It just popped into my head that one area of CF that has never had much change come to it despite its core value to every person is weapons and armor.

Nearly every modern game these days allows the player to some degree customize their weapons and armor whether that be stats, appearance, or properties.

So what about allowing some degree of customization to weapons and armor in CF? Here are a few suggestions...

1. Changes to appearance

I propose giving dwarves and blacksmiths the ability to 'reforge' a weapon which would allow them to change the description of a weapon to a preselected # of choices available for that weapon. I'd say they could change it to ANY description but that may require more oversight than the Imms would be willing to do.

So for example:

Tiny iron dagger could be 'reforged' to one of three other descriptions...

Iron Thorn
Hummingbird Dagger
Fast Eddie the Dagger

Everything else stays the same, only the description you see when you look at it or another player looks at you holding it or in your inv changes.


2. Changes to stats

Another thing for blacksmiths is a skill that allows them to make minor alterations to stats in armor/weapons. These would be one-shot permanent alterations that give +1 in one stat and -1 in its opposing stat.

I look at it working like this:

You goto Bub the Blacksmith, you ask him to 'add spikes' to 'chainmail' and he makes the alteration which gives +1 dam -1 hit.

I think each alteration should take into account weapon/armor type thus you couldn't 'add spikes' to an earthen vest. Not all armors should be able to be altered but perhaps some lower and mid-level armors?

3. Changes to properties

This one may be the most controversial, but perhaps allow one special property to be added to certain types of weapons/armor.

I propose certain mobs throughout Thera be allowed to add ONE property to a weapon/armor and that these mobs each require a quest in order to have that special property added to a weapon/armor of the players choice.

EX:

Molimoli performs a seriously long and complicated quest for Arsehole the Orc Blacksmith who in exchange for the fabled Meatstick of Cornholio is willing to perform a special orcan rite upon the tiny iron dagger and imbue it with the ability to potentially plague during a battle.

Each of these mobs only has ONE property they know and once a player has used ANY of the mobs to place a porperty on a weapon/armor they will not be offered a quest by any of the other mobs.

Just a thought!

Craftable items. Mobs randomly spawn pieces for items, with different stats. A fire-ruby pommel, a fire giant claymore blade, a roll of elven fabric, segmented plating, fine leather strips, a goblin rat-tail tang piece of junk, etc. Blacksmiths and Dwarves can put these parts together and make an item.

There can be different tiers based on mob lvl. None of it would be great for the lvls, but could still help new comers top off their sets and replace vastly outdated gear.

Wishful thinking: limited pieces that can produce quality items. They can be combined with lesser items which would make them better but still not great, however combining all the limited pieces would make a top quality piece. Not prog top quality, just some damn good stats. There would only be enough limited items to make one sort of legendary item each. 1 1handed sword, 1 2handed sword, etc.

Just throwing ideas around. Recklessly.

Tiny iron dagger could be 'reforged' to one of three other descriptions...

We have somewhere north of 10,000 objects. I don't have the breakdown of armor and weapons handy, but they're a large fraction. Any system you propose would have to scale to that, and writing 3 descriptions per object doesn't readily.

You goto Bub the Blacksmith, you ask him to 'add spikes' to 'chainmail' and he makes the alteration which gives +1 dam -1 hit.

This sort of minor alteration has promise, but might end up getting folded into future class abilities.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Nt

Since you think the minor alteration has merit, perhaps fold the 'descriptive' alteration into the 'physical' alteration.

Using the above example for instance:

You goto Bub the Blacksmith...etc so on and so forth and he adds spikes to your chainmail.

Prior to the alteration the description was:

A nice set of chainmail.

AFTER

A nice set of spiked chainmail.



Smaller in scope than what I was initially proposing but likely much easier to implement.

This would be a nightmare (bordering on impossible) to pull off dynamically given how objects are stored and represented.

If we ever get around to something like this the alterations will probably need to be communicated in some fashion other than by weaving them into existing freeform descriptions that do not follow any specific pattern or format.

If this were Diablo and everything were "a <quality> <material> <optional modifier> sword of <cool sounding thing>" then we'd be in business, but for better or worse that isn't how areas (and objects) work in CF.

For now, you'll have to rely on friendly dwarves and enchantment scrolls.

Moligant goes to the blacksmith and gets his chainmail spiked. A "SPIKED" flag is set on that chainmail. Then, Moligant looks at this chainmail.

if (item->flags & SPIKED) {
return item->desc + "This item is spiked.\n";
}

Whoo-hoo!

Even I would full loot your corpse just so I could see what you were hiding beneath the new descriptions.

Actually that isn't such a bad thing.

It would be an indicator that the idea has merit in my opinion. Not the idea of people being full looted but the idea that people are curious enough to want to look.

Curiosity means people are engaged in what is going on which in a RP game is crucial. Especially in a game like this where eq and weapons are so important and can be taken it adds an entirely new layer that imho would especially benefit low-to-mid rank players willing to put out a bit of extra effort to make what is an average weapon into something fairly decent.

I'm imaginging someone going through the trouble to have a mage enchant their weapon, then have a dwarf use their inherent on it to make it better, then sell the weapon to an Outlander for strengthening who then goes on the quest to add a specisal property (not knowing it was reforged by a dwarf natch) and voila...what was once meh is now yay!

I dont know if the above minus the specialk proerty could actually happen btw. Is there a limit to how much alteration you can do to a weapon now? I know if you enchant a weapon enough times it may explode, but what if you enchant it a few times first, have a dwarf go in on it, then give it to an Outlander for strengthening, would that work?

Strengthen is undone when a non-Outtie touches the item IIRC.

What if the end user is the Outlander?

You need to re-strengthen after any time someone non-Outtie touches it.

Also, it has to be natural to be strengthened, which for a ton of gear means being transmuted from metal to wood by a Druid first. This sometimes explodes the piece.