Re: reading books, another idea I am working on

[Brian Thomas <thomas@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov>]

> From: Matt Cortes writes:
> 
> Slightly off topic here, but..
> I'm wondering how hard it would be to say..  choose a religon?  Make 
> strict rules for clerics once they choose a god to worship.  The 
> advantage is random favors from the god based on how faithful the cleric 
> has been.  Do simple things like Elemental gods, Demon gods, etc. Cleric 
> studies the arts, practices etc for the god of his choose, as he advances 
> he gains the strengths and weakness of such practices.  For example, 
> studing under the Fire God increases his ability with fire, but makes him 
> weaker toward cold, etc.  Something like this should be done for all 
> types of characters by the way..  Make spells more intense, likely to 
> succeed, harmful, as the players level raises (reads more books on type 
> of spell <G>).   
> 
	Hmm. Well, all of this is already possible with the MULTIGOD 
	option!

> 
> > 	Susequent Idea -- modification of the writing skill. 
> 
> What the heck is the writing skill and stylus pen used for now anyway??
> 
	You can use it to "overwrite" magical scrolls with spells
	that you know. In this way, it is easy to keep a few 
	"cure confusion" scrolls (or whatever you find useful) 
	around.

> > 	I would like to propose that the writing skill be expanded to 
> > 	allow players to write messages/keep notes in "books". This 
> > 	would be (err, actually, "is") very easy to do. 
> 
> That would be a great idea.  You should see how much notes I have over 
> here on my desk just for crossfire. :>
> Make a buyable item (Diary) to do things like this I guess.

	Yeah. I though that the player aught to be able to write
	in *any* non-magical book, even the ones you find on the 
	maps. Anything a player writes would be appended to the 
	end of the previous message. Pretty easy to code this.

> Also maybe a "note paper" item for small "Link was here first!!" 
> messages, etc. :>
>
	This brings up a "tangential" idea I had. For those of you
	out there who played "nethack", remember the "magic marker"?

	I thought I might make something like that. It would 
	allow the player to inscribe a permanent message on the 
	floor/wall/etc. The way to code this would be to create a 
	invisible, unique "talk" object where the player was standing.
	In this way, even though the map had been re-loaded, the 
	players message would still be there to be read. The only 
	problems I see w/ this are the 1) stability of the unique
	objects code and 2) the number of unique messages that might
	build up over time. Will this cause problems?
 
> > 	Susequent Idea -- modification of the literacy skill. 
> > 
> > 	I would like to further propose that the literacy skill be modified.
> > 	Why allow players to read books if they arent literate! Ditto 
> > 	for spellbooks. 
> > 
> > 	I would further propose that reading skill be adopted. If a 
> > 	player's literacy level is less than the level of the book (I 
> > 	wont explain how that's assigned) and/or the level of the 
> > 	spell/prayer in the book, then they get the "gibberish" message.
> 
> Thats pretty much already doing that if a player buys/gets a spellbook 
> thats higher then his level and he tries to read it.
> 
	Right, but that's the point. Replace the old system w/ this 
	one.

> > 	Allow a nominal amound of xp to be awarded for translation of 
> > 	a book (based on the readers level and the level of the book of 
> > 	course). 
> 
> Or, why not make different xp catagories?  Pysical, Mental, etc.  That 
> would open up a whole new world of stuff, then have seperate levels as well.
> In AD&D you can be a fighter/mage/thief, etc.  Maybe we can implement 
> something like that and have xp awarded to each catagory depending on 
> what acts we do?
>
	
	Take a look at the skills system... are you playing 0.92.1?
	Enable the ALLOW_SKILLS code and you will find all of this 
	(more or less) already exists. :)


						-b.t.