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i love the nuance of prefixes and suffixes for stuff like weapons and armor, but why are shields only limited to varying DV and PV values?
even boots and girdles, which don't have prefixes and suffixes, at least have desirable and undesirable effects besides their base stats
it's just funny imagining a world where magical and fantastic kinds of items are abounds everywhere....except shields. shields are 100% standardized and regulated.
The shield skill and the lack of other good DV-focused items make it somewhat difficult to design interesting shields. Each point of a shield's DV essentially counting triple, and shield DV accounting for huge portion of a character's DV, means that a shield's basic stats are far more important than for other pieces of armor. High-end artifact shields like The Wall and Protector would be good even if they had no special properties. On the other end of the spectrum, Lust for Glory and Nature's Friend are weak despite having special properties that would be very good in other item slots. Rolf's Saviour is the only one that comes close to striking a good balance between basic stats and special properties, with the set bonus making it worth considering over higher DV shields. Of course, the actual reason why there aren't any special non-artifact shields is known only to The Creator at the moment.
Some ideas for new shields, just for the heck of it:
- Shield of strength - average stats [+9, +2] {St+10} - sort of a more general-purpose version of the Rolf set bonus.
- Sorcerer's shield - average stats [+6, +5] - grants +1 PP per regen tick - much easier for casters to overkill on DV with defensive tactics, so this sort of convenience bonus might be worthwhile
- Shield of courage - average stats [+4, +3] - gains [+4, +3] for each hostile monster adjacent to the character - very silly effect; my attempt at making an interesting shield using only DV and PV bonuses
Lust for glory is very cool, the DV isnt great but very nice resistances that frees up other slots.
Thanks for the info about how DV works in this case - pretty cool!Quote:
Originally Posted by Grond
and yeah, something like the ideas you mentioned would be neat.
might be cool to have something like
Electrified Steel Shield - average stats [+5 +3] - successfully blocking an attack shocks the attacker (similar to weapons of thunder)
Never really thought of it, but I agree. Headgear, body armor, girdles, cloaks, weapons, gloves and boots all can have special properties, but not shields, except for artifact shields. The green, red, white and yellow weapon prefixes, all giving a certain resistance, would make much more sense on a shield than they do on a weapon.
I think simple addition of prefixes and suffixes thematically oriented towards shields would be nice.
Currently, shields offer somewhat varying bonuses depending on tactic settings. For example you don't train shield marks while on berserk. I would like to see stronger connection between tactical mode and shield effects.
Some features could be shared with armors - extra dv/pv/resistances etc., but also a few shield-specific things, such as:
*foo* of mirroring - reflects a percentage of physical, melee damage at the attacker.
*foo* of bashing - allows to add the shield's weight (after recalculations of course) to damage output in berserk tactical setting. Would be the equivalent of hitting things with your shield, greatly increasing the chance to break but offering some last ditch chance in situations like being disarmed or wielding a cursed, broken weapon.
*foo* of containment - every time the PC is hit by a melee attack, a small amount of HP is regenerated. Could be extended to cover magic bolts which would replenish PP instead.
*foo* of wind - gives the PC a speed boost at defensive tactical settings - the closer you get to coward, the more speed you gain. Could be a nice variation on existing concepts of battle strategy.
*foo* of attraction - greatly influences which item gets destroyed first in case item destruction occurs - traps, eyes of destruction, annihilators, environmental hazards - all this by focusing damage on itself. Depending on shield material, some could withstand more punishment than others.
Jagged *foo* - causes monsters that wield weapons against the PC to occasionally get disarmed (generating a random, thematically proper weapon in the adjacent tile, lowering monster's damage output...).
Glittering *foo* - essentially the equivalent of an amulet of light but in shield slot, with otherwise regular shield bonuses.
Distorted *foo* - causes hostile monsters in melee range to have small chance to get confused for 1d3 turns, looking at the misshapen shield, giving that precious moment of respite when you're in need.
Vibrating *foo* - in defensive tactical settings, works much the same way as "of searching" feature - the justification being that careful PCs will explore dungeons with their shield held in front of them.
Just a few things off the top of my head, more to illustrate the concept than give actual ideas.
I realize most of the stuff I wrote above would require some serious coding, testing and debugging, with small overall game improvement, so probably not worth it, but a man can wish.
Grond would be happy I'm sure, finding all the ways these modifiers aren't supposed to work ;)
Just wanted to add my 2 cents in that I also wish shields had a little more flavor. Some of the effects like elemental resistances would make more sense being taken off weapons and put on shields. Or at least be able to also spawn on shields.
Also shields were commonly granted powers/abilities in myths and legends. A reflective one to avoid medusa's gaze for example. It would be a cool way to introduce some new effects into the game without messing with the existing stuff.