Uniques

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

I’ve been slowly working on a mod to change the theme of DDA from a future-science zombie apocalypse to a pulp fiction faux-Egyptian mummy curse apocalypse, and one of the things I’ve been trying to add is uniques. I think they’d make a good addition to the vanilla game too. These would be items with very low chances of spawning, and which can only spawn in specific places – and only ever once. If it’s destroyed or used up, it’s gone forever. Examples of the sort of stuff I’m talking about:

  • Indiana Jones’ fedora: Gives +2 to all attempts to defuse traps
  • Lamont Cranston’s trenchcoat: slightly more rugged and holds slightly more than a regular trenchcoat, and increases chance for intimidation in dialogue
  • Doc Savage’s supermachine pistol: high rate of fire, capable of firing multiple ammunition types
  • Sherlock Holmes’ pipe: gives +2 to int while being smoked
  • The Phantom’s skull ring: +2 to hand-to-hand combat, adds +1 bashing damage when hands are uncovered
  • Domino Lady’s mask: +1 to speechcraft and increases chance for pursuasion and lying in dialogue
  • Solomon Kane’s flintlocks: paired so they use both hands; shoots twice, loads twice; massive extra damage to supernatural and extra-dimensional targets

And so on. Of course, for the vanilla game you probably wouldn’t want pulp uniques, but I can think of a bunch of zombie-, apocalypse-, and horror-style uniques which would fit in, such as Ash’s chainsaw, Jill Valentine’s STARS Taser, and Mad Max’s armless leather jacket.

2

most of those look like they should be easy to put in too, although I’m not positive if Doc’s pistols would be douable currently. I’m pretty sure multiple ammo types is a thing, but I can’t think of any case where it is so off the top of my head. The code may not have a place for it yet.

3

I don’t think code supports it, but you could have an if-then skip in the code for tile generation, so the tile only gets generated once. It would be acceptable to do it inefficiently, as simple as if it’s chosen, is it unique, has it existed, if no put the tile there, if yes re-roll the tile.

You may want to then add a normal location (a SUPERNATURAL shop, perhaps?) with items that can show the rare places, like a roadmap. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s code to support the coordinates or compass directions in descriptions. It’s really bothersome because you can find the evacuation camp from the computer, but you have to go like 10 miles away to see it on the overmap. And I’m using a damn 2560x1440 screen with ascii glyphs.

4

We already have artifacts. These items would simple have traits that would be an expansion upon how those artifacts would work.