Idea: device specialties

[Lord Estraven]

New abilities, sorta kinda ripped from PosChengband (and possibly Unangband). I figure these should be sane if they're mutually exclusive, but it would be interesting to get some feedback on it...

Staff Specialty
Requires: Magic-device @ 25, INT @ 22
Cost: 8
- Makes staves in inventory immune to hostile charge draining
- Auto-IDs all staves
- Reduces 'u'se time by 30%

Wand Specialty
Requires: Magic-device @ 25, INT @ 22
Cost: 10
- Makes wands in inventory immune to hostile charge draining
- Auto-IDs all wands
- Reduces 'a'iming time by 30%

Rod Specialty
Requires: Magic-device @ 25, INT @ 20
Cost: 8
- Auto-IDs all rods and rod tips
- Reduces 'z'apping time by 20%, cumulative with ego bonuses

Scroll Specialty
Requires: Magic-device @ 25, INT @ 18
Cost: 8
- Auto-IDs all scrolls
- Reduces 'r'eading time by 50%
- Prevents scrolls in inventory from being destroyed

Potion Specialty
Requires: Magic-device @ 25, INT @ 24
Cost: 12
- Auto-IDs all potions
- Reduces 'q'uaffing time by 20%
- Prevents potions in inventory from being destroyed

[Lord Estraven]

Okay, answer is that these abilities are impossible to code in a sane fashion. The code base is just too much of a mess.

Edit: I'm going to try adding one ability that allows device and consumable auto-ID, and see how that impacts things.

[Lord Estraven]

Hmm, interesting but buggy. And not really worth it, especially given fast potion pseudo-ID in the AH versions.

[Yottle]

Too bad. Stopping drainage of wands and staves would make them useful in the later game. As it is, they aren't good for anything but essence sources for alchemists.

[Lord Estraven]

Hmm, maybe Disenchantment resistance should protect from charge draining? That would make more sense, and would make the flag more valuable (and Petty-dwarves more powerful).

[Yottle]

That would be good and probably not terribly unbalancing. The only classes that would tend to use staves would be warriors (non-antimagic, of course) who currently use rods, scrolls, or try to get useful school spells without investing too many points. Even then, they would be of limited use because of the limits on charges.

Alchemists could abuse this by charging up a staff of genocide, but then alchemists are already totally unbalanced and can abuse dozens of things.