Magic, Monsters, a new you, and stuff!

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1 
 I do love that whole future apocalypse stuff. Guns and power armor and stuff. But I also love magic! Yes you have necromancy, but from what I can tell it is not PROPER necromancy. We need to have the ability to posses your friends with demons! And brew strange potions with strange effects! Do rituals and stuff to get more magic! Find other wizards! Have sniper battles with fire balls! Limited mana so you can't spam too much! Levitate the your opponents! Or simply their weapons! Preferably not their clothing cuz, ew, dude, that's gross...
 Of course this could easily get out of hand and stuff, so there can be balancing like for example, you slowly kill hurt when doing magic, thus putting on limits. Or maybe the magic spell could fail. You're trying to light a campfire when you instead like YOURSELF on fire!
 Plus there can be new mutations/species! Such as a vampire or a werewolf. Maybe you were secretly a zombie all along! (You gave your soul to live) Or maybe your profession is to be a monster hunter!
 New items like silver bullets! Plus stakes too. Don't wanna get to close to that vampire? try throwing your stake at them! It may-or-may-not work. If it doesn't and you still wanna stay away use a stake on a stick! Basically it is a stake attached to a stick for extra reach. Why is it that the stick can't be a stake? Because magic type stuff has rules bro.
 A good place to find vampires is in graveyards or woodland mansions. Werewolves in the hills,er, forests aren't too rare. Zombies still don't like you if you are a vampire or werewolf tho.
 Vampires have OP night vision. They cannot bleed and are less likely (but still possible) to get hurt from bashing damage. Big downside, you light on fire if you go into the sun! Canines will get aggravated wear nearby a vampire and deal extra damage to said vampire. Vampires naturally make little to no sound and have an ease at walking on all terrain, but unfortunately never managed to grow wings. Vampires can feast on blood to quench thirst, add a mood buff and temporarily gain several boost: speed, strength, dexterity, damage. (not stackable) Has a small chance to 'bite' an enemy when fighting if the mouth is not too encumbered, this gives a boost similar to drinking blood, but smaller. You can feed off of your followers in their sleep without turning them if you so wish. But there is a chance that the follower will wake up, and they'll most likely do so aggressively. If they like you enough they'll let you feed off them when awake! You can turn them into vampires also, but then you wouldn't have as good of a blood source since zombie blood is gross!

Werewolves have most of their effects only on at night. Canines will never attack them unless provoked. They always have a small boost in strength, dexterity, and speed, and have SOME night vision (but not as good as a vampire). They don’t get a debuff from cannibalism, but neither to they get a boost. At night (not specifically a full moon) werewolves turn into their beastly form. They deal decreased damage when wielding items due to their claws, but deal more damage without wielding anything. Their fun grants a little natural encumbrance and warmth, when in their wolf form they get a small mood buff for having no cloths on… (Well, wolves don’t wear cloths after all. And they are covered in fur!) Hearing is greatly increased also. Unfortunately, while you don’t ‘wolf out’ only on full moons, the further away from one, the weaker you’ll be! On a new moon you’ll be practically a normal human!

2

There is an Arcana and Magic Items Mod, but it’s obsolete now. You can un-obsolete it by going into its modinfo.json inside /data/mods/Arcana and changing the “obsolete” field to false, then saving the file, but I suspect that since the mod isn’t maintained, that using it will crash the latest experimentals. PK’s Rebalancing, and Cataclysm++ both had that problem, and the creators had to fix it in them, but Arcana and Magic items isn’t being maintained.

Arcana and Magic Items added potions that could heal you, numb pain, increase strength, and various other things, but they all had drawbacks except the healing potion. It also added glyphs for things like summoning friendly shoggoths (who’s a good amorphous slime-mass, you are!), but there was a chance that it was hostile instead. There were scrolls, tools, and weapons that all had effects similar to artifacts, but weren’t random. There were also magic clothing articles that could do things like produce pools of acid around you, or heal you, at the cost of some pain. It was a pretty cool mod, in all.

3

I see my old mod has evidently been out of the game long enough to be forgotten by some people. :V

I’m retaining Arcana and Magic Items in my own repo (https://github.com/chaosvolt/cdda-arcana-mod), and it should function with the latest experimentals. Just delete the version in the mods folder, and replace it with the version from the repo.

4

[quote=“Random_dragon, post:3, topic:13533”]I see my old mod has evidently been out of the game long enough to be forgotten by some people. :V

I’m retaining Arcana and Magic Items in my own repo (https://github.com/chaosvolt/cdda-arcana-mod), and it should function with the latest experimentals. Just delete the version in the mods folder, and replace it with the version from the repo.[/quote]

I didn’t know that. Thank you for telling me. I’m getting it right now. I did quite like it, back when I used it. Has it changed any, or was it just made compatible?

5

Been a few intermittent updates and balancing here and here. Big addition would be the occasional arcanist basement, an idea I’d pondered a long time ago, but couldn’t implement back then because basements used to be all hardcoded.

I’d been pondering some unfinished artifact ideas and things like NPCs, quests, etc. But I’ve yet to get very far due to assorted things, like limited access to some of the quest stuff that’s still hardcoded, plus so far only really being in the mood to keep the mod up to date.

6

[quote=“Random_dragon, post:5, topic:13533”]Been a few intermittent updates and balancing here and here. Big addition would be the occasional arcanist basement, an idea I’d pondered a long time ago, but couldn’t implement back then because basements used to be all hardcoded.

I’d been pondering some unfinished artifact ideas and things like NPCs, quests, etc. But I’ve yet to get very far due to assorted things, like limited access to some of the quest stuff that’s still hardcoded, plus so far only really being in the mood to keep the mod up to date.[/quote]

Well, thank you for maintaining it, nonetheless. I remember back when I first discovered that the Shady zeds sometimes drop essence. I started actively hunting them down, when I realized that. Do they still drop it? The first time I saw a Malboro was also pretty memorable. So was immediately after I killed the Malboro, then accidentally killed my character by testing the acid staff that it dropped, while I was inside a basement full of giant black widows. Good times.

7

[quote=“Random_dragon, post:5, topic:13533”]Been a few intermittent updates and balancing here and here. Big addition would be the occasional arcanist basement, an idea I’d pondered a long time ago, but couldn’t implement back then because basements used to be all hardcoded.

I’d been pondering some unfinished artifact ideas and things like NPCs, quests, etc. But I’ve yet to get very far due to assorted things, like limited access to some of the quest stuff that’s still hardcoded, plus so far only really being in the mood to keep the mod up to date.[/quote]

Nice to hear you still have it going - any progress on implementing that Orb concept I gave you? Or the general purpose repair item?

8

Still should, yeah.

Ack. Never had got around to trying to mess with it, because I think that was right before I discovered the mod fuckups and then things got salty. I think. Seems like I got distracted close to the same timeframe.

9

Ack. Never had got around to trying to mess with it, because I think that was right before I discovered the mod fuckups and then things got salty. I think. Seems like I got distracted close to the same timeframe.[/quote]

I posted the code for my version of the orb on the main thread for your mod, as a starting point - the most time-consuming part left after that would be modifying the books and drop lists.

10

Ah right. Still need to actually fiddle with it. D:

Though hmm, does give me ideas. Magic mapping is a useful thing after all, so it could be a lesser artifact instead of a craftable item I recall one thing I pondered once was less-unique non-craftable items to be dropped by some of the vanilla boss monsters.

11

[quote=“Random_dragon, post:10, topic:13533”]Ah right. Still need to actually fiddle with it. D:

Though hmm, does give me ideas. Magic mapping is a useful thing after all, so it could be a lesser artifact instead of a craftable item I recall one thing I pondered once was less-unique non-craftable items to be dropped by some of the vanilla boss monsters.[/quote]

What do you mean by “vanilla boss monsters”?

Also, one reason I made it craftable but very expensive was because I wanted to guarantee being able to get one if I REALLY wanted, but not make it easy. Dropped occasionally by some rare kind of creature makes it pretty hard to get, sometimes.

12

I mean like the fungal boss creatures (giant flower, spire, etc), brain blob, triffid heart etc. I could at least make them drop 100% of the time though. Like I said, still hadn’t got to work on that. @.@

13

If that’s the case, I’d make the “lesser artifacts” you’re talking about craftable USING something that things like that drop (a special essence, “drop of otherworldly nectar”, etc.). That would make more sense.

Also, you could make a crafting recipe for things like that, but make it PAINFULLY expensive. That special essence that fungal spires occasionally drop? Sure, you can make that… for 100 regular essence and 200 blood essence (or something else ridiculous).

14

Crafting them using items obtained from boss monsters might work, yeah. Since marlboros are the only Arcana boss that outright drop their associated artifact. XP

Exact numbers I’ll need to figure out when I get to it, but I’m thinking they should be a touch less than the equivalent return from dismantling the uncraftable items. Just haven’t been in the mood to lately due to Skyrim distractions.

And also, forum has still been fucky on my desktop, hence the belated replies.

15

[quote=“Random_dragon, post:14, topic:13533”]Crafting them using items obtained from boss monsters might work, yeah. Since marlboros are the only Arcana boss that outright drop their associated artifact. XP

Exact numbers I’ll need to figure out when I get to it, but I’m thinking they should be a touch less than the equivalent return from dismantling the uncraftable items. Just haven’t been in the mood to lately due to Skyrim distractions.

And also, forum has still been fucky on my desktop, hence the belated replies.[/quote]

Yeah… “distractions”. Heh.

But yeah, I had a couple of days with problems on my machine, too - it was very annoying. “Yes, the forum was down, but it’s UP now! STOP REDIRECTING ME TO THE “Here’s the search for the thing you wanted that is down” SCREEN!!!one!!!eleven!!!”

16

Welp. It’s only been most of a year, but I finally stopped being a lazy twat and made a crack at the things you suggested all that time ago. Self-PR’d so it can be commented on and stuff before making it an official part of the mod repo: https://github.com/chaosvolt/cdda-arcana-mod/pull/10

If you aren’t cddaDeoxy on there I will be saddragon.

17

[quote=“Random_dragon, post:16, topic:13533”]Welp. It’s only been most of a year, but I finally stopped being a lazy twat and made a crack at the things you suggested all that time ago. Self-PR’d so it can be commented on and stuff before making it an official part of the mod repo: https://github.com/chaosvolt/cdda-arcana-mod/pull/10

If you aren’t cddaDeoxy on there I will be saddragon.[/quote]

Heh, yeah, that’s me. Thanks for that - you made me laugh.

Comments:

Satchel of Eternity - you’re much better at naming things than me. Radiation seems a little harsh when the whole point of the item is carrying it for a good while… The teleportitis is pretty nasty, but it makes a lot more sense. One or the other is probably sufficient, unless the amount of storage it adds is just incredible. 250 doesn’t seem all that incredible to me, compared to Ye Olde Duffel Bag. Nether attention seems like it might apply here, though perhaps only if you could somehow suppress the message - the point isn’t that it really gets attention, as that it just weakens the separation between their space and ours, letting creatures through more often.

Druidic Staff - naming again. Seems fine.

Orb of the Veil - mutation just for mapping? OUCH, man. Of course, with Robust Genetics, mutations like that can actually be helpful, too, so again, not sure that’s a good balancer. Nether attention does seem like an obvious good choice, and at least some pain/paralysis (to keep you from using it with monsters around) seems like a good idea (unless you can find a way to make it take some time, which would accomplish the same thing, only better). Not sure what else, though, which is why I just piled on the pain and called it good - the version I had hit you with three separate pain doses for one usage, so yeah, it goes away, but it tended to be a LOT (40+ from one use), and the mapping doesn’t work every time, either, so I’ve hit 120+ pain just to map one area. I think the main balancer on this should probably be just plain high essence cost to use.

Also, I’d add Nether Attention to wielding it as well (or possibly just carrying it… or even both) - this seems like the sort of thing that would REALLY get the attention of such creatures. “Stop looking at us!” Heh.

What would be REALLY nifty would be a way to have fewer other drawbacks and just more attention the more essence one used at a time - pour on the essence, and you could use it for “free” in terms of other penalties, but LOTS of attention. I don’t think that can really be done, currently, except as different items. “Greater Orb of the Veil”, maybe, that takes 50 essence to use, or something. Could make a lesser one, too, that had LOTS of penalties, but low cost to use. Probably not worth the item clutter for either one, though.

18

Was gonna suggest commenting on there since I still don’t check here very regularly, but eh. :V

Regarding the satchel, radiation might be a bit much, yeah. According to the wiki it’s a 25% chance per turn, and doesn’t say how much the radiation buildup is. In contrast it said the teleport chance is less than 1% per turn. Regarding the storage, it’s mainly that it has 130 more storage than the duffel bag while having half the encumbrance, occupying a different layer slot, and adding 49 pounds to your carry weight (found out that’s what the “carry more” artifact effect does). Nether attention instead of radiation might work, since teleportis will mess with the player eventually.

As for the orb, main thing I’ve noticed is that mutation didn’t trigger 100% of the time, but I’m unsure of the exact odds without source-diving. A ton of pain I guess is a bit less short-term if it’s that high, though. Using it with monsters around isn’t much of a concern however, as it doesn’t reveal the local area like a clairvoyance item, it just acts like a map item. Nether attention buildup on wielding seems logical though, and I should re-add the perception increase you suggested in the first version.

19

I was meaning that I WANT it to be a problem - paralysis and lots of pain mean that you don’t want to use it when anything hostile is nearby.

20

Why though, is the thing. If it was clairvoyance or otherwise mapped the local tiles it’d make sense, because you could use that to plan an escape route or sneak past enemies.

Instead it’s kind of a flavor detail, because there’s no real reason to use the mapping effect in combat anyway. Which is alright but kinda silly. XP