Proc-based item brands

Here are some suggestions for beneifical and hindering item brands I've been thinking of implementing, based upon procs. There are three types of procs - those that have a chance to occur when an attack is made (i.e. offensive), those that have a chance to occur every turn, and those that have a chance to occur when a creature gets attacked (i.e. defensive). Some (e.g. torment) are more powerful than others - I haven't worked out competitive power rankings yet but I would like the slightly less powerful effects to be more common than the more powerful ones.

I envisage these brands would be placed upon magical items in a similar fashion to other brands, although their names would take precedence in item name construction.

Suggestions for more, and their frequency would be more than welcome.

Offensive beneficial effects:

1. transfer 10% of hp from target to attacker [vampiric]
2. inflicts 50% extra damage [vorpal]
3. reduces maximum hp of target by 25% [draining]
4. teleports target to random place on level [telekinetic]
5. teleports target away permanently [banishment]
6. turns a normal hit into a critical [slaying]
7. knocks target back a number of squares to the nearest wall [thundering]
8. turns a single attack into two or more attacks [quick]
9. chains the damage to any adjacent targets [chaining]
   

Offensive hindering effects:

1. drains target of 10% of hp and returns it to the attacker [withering]
2. turns an attack into a miss [clumsy]
3. makes the target trip and fall, thus losing the current action [stumbling]
4. teleports target randomly around the level [blinking]
5. injures target for half hp [tormenting]
6. randomly makes target drop an item carried in inventory [itching]
7. randomly eats a carried ration of food [consuming]

Defensive benficial effects:

1. absorbs the blow entirely [shielding]
2. heals the target for the damage the hit would otherwise have caused [restoring]
3. makes target's evasion temporarily higher and forces the attacker to reroll the triggering attack against the new evasion [displacing]
4. knocks attacker back one square (if possible) [rebound]

Defensive hindering effects:

1. freezes the target in place for a turn [rooting]
2. terrifies the target, cutting the target's evasion rating to 0 temporarily and allows a reroll of the triggering attack [terrifying]
3. allows the attack to proceed at full damage, ignoring armour [piercing]
4. teleports a nearby but non-adjacent creature to a square adjacent to the target [attracting]

Now these effects are relatively easy to code, being all instanteous effects. But if you have any ideas for longer lasting effects, it would be good to read them as well.

A few of these procs also might make good scrolls as well.

Kharne 0.05c now available

Kharne Alpha 0.0.5c is now available for download (an archive of the source code will be available soon, but if you want the latest code it is already in the SVN).

Changes in this version as are follows:

• Some monsters now can poison.
• Some monsters now follow characters up and down stairs.
• Mineral nodes are now found on levels and can be dug out for extra gold or occasionally items.
• Classes now have different titles, dependent upon current character level.
• Only the just finished game will be now highlighted correctly in the hiscore list after character death.
• Spurious double quotes (") will no longer appear in automatically generated character names.
• When resting, there is chance of a monster appearing randomly near the character.
• Eating now restores all lost health points.
• When starting a 2nd game in the same session, the Character Background will be reset properly.
• On Character death, the Main Window Title will be reset properly.
• Elemental Intrusion Creatures no longer have as many hitpoints.
• Unidentified Scrolls are now identified properly on Character Death.

Arguments for and against Stamina as a stat

In the comments to my last post, Nolithius remarks (rather sensibly) that:

No need to have complexity for complexity's sake! If 4 stats work well for your system, then 4 stats is the right amount. In fact, for a 3-class system you can get away with 3 stats and have the HP progression be determined by the class.

To be honest, the thought (of just having three stats in Stygia) had already crossed my mind, but I've been resistent to just having the three stats for several reasons:

• Dungeon Crawl has only the three stats, and using the same stats smacks of ripping Crawl off (the corrolary of this argument is below).
  


• To have HP Progression determined by class makes class the most important choice in the game (which is why, I guess, Crawl determines HP by skill levels).
  

However, on the other hand, there are excellent reasons for not having a stamina stat:

• A Stamina stat becomes either an irrelevance or worse, it becomes a 'stat tax': witness the continual dependency (and arguments) upon stamina items in certain MMOs
  


• It doesn't actively contribute to the game, and doesn't have any natural decision points hanging off it. In short, its additional unwarranted and unjustified complexity.
  


• Crawl doesn't have a stamina stat, and Crawl is the best roguelike about at the moment.
  

The first one is perhaps the biggest argument against stamina, and the argument that I'm likely to persuade me. But if I don't have a Stamina stat, how do we determine Hit Points?

Leaving aside whither or not we should have hit points (a whole other argument altogether), the standard roguelike options tend to be:

• by Class
  


• by Race
  


• by Skill
  

I'm against determining HP by Class alone, and Stygia will not have any races (the PC will be 'human'-ish). For this reason, I'm gravitating towards making Hitpoints dependent upon both Level and the value of the class's primary Skill (e.g. Fighting, Sneaking or Spellcasting).

Charisma and other stats

Getting back to Stygia development, I'm pondering, for a small roguelike, how many stats a character needs? 3, like Crawl (these are Str, Dex, Int). Or 6 like DnD, Angband?

I think 3 is too few, but 6 is too much (has anyone ever worked out a good use for Charisma in a roguelike?

I think just the four (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Stamina) would be better. They also suit thematically the type of game I'm planning (with only three Character Classes - Basher, Sneak, Adept that map to Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence respectively).

Thoughts?

BRogue!

A new version of BRogue is out and its now fully cross-platform courtesy of Libtcod!

I've downloaded it but not played it yet other than a cursory wander through to check that it works. But I'm really looking forward to playing it!

C# Cartesian Point class

I've developed a class for using Points in C# (unlike Delphi, there's no inbuilt type). You can grab the source code and a sample console app here or here. All code is public domain, knock yourself out, etc, etc, etc.

The best laid plans of mice and men....

This weekend I'll won't be working on my map classes and getting the '@ walking around an empty map' state done after all.

The perils of running out of anti-depressants on a bank holiday weekend. :-(