Effects of low Learning
issueid=3717 05-22-2015 11:00 AM
Senior Member
Number of reported issues by Scooter Fox: 14
Effects of low Learning

With Learning lower than 6, PC cannot comprehend the number of charges in wands, not even the difference between "some charges" and "no charges", yet he/she can accurately tell there's 235 cooked lizards in his/her backpack and 12814 gold pieces in his/her pocket.

I'd like to suggest two ways out of this, not sure which one would be better.

1. PCs with very low Learning (below 6 maybe?) are unable to tell how many items exactly they have. Instead of "heap of X items" descriptions, they'd have
- a few items (2-4) - (alternatively always be able to tell a number up to four, as humans can do it naturally at a glance even when unable to properly count)
- several items (5-8)
- ??? (9-12) - (sorry, my English vocabulary is completely failing me here at the moment, so if you like the idea, I'd be grateful for some suggestions about the ranges)
- a lot of items (13-20)
- ??? (21+) - (see above)
For gold pieces it would be necessary to either alter the ranges or add a new functionality of checking wealth similar to checking literacy. Let's say after pressing :$ you get a message "You feel poor." or "You feel wealthy." etc. depending on amount of gold.

2. Boring solution - allow PCs to tell the difference between "wand is working" and "wand is not working". Maybe only allow it for Learning higher than 3 or 4?
Issue Details
Issue Number 3717
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Suggested
Priority 8
Suggested Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 23
Implemented Version (none)
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 2
Votes against this feature 8
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




05-22-2015 02:02 PM
Ancient Member
Good idea.

05-22-2015 03:27 PM
Ancient Member
I recall reading suggestion no. 1 was implemented in the gamma days, but had to be removed because it caused too much hassle for little gain.

05-23-2015 02:25 AM
Senior Member
"...yet he/she can accurately tell there's 235 cooked lizards in his/her backpack and 12814 gold pieces in his/her pocket."

Really? Just because there's a number in the game doesn't mean the pc knows it themselves. I mean, I doubt the pc knows that they are 'level x with y experience'.

ADOM isn't supposed to be perfectly realistic.

I'm not downvoting, btw, I just think this would be a lot of work for not much return (how many <6 le pcs are there?)

EDIT: if you really wanted to do this, just show rounded numbers, i.e. 10,000+ vs 12,000+ vs 12,230+ vs 12,235 gp depending on whether pc learning was > certain threshold values.
I think that works better than ranges of numbers (10,000 to 20,000 gold or whatever), which sounds like what you were suggesting.

05-23-2015 10:06 AM
Ancient Member
I don't see why we really need the inability to tell how many charges a wand has. It brings nothing to the table, it doesn't enhance the game in any way.
I'd say remove it entirely, it's a pointless feature that is strangely limited to wands when it very well should be applied to other items.

There are already severe (in my opinion) penalties to having low learning.
You gain few points to increase skills per level, all spells you somehow learn will have pitifully low amount of castings and weapon marks are gained more slowly.

05-23-2015 11:13 PM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by Blasphemous
I don't see why we really need the inability to tell how many charges a wand has. It brings nothing to the table, it doesn't enhance the game in any way.
I'd say remove it entirely, it's a pointless feature that is strangely limited to wands when it very well should be applied to other items.

There are already severe (in my opinion) penalties to having low learning.
You gain few points to increase skills per level, all spells you somehow learn will have pitifully low amount of castings and weapon marks are gained more slowly.
I agree, and the idea that knowing wand charges depends on learning just seems wonky rather than realistic. The charges aren't objects that are being counted here, no matter how smart you are your can't just look at a wand (apparently after you zapped it once) and count how many more charges are left. If anything that should depend on mana and being able to somehow 'sense' the amount of magic in the object.

05-24-2015 10:46 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by gr3ybird
I agree, and the idea that knowing wand charges depends on learning just seems wonky rather than realistic. The charges aren't objects that are being counted here, no matter how smart you are your can't just look at a wand (apparently after you zapped it once) and count how many more charges are left. If anything that should depend on mana and being able to somehow 'sense' the amount of magic in the object.
Yeah, that mana sensing is a great idea, actually makes much more sense because of how potions of mana and boost mana can charge up a wand.
Clearly there is a correlation between mana and wand charges so I support the idea that chars with, say Ma>10 should be able to sense the amount of charges.

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