Sentient items

[Susramanian]

These were great fun in ToME 2. I'd love to see them implemented in ToME 4. I'd be perfectly happy to see them work the same way, but here's another idea that could be fun.

Sentient items gain experience along with the player (all experience earned gets split between the player and any sentient items they're wearing, so leveling slows down significantly while the player is wearing one or more). Such items come with a max level and a skill tree. When the item levels up, it gets a talent point just like the player, and the player spends the point just like they do their own talent points. Maybe some sentient items come with skill trees that aren't even available to any character classes.

Example:

Level 1 Ring of the Sky Drake (max level: 10)
+3 Magic
+3 Willpower
Has access to the Air talent tree (Mastery 1.00)

When a player first finds it, this ring is level 1 and thus only has a single talent point. It's already spent in Lightning, as there's no other option. The ring has a max level of 10, which means that it can't exceed 10 talent points. How the player distributes these is up to them. They could put 5 in Lightning and 5 in Chain Lightning, or they could skimp on the low-level spells and put 5 in Thunderstorm.

Questions to consider:

Where should the mana come from? If a warrior wears the ring, does the ring come with mana or does the warrior have to use their own mana, such as when they learn a spell through an escort quest?

How does this behave with players that already know the talent tree in question? We don't want the points to simply work additively with the player's talent points, as that would result in Archmages calling down strokes of lightning that could one-shot a boss.

Should those air spells use the player's spellpower and magic stats for determining effectiveness, or should the ring come with its own stats? If it uses the player's stats, then this ring would be almost useless in the hands of a warrior, but a mage has access to the Air tree anyway, so they might not be interested either. So I suppose the ring should have its own spellpower and magic, unless we come up with something more interesting.

As you can see, I've hardly thought this through at all, though it seems like it could be very interesting and make for some extremely varied gameplay at high levels, which is always good.

[yufra]

What if sentient items had their own resource pools AND their very own AI? You could still choose what talents etc they would invest in, but they would act completely independently, for example the Sky Drake ring you mentioned may act a little like the Thunderstorm spell, with lightning bolts shooting out when the talent cools down.

[edge2054]

I really like this general idea.

Another way to look at the 'item only' talents would be something like this.

Talent Tree
Sentient Blade
- Hit
- Damage
- Improved Ego
- Special Power

(Also like Yufra's idea too)

[Susramanian]

Yufra's and Edge's suggestions both sound great. Maybe sentient weapons and armor all have trees like the one Edge mentioned, possibly in addition to other trees. Rings and amulets would be limited to other types of trees, either existing talent trees (like the Sky Drake example above), or something completely new. And I really like the idea of them acting autonomously; depending on the behavior and the talents in question, sentient items could probably save your life or end it with a well- or poorly-timed cast.

With a low number for max level (like 4), we could even include some early-game sentient artifacts. A sentient Phial sounds fun.

[Taxorgian]

And perhaps sentient items become affectionate for each other? So if you have a sentient ring on a hand with a sentient weapon (or shield), they reinforce each other, but they refuse to work if separated later?

Connectedness (Special - always at lower level of both sentient items)
Bond of friendship - All numerical actions of each item (spell power, damage, etc) are enhanced by X%
Interlacing - Each item defends the other from attack, giving X additional physical save
Metallic Will - Gives X spell resistance due to reinforcing psionic attachment

[Susramanian]

Until they have a messy breakup, at which point they stop working together. Solve the problem by putting both items in your bag and dumping in a couple Potions of Booze.

[Hedrachi]

On a less hokey connectedness note, maybe a pair that does damage together once they've leveled up some. Oversimplified example: The mithril longsword Day casts Searing Brightness at uruk-hai, doing light damage and has a 50% chance to blind target. As Day casts Searing Brightness, the galvorn dagger Night casts Unending Night at uruk-hai, doing darkness damage over 4 turns, the total darkness damage dealt by Night is equal to the one-shot damage. Maybe it's a third ability that does this, and each of them by themselves could cast it at enemies, so to be able to use the joined abilities both weapons would need to have the mana/positive/negative to use the abilities, and both abilities would need to be off cooldown. Maybe Light has the blindness part of its ability only when it uses the joined ability, same for Night's damage-over-time. (Would be a weak darkness damage without the joined ability).

[Feanor.81]

Ok, now stop and think to the poor guy who should code something like that

[Hedrachi]

Ok, now stop and think to the poor guy who should code something like that

Hee hee hee. Maybe have the chance of spellcast conform to the Witch of Agnesi curve and then damage be determined by its point on the complex plane... eh, I joke.