New ego-weapon/armour proposal: (Light)

[Nightmarjoo]

Was thinking about a new kind of ego weapon/armour: (Light), which means that the armour or weapon would be lighter than normal. For a weapon, this means you could suddenly get an extra blow out of it potentially, and for armour you'd be less weighed down while still recieving the benefit of greater ac. Naturally it would only really make sense to have (Light) items that are normally heavy, but even something like a short sword, knocking a pound or two off it could give a character an additional blow. I don't know how you'd decide how much lighter it would be, maybe give it a pval and for every 1 pval the thing would be 4 pounds or something (I haven't done any math, so dunno how useful 1:4 ratio would be, just throwing out ideas), or maybe a (Light) item would be 50% lighter, etc, something like that. Light could even be a flag, something that ego weapons/items with a random power could have, and/or something randarts could have.

Thoughts? I feel like this could make weight a more important factor later in the game by making it more variable. One of the things I always thought was boring in Angband was that egos were almost exclusively better than non-egos for the entire game, and usually artifacts are better than egos. I thought it was odd you almost never had to consider "well do I want this ego/artifact for its resistances/slays/abilities or this {magical} weapon for its better blows/+dam", that choice was always nonexistant. Now while my suggestion doesn't quite pertain to that as I propose an ego, by making it as common as {magical} things were, you could implement that choice/decision. You could find some randart broadsword with res_nethr and res_pois, but only get 2 blows out of it, and then find some (Light) broadsword that dealt similar damage but you got more blows out of it.

There's overlap with weapons of extra attacks though, and if burden is an issue you can't carry some artifact armour as a swap for some resistance for some (Light) armour that gives more armour per weight the way you can carry a weapon that does more damage per turn and one that gives some resistance. Weapons of extra-attacks would potentially be more useful though depending on the weight-reduction amount, creating more junk items. It might be more useful to make it only a flag as a random power.

For making armours more useful aside from lessening their weight, could also give them higher ac bonuses. A seperate idea would be to make an armour ego (Augmented) or something, that only had higher than normal ac bonuses, or maybe even higher ac and weighed a little less, or something like that.


Mostly I want weapons and armour that don't give resistances or important abilities (not slow digestion or regeneration) to have viable uses. Seems silly to me that the weapons that do the most damage and armour that give the most armour also usually give the greatest number of resistances and abilities, etc. Angband is usually about mixed benefits, not about super-upgrades. {Magical} weapons and armour are almost always just junk midgame and beyond. Should either find a way to make either {Magical} things useful, add something that replaces their creation that is useful (potentially the (Light) or (Augmented) stuff I propose), or make them not be created. They're different from consumeables that can be useful throughout the game in that they are basiaclly universally useless beyond a certain point in the game, but they still are created ._.

[fizzix]

Originally Posted by Nightmarjoo

Was thinking about a new kind of ego weapon/armour: (Light), which means that the armour or weapon would be lighter than normal. For a weapon, this means you could suddenly get an extra blow out of it potentially, and for armour you'd be less weighed down while still recieving the benefit of greater ac. Naturally it would only really make sense to have (Light) items that are normally heavy, but even something like a short sword, knocking a pound or two off it could give a character an additional blow. I don't know how you'd decide how much lighter it would be, maybe give it a pval and for every 1 pval the thing would be 4 pounds or something (I haven't done any math, so dunno how useful 1:4 ratio would be, just throwing out ideas), or maybe a (Light) item would be 50% lighter, etc, something like that. Light could even be a flag, something that ego weapons/items with a random power could have, and/or something randarts could have.

Thoughts? I feel like this could make weight a more important factor later in the game by making it more variable. One of the things I always thought was boring in Angband was that egos were almost exclusively better than non-egos for the entire game, and usually artifacts are better than egos. I thought it was odd you almost never had to consider "well do I want this ego/artifact for its resistances/slays/abilities or this {magical} weapon for its better blows/+dam", that choice was always nonexistant. Now while my suggestion doesn't quite pertain to that as I propose an ego, by making it as common as {magical} things were, you could implement that choice/decision. You could find some randart broadsword with res_nethr and res_pois, but only get 2 blows out of it, and then find some (Light) broadsword that dealt similar damage but you got more blows out of it.

There's overlap with weapons of extra attacks though, and if burden is an issue you can't carry some artifact armour as a swap for some resistance for some (Light) armour that gives more armour per weight the way you can carry a weapon that does more damage per turn and one that gives some resistance. Weapons of extra-attacks would potentially be more useful though depending on the weight-reduction amount, creating more junk items. It might be more useful to make it only a flag as a random power.

For making armours more useful aside from lessening their weight, could also give them higher ac bonuses. A seperate idea would be to make an armour ego (Augmented) or something, that only had higher than normal ac bonuses, or maybe even higher ac and weighed a little less, or something like that.


Mostly I want weapons and armour that don't give resistances or important abilities (not slow digestion or regeneration) to have viable uses. Seems silly to me that the weapons that do the most damage and armour that give the most armour also usually give the greatest number of resistances and abilities, etc. Angband is usually about mixed benefits, not about super-upgrades. {Magical} weapons and armour are almost always just junk midgame and beyond. Should either find a way to make either {Magical} things useful, add something that replaces their creation that is useful (potentially the (Light) or (Augmented) stuff I propose), or make them not be created. They're different from consumeables that can be useful throughout the game in that they are basiaclly universally useless beyond a certain point in the game, but they still are created ._.

how is "light" any different than the current extra attacks ego? Besides that extra attacks goes past max-blows, and therefore obsoletes it.

[Hariolor]

Originally Posted by fizzix

how is "light" any different than the current extra attacks ego? Besides that extra attacks goes past max-blows, and therefore obsoletes it.

Two things -

1) I see what is being said re: light - it would be very much like extra blows, but would be far more common, basically. IMHO this would not prevent magic weapons from being junk as soon as the first good ego turns up. Lately my most interesting tradeoffs come in the midgame when it's deciding which artifact to use. Example, I had a priest with the flail that gives immunity to fire and Sting. I really wanted the fire immunity, and the flail didn't hurt my MP, but sting had extra blows and better benefits. In the end I went with sting for most of the game until I was finally dextrous enough to get 2 blows with the flail (Half troll was really strong, but not so nimble).

2) relatedly, I am curious if extra blows actually goes above max for all classes. I'm playing 3.1.2 and one I hit 5 blows with Sting, I never again got the message indicating at what point I'd get more blows...is it possible my starting dex was just so low that even maxed out I wouldn't get there - or are priests just capped at 3 (+2) and I did not realize since I just started playing priests recently?

[PowerDiver]

Originally Posted by Hariolor

2) relatedly, I am curious if extra blows actually goes above max for all classes. I'm playing 3.1.2 and one I hit 5 blows with Sting, I never again got the message indicating at what point I'd get more blows

Extra attacks are on top of max blows. See the recent randart discussion of the guy with *TEN* blows.

The older blows code only checks up to +8 IIRC on stats, so if you needed more nothing would have been listed. In addition, there is a known bug about descriptions in stores, so until that is figured out one cannot be sure the bug doesn't happen elsewhere as well.

[Zikke]

At first I thought you meant there would be a Dagger of Light that would give a brand vs. creatures not resistant to Light. I always wondered why Light/Dark/Nether/Other "elements" brands didn't exist on player weapons.

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by Zikke

At first I thought you meant there would be a Dagger of Light that would give a brand vs. creatures not resistant to Light. I always wondered why Light/Dark/Nether/Other "elements" brands didn't exist on player weapons.

I'm sure they'll arrive eventually. We now have BRAND_POIS after all, so I'm sure BRAND_LIGHT and BRAND_DARK won't be more than a few decades away. Someone has to go through the entire monster list and decide which are immune to any new brands, but it's do-able.

I must say I've been thinking along the same lines as the OP for a long time, especially for armour. I don't think it needs a new ego type though - just as occasionally a weapon shows up with extra dice, they could (more often) show up as lighter.

[Derakon]

You could have materials for each armor type that dictate how heavy the item is and give it a small boost or penalty to its stats. So for example, the base scale mail is leather, at 10 pounds and 10 armor, and you could have cloth (4 pounds, 5 armor), bronze (16 pounds, 14 armor), iron (13 pounds, 16 armor), and mithril (9 pounds, 20 armor). Likewise for weapons and damage dice. We already do this to an extent with the mithril chain and plate; no reason we couldn't extend it. Though I don't think you'd see weapons made of mithril; does it hold an edge?

[Nightmarjoo]

Originally Posted by Magnate

I'm sure they'll arrive eventually. We now have BRAND_POIS after all, so I'm sure BRAND_LIGHT and BRAND_DARK won't be more than a few decades away. Someone has to go through the entire monster list and decide which are immune to any new brands, but it's do-able.

I must say I've been thinking along the same lines as the OP for a long time, especially for armour. I don't think it needs a new ego type though - just as occasionally a weapon shows up with extra dice, they could (more often) show up as lighter.

Yeah that would fit what I propose pretty well, I just figured that making an ego would be more clean for implementing the idea and making it obvious that the weapon is lighter.

As for other brands, I can't wait to wield a sword of gravity! Or a weapon that always rolls a dice to confuse. Would a nethr branded weapon drain xp? You gain xp everytime you hit with it? Haha. How about a weapon of nexus that teleports your opponent! Or a weapon of fear, gives res_fear and attempts to scare your target every attack?

[Sirridan]

Originally Posted by Nightmarjoo

As for other brands, I can't wait to wield a sword of gravity! Or a weapon that always rolls a dice to confuse. Would a nethr branded weapon drain xp? You gain xp everytime you hit with it? Haha. How about a weapon of nexus that teleports your opponent! Or a weapon of fear, gives res_fear and attempts to scare your target every attack?

I can see the use for some of that, such as a character who can't really fight so well, using such a weapon to get rid of it...

But damn, I'm never using such a sword of gravity or nexus or fear with a warrior :P

[Derakon]

I bet you'd use arrows of gravity or nexus, though.