Re: Problem with 0.91.4 version?

[Peter Mardahl <peterm@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>]

In message <"21005 Thu Oct 20 19:57:00 1994"@bnr.ca> , "tuan (t.) doan" writes:
>Hello,
>
>   Peter, I know that you added lots of new spells and you probably has
>more knowledge on how spells work than anyone.  I have the following
>spell ideas that you might be interested in implementing:
>
>1. Gust of wind - will generate a cone or column of winds that when hit
>   will pushes the target in a certain direction.  If there is something
>   in the way, the target gets some damages.

  This is an interesting idea.  It could be implemented, perhaps somewhat
straighforwardly, by using the mover object.  *but* making it do damage
is not so straightforward, and might be very hard to do.  Cone spells
and the mover would have to be modified so that you could make a cone of
movers with a finite duration.  The speed of motion could even be
level dependent....

>2. Flame strike - will create a column of flame (1 or 4 squares) that will
>   last a certain duration causing fire damage to anything near it.

  What's the difference between this and create wall of fire?  In general
it is hard to make a non-living object damage something that is not in
the same square as it is.

>3. Fumble - will cause the target to unwielded/dropped objects; for NPC's
>   this will required a turn for them to re-equipped.

  This is pretty straightforward, you can add a new attacktype.... It should
only work on equipped wands/swords/staves/bows/shields, however. Not armour
or stuff you'd wear, like rings or amulets.  Getting it to work this way
on NPC's isn't so easy.  Monsters pickup and equip things very fast,
I'd hate to have to code in some way to prevent this. However, if they
walk off the square, you may find that they leave behind things they drop.
  
>4. Summon other - will cause the target to be teleported next you the caster.

  Lots of abuses for this!  Or were you thinking of limiting it to things
which are alive?  How would you select what to apport?
  
>5. Xray - allow the caster to see one square behind the wall; similar to
>   helm of xray but is time limited.

  This one is simple.  Very very simple.  All you need to do is create
a force with the appropriate variable, ala all the other forces like
the spell of dexterity etc....

>   It will be great if items can be invisible so that we can have spells
>such as dispel/detect invisibility.  Also I can't wait til the lighting
>capability appears so that we can have spells such as darkness and light.
>Oh, your demon tower area is super.  Any future plan for new areas?

  Your invisibility idea is an excellent one.  There is nothing now
preventing items from being invisible.  Mapmakers could have made items
invisible long ago....  These spells are particularly worthwhile IMHO.
There are some amusing invisible walls in some tower somewhere.  These
spells would work the same as the existing detect spells, except the
dispel would unset the flag.  Useful for those spectres.  Success of
dispellation can depend on level....

  I'll do the invisibility and xray spells.  The others I'm not so sure of.
Timetable for this work?  Not so sure of that either.  I will be very
happy to advise anyone who undertakes these.  I will announce it to the
list when i begin work on them.

Regards,

PeterM