS/class/something, and item depth/value/whatever will
probably be factors.
The combination of "can't be unwielded" and "cursed for good" would appear to be insurmountable if taken at face value (as you say, it's now nasty). I would suggest that there must be either some way to get rid of the cursed item, or some way to make the item you can't get your hand off of game-endingly powerful; otherwise the single item can make the game unwinnable. However, neither of those things should be common or easy.
To suggest a game mechanic, I would say that Remove Curse either works, or doesn't work. If it fails the first time there's no point in trying again. *Remove Curse* on the other hand should eventually work - it may take seven or eight of them if something is really horribly cursed, but sooner or later it'll work.
3. Priests may get an early Detect Curse spell, which would at least
tell if an item is cursed, and maybe identify the curse.
I think magicians should get an early "detect magic" spell too. It won't warn them about curses or identify things, but it should let them know whether something is normal or enchanted.
4. Pseudo-id could work a number of ways:
I. Cursed items Pseudo as {cursed}
II. Cursed items with some good properties pseudo as {tainted},
without as {cursed}
III. Cursed items pseudo as {good, cursed}, {average, cursed} etc.
Opinions keenly anticipated.
My opinion of pseudo-ID is negative at this point. I dunno - it just seems like some sort of a botch to me.
To suggest a game mechanic, I would say that Remove Curse either
works, or doesn't work. If it fails the first time there's no
point in trying again. *Remove Curse* on the other hand should
eventually work - it may take seven or eight of them if something
is really horribly cursed, but sooner or later it'll work.
I think the answer here is simple. Remove curse may work, but fail and then not work. *Remove Curse* *will* work. It's simply a question of rarity.Just make it so the average player will only see a few during their whole game. -Campbell
I think the answer here is simple. Remove curse may work, but fail
and then not work. *Remove Curse* *will* work. It's simply a
question of rarity.Just make it so the average player will only see
a few during their whole game. -Campbell
Elegant, brilliant. And it's not as if these items will be
particularly hyper-powered so that it would be balance-breaking.
Still forces interesting decisions and would make it worth trying on
high end ego-items in spite of the possible sticky curse. The new
curse system looks better and better (can we have it in V, please?).
Five stars.
Please don't. I like the basic idea of more complicated curses (some of the specifics here don't look too great, but I don't have immediate better suggestions), but the "curse can never be removed" angle is a very bad thing IMO, and the only reason I haven't spoken up against it is that I don't play FAAngband; I would not want it in vanilla. This particular variation of the suggestion, in which *RC* is guaranteed to work, is the least problematic I've seen yet - but I still would not be happy with it.
I might be less unhappy with a situation in which the chances of removing (and/or permanence of failure to remove) a curse varied depending on what curse it was, but I'm not sure about that, and I don't have immediate specific suggestions at the moment either.
Alternately, I could envision a system with all of the various curses suggested here, each coming in a "weak" form (removable with RC, either guaranteed or with chance-of-failure/can-try-again-endlessly) and a "strong" one (removable only with *RC*, either with success guaranteed or with failure possible but *RC* much more common than would otherwise be necessary) and possibly a "permanent" one (not removable), but from the discussion so far I don't think most other people would be very happy with that.
-- The Wanderer
Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any side of it.
I think the answer here is simple. Remove curse may work, but fail
and then not work. *Remove Curse* *will* work. It's simply a
question of rarity.Just make it so the average player will only see
a few during their whole game. -Campbell
Elegant, brilliant. And it's not as if these items will be
particularly hyper-powered so that it would be balance-breaking.
Still forces interesting decisions and would make it worth trying on
high end ego-items in spite of the possible sticky curse. The new
curse system looks better and better (can we have it in V, please?).
Five stars.
Please don't. I like the basic idea of more complicated curses (some of
the specifics here don't look too great, but I don't have immediate
better suggestions), but the "curse can never be removed" angle is a
very bad thing IMO, and the only reason I haven't spoken up against it
is that I don't play FAAngband; I would not want it in vanilla.
I wouldn't mind. After all it wouldn't be "sticky curse" (except when it is), so basically you would just get a YAJunkItem if you don't manage to get the curse removed. That's not so bad.
I think that vanilla-type "sticky curse" is the worst possible curse type. It prevents testing in fear of really nasty item and that is a bad thing.
I think "sticky curse" in this case should be one that prevents you from dropping the item, but not take it off. That way you are not stuck using a item that potentially is gamestopper bad, but is annoyingly still in your backpack and you just can't get rid of it (Isn't that what curses usually are? Items that look good but what eventually turn out to be bad and you just can't get rid of it unless...something *it* wants happens, or you get rid of the curse).
Eddiegrove@Hotmail.Com 15 March 2009 21:49:17 [ permanent link ]
On Mar 15, 1:48pm, Timo Pietil <timo.piet...@helsinki.fi> wrote:
I think "sticky curse" in this case should be one that prevents you from
dropping the item, but not take it off. That way you are not stuck using
a item that potentially is gamestopper bad, but is annoyingly still in
your backpack and you just can't get rid of it (Isn't that what curses
usually are? Items that look good but what eventually turn out to be bad
and you just can't get rid of it unless...something *it* wants happens,
or you get rid of the curse).
One could also change things a little to make it occasionally useful, especially on an artifact.
Allow the player to drop it, but it reappears in the pack in say 10 + 1d10 turns, knocking something out if the pack is full. Then you could put that curse on a throwing hammer, and it could be useful. Current throwing artifacts are mostly useless, to me at least, because I know after a few tries something will happen to make me unable to get it back, so I just sell them if I choose not to wield them.
Elegant, brilliant. And it's not as if these items will be
particularly hyper-powered so that it would be balance-breaking.
Still forces interesting decisions and would make it worth trying
on high end ego-items in spite of the possible sticky curse. The
new curse system looks better and better (can we have it in V,
please?). Five stars.
Please don't. I like the basic idea of more complicated curses
(some of the specifics here don't look too great, but I don't have
immediate better suggestions), but the "curse can never be removed"
angle is a very bad thing IMO, and the only reason I haven't spoken
up against it is that I don't play FAAngband; I would not want it
in vanilla.
I wouldn't mind. After all it wouldn't be "sticky curse" (except when
it is), so basically you would just get a YAJunkItem if you don't
manage to get the curse removed. That's not so bad.
This probably deserves a longer response, but at present anything I wrote would probably become incoherent, so let me simply say that I took that into account before making my last post; I do think that it's bad enough that I wouldn't want to play a game with it, unless it was guaranteed that the curse would be removable with enough patience (and preferably not the "scum endlessly for ?*RC*" kind of patience, either).
-- The Wanderer
Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any side of it.
Elegant, brilliant. And it's not as if these items will be
particularly hyper-powered so that it would be balance-breaking.
Still forces interesting decisions and would make it worth trying
on high end ego-items in spite of the possible sticky curse. The
new curse system looks better and better (can we have it in V,
please?). Five stars.
Please don't. I like the basic idea of more complicated curses
(some of the specifics here don't look too great, but I don't have
immediate better suggestions), but the "curse can never be removed"
angle is a very bad thing IMO, and the only reason I haven't spoken
up against it is that I don't play FAAngband; I would not want it
in vanilla.
I wouldn't mind. After all it wouldn't be "sticky curse" (except when
it is), so basically you would just get a YAJunkItem if you don't
manage to get the curse removed. That's not so bad.
This probably deserves a longer response, but at present anything I
wrote would probably become incoherent, so let me simply say that I took
that into account before making my last post; I do think that it's bad
enough that I wouldn't want to play a game with it, unless it was
guaranteed that the curse would be removable with enough patience (and
preferably not the "scum endlessly for ?*RC*" kind of patience, either).
I still don't understand why. After all you just get a YAJunkItem with this curse system even if it is very bad item, and occassionally that item could actually be good one even with curse. Definite improvement over vanilla sticky curses IMO.
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