Re: Enchanted Items

[Petri Heinila <hevi@lut.fi>]

On Thu, 27 Apr 1995, Michael B. Martin wrote:

> >  * high magic potential (many very enchanted items on player) can
> >    results some actions: there could be upkeep from spell points,
> >    summoning (high magic interests things from beyond), wonder effects,
> >    or players with low wisdom can be confused easily. 
> 
> In some RPG games (e.g. AD&D) the more magical weapons (swords in
> particular) often have a "personality" and thus can be difficult to
> wield if they have a "stronger" personality than the character.  I
> think this might be a better way to handle more powerful enchanted
> weapons instead of "this item is too powerful for you to wield" (I

The strict constrains in rpg are bad thing, there everything
could be able to do, and then there are good and bad effects.

> believe the current cutoff is the player's level +5).  The player
> could try to use it, but with possible side effects depending on the
> relative levels of the weapon and player.  Side effects could range
> from relatively harmless (player momentarily confused, misses more
> often, weapon seems unusually heavy, etc.) to relatively nasty (player
> hurts self, weapon takes control of player briefly (maybe berserker
> madness?), perhaps even damaging (loses some magic) or breaking the
> weapon in an extreme case?).  From what I've seen of the code for the
> game, this probably wouldn't be very hard to implement.  What do y'all
> think?  This could of course be extended to all magical items (with
> different side effects in general).  (I'm dying to make a weapon that
> will let me do 100+ points of damage, but I just can't get enough
> enchantments into it to increase the damage and then lower the weight
> and still be able to use it with my 15th level character.  I'd be
> willing to risk some "interesting occurrences" to reap the benefits.)

Very good & nasty effects indeed ;)

> > >  The only problem is that some of the lib/artifacts are better than the
> > > special artifacts.  Teh bow of Auriga (sp) is much better than the elven
> > > long bow, and also seems easier to find.  That pretty much makes the
> > > elven longbow have no use anymore.
> 
> Hmm, yes, I have a bow of Auriga, and it is fairly powerful I'd say
> (considering how relatively easy they are to come by).  Maybe it
> should be made an artifact?  Or perhaps change it and/or the longbow to
> keep the longbow more powerful?

But bow of Auriga is artifact already. Maybe one balance solution
is to make it simply more rare. 

<A HREF="http://www.lut.fi/~hevi/">Petri.Heinila@lut.fi</A>