SOMELITE, BIGLITE, of the Sun

[PaulBlay]

In the spirit of sharing I'd like to offer the following artifact to Vanilla Angband. (Original from Angband/64 by Jurriaan Kalkman)

This needs one object flag (BIGLITE) and one effect (SUN_HERO) to be added to Vanilla Angband. I've done both in Angband/65 and will submit a patch if anybody is interested.

BIGLITE is the same as LITE but for a radius bonus of 3. Essentially that means a normal lantern + BIGLITE artifact = Maximum light radius.

SUN_HERO is a combination of a standard BERSERK effect and a light_area effect that does 20d10 damage to light vulnerable critters in 8 radius area. That's offset, though, by the long recharge time.

Basically, though, I think it's got a cool description.

# The Large Metal Shield of the Sun

N:42:of the Sun
I:shield:Large Metal Shield~:3:0
W:40:9:120:160000
P:5:1d3:0:0:20
F:RES_FIRE | RES_FEAR | FREE_ACT | ACTIVATE | SPEED | BIGLITE
A:SUN_HERO:300+4d50
M:The {kind} shine{s} bright...
D:The large shield of Theoden, King of Rohan, who could not be overtaken
D: riding into battle. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers
D: ran like new fire in his veins. His golden shield was uncovered, and
D: lo! it shone like an image of the sun.

[EDIT] Forgot that SOMELITE is just LITE in Vanilla Angband code.

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by PaulBlay

BIGLITE is the same as SOMELITE but for a radius bonus of 3. Essentially that means a normal lantern + BIGLITE artifact = Maximum light radius.

Personally I would rather see PLITE become additive. (At the moment only one PLITE flag on any non-light-sources is effective.)

[PaulBlay]

Originally Posted by Magnate

Personally I would rather see PLITE become additive. (At the moment only one PLITE flag on any non-light-sources is effective.)

That isn't actually true - I just used Wizard mode and checked it. You get +1 light radius for each LITE flagged object.

Unless you mean something different by PLITE than I think you do.

[Donald Jonker]

Sounds like a solid, flavorful addition to the standard artifact set. V's artifact shields could probably use a bit of a shot in the arm; in my experience, it's almost always a choice b/w Thorin and a shield of elvenkind/resistance.

[PaulBlay]

Originally Posted by Donald Jonker

Sounds like a solid, flavorful addition to the standard artifact set. V's artifact shields could probably use a bit of a shot in the arm; in my experience, it's almost always a choice b/w Thorin and a shield of elvenkind/resistance.

OK, it's done! I did a quick debug generate of the artifact and it all seems to be in order. I've also posted it to the dev mailling-list for good order.

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by PaulBlay

That isn't actually true - I just used Wizard mode and checked it. You get +1 light radius for each LITE flagged object.

Hmmkay - I don't know if this is a recent change or if I've just never noticed it before. I still think BIGLITE is unnecessary with a radius limit of 5 - if it was raised to 10, that would make it pretty good!

I do like the activation though - it gave me an idea. How about a system of multiple activation effects? We already have RAGE_BLESS_RESIST as a precedent - it wouldn't be too hard to write some code to generate a composite activation from a bunch of individual effects. It would make randarts even more interesting - I'll add it to my enormous todo list!