Wands and Rods: your ideas of what is needed

[darkgod]

Hello

Next beta will remove the "charged" egos, they kinda suck we all know that
Instead I plan to finally implement wands/rods (along with a few activable egos).

So what do you think should exist ?

[Gwai]

Interesting spells for wands/rod... hmm

sense
dig
vision
burninate .... or make that flame
freeze
fireflash
corrosive vapor
illuminate
lightening
heal
maybe even the rare inferno

Would these scale to magic?

Also, I think it would be fun to have area affect spells that would endanger the caster if they were zapped unidentified. This would work particularly well presuming the rods like heal or identify were zapped toward the caster.

The ghouls surround the tattered fighter. His clothes are charred from previous encounters and his healing potions are exhausted. He won't survive another blow. In desperation he pulls out his wand. It is still new to him and he does not know what it is. He is leery of using it, but he takes one more look at the advancing ghouls and points the wand at himself...

[edge2054]

Non-targeted Wormhole would make a nice rod or wand once I get it working right, so maybe beta 13 (parents have been in town so haven't had time to work on chronomancers).

(basically it's a void jump gate from tome 2)

*edit* Aside from that I agree with all of the above

[darkgod]

That's it gwai!
Now I just HAD to add a new artifact: "Gwai's Burninator", a unique wand ...

[Gwai]

Hurray! Okay, my life is complete.

looks at the advancing darkgod Or erm, no life not complete. Otherwise, I see visions of myself as an undead creature writing lore under dg's steely glare.

Speaking of which, you have a pm from me, dg. Let me know if that direction works for you and I'll see if I can get some more lore in in time for beta12.

[Hedrachi]

wand of magic missiles maybe? Has the same power as a low-level (non-beam) Manathrust, but fires three projectiles in succession so could hit three separate weak things. Or just a wand of manathrust, heh. Hmm... maybe a "turret" type wand that summons a friendly mold for you to plunk down in a narrow corridor?

[teachu2die]

excellent news! everything above sounds good...plus:

ID
teleportation
teleport other (phase door that can only be used on other targets, and the target destination cannot be selected)
confuse and/or daze monster
disarming
haste (? perhaps an artifact rod, very rare)

and a few basic cursed ones:
summon thieves/demons and/or undead
darkness (blinds)
befuddlement (confuses)
exhaustion (stamina goes to 0, or maybe -50 stamina)
inertia (slow)
concussion (damages and stuns)

[Zaive]

Wand of summon wands.... yeah.

[Final Master]

Wand of Smoke
Create a cloud effect that blocks line of sight for all squares the cloud occupies

Wand of Detection
Sense items, enemies, traps and magic map the area without light

Wand of Illumination
Light up room/specified radius with 'x' % chance blind npc AND deal 'y' light damage ONLY to light sensitive?

Wand of Terraforming
Alter all squares in ball effect to either water, lava, ice, pit or flower each randomly determined. I don't know though if you have all those coded yet...

Wand of Holding
Pin target with bolt effect for 'x' turns

Wand of Flash
HUGE cloud effect that deals low alternating light/darkness damage

I like teachu2die rod of concussion (damages and stuns) but I would prefer daze to stun, that way you can survive a blunder instead of instantly die.


I'll add more as I come up with them.

[madmonk]

Use Rod or Wand at the start of each line... The list contains good and bad!

of Blasting - Pin for 4 turns plus Searing Light
of Disarming - Sunders arms
of Traps - Disarms a trap (if it is present). Lays a trap if no trap present!
of Randomness - zap a random effect!
of Stone - Turns target to stone (and blocks square...)
of Explosions - AoE flame spell on user
of Swapping - Swap places with target (may be self)
of Cloning - Clone target (could be self)
of Travel - used in overland map to get to destination fast.
of Control - Control target (turns it into a summoned creature for a period of time)

more anon

[Repton]

Just wondering what thoughts you have regarding balance? e.g. at the moment Sense is a major point of difference between mages and other classes. But if you implement Rods of Detection that mimic it then suddenly all classes will have the same ability, and no one will ever hit a trap again...

So, that said, some ideas:

Rod of Trap Detection: detects traps in a cone, blocked by walls. So you can use it to hunt for traps where traps may be (e.g. vaults), but not practical to use it everywhere.

Wand of the Eye: target somewhere (using normal targeting rules). Creates a light-source at that point (large radius), and lets you see everything visible from that point while the spell lasts. Used for seeing around corners

Wand of Lasso: Target one npc in range; bring that npc next to you (resistable).

Wand of Targeting: Increases your to-hit and critical chance against the single target.

Wand of Doors: Creates a portal on a wall that you can walk through. Basically, it works like probability travel, so the exit portal is on the other side of the wall. The portal is either permanent or lasts a certain duration. NPCs can use it too.

Wand of Patience: Creates a slow-moving projective (say, 80% normal walking speed) that explodes when it finally hits a target.

Wand of Luring: Target a square. There now seems to be something very tasty there! Essentially, it's like taunt, but it specifically works on dragons and canines.

Also I heartily endorse Final Master's idea of a Wand of Smoke

[Susramanian]

I'd love to see some inventory UI improvements before I start cramming my bag with rods and wands. But I'm excited to see yet more fun stuff in the works.

[madmonk]

More rods and wands...

of Distraction - Dazed for a few turns
of Cursing - Curses a random worn item
of Ooops! - Item drops (more than 1 of course...)
of Drunkenness - Dazed and very random walking
of Depletion - drains mana
of Illness - drains health
of Tiredness - increases fatigue
of Thirst - drink random (in your pack) potions until thirst 'satisfied'
of Smoke Ring - blows a perfect smoke ring, all in view are dazed for 1 turn (going: "Ooooh, isn't that pretty!)
of Shattering - Sunder Armour
of Heavy Pack - increases encumbrance
of Scholarship - increases or decreases mastery multiplier

more anon...

[madmonk]

yet more wands...

of Demagoguery - Cause target to be of immense interest to all viewers. They will all cluster round 'listening' but not attacking
of Hatred - Cause all in view to hate each other with a passion...
of Warding - create a Ward from the Runemaster schools...
of Sticking - cause target to become immensely sticky (Gelatinous Cube type)

That'll do!

[Grey]

rod of Dragonform - turns target into a dragon for 5 turns (nice if used on self, not so nice if used on an ant)
wand of trap creation - can be targetted on present or adjacent square. Trap is not actually displayed to the player unless they have the necessary sense ability.

Artifact wand suggestion:

solid steel wand, "Hamberpan's compact mace"
When activated it displaces the user's weapon with a gigantic but featherlight mace for 8 turns. (recharge time of 50 turns)
Mace's stats would be appropriate for a high level mace, but without any strength requirement and 0 weight. Damage would be influenced by mace talent as per a normal weapon. Cannot be disarmed. User's regular weapon would be shoved into the inventory.

I agree that the UI inventory could do with some improvements if there are going to be more item types like this. A scrollbar on the inventory window would be nice, and maybe buttons at the top or bottom to only show certain item types? (ie, potion/scroll/equipment/wand/gem buttons, as well as the default "all" button)