Re: CF: Object decay, and various other matters of direction

[David Andrew Michael Noelle <dave@Straylight.org>]

Mark Wedel wrote:
[...]
>  In terms of descriptions, that can just as easily be done by using the
> description of the object.  Ie, for a ring it could be:
> 
>  This ring is intricately carved gold and platinum, with three small
> emeralds surround the large central diamond.  The gems pulse at an
> irregular rate, and you get the feeling this object protects you from
> fire attacks.
> 
>  Then all you need is adequate selection of things for saving throws. 

    Okay, I'm convinced.  Specifying materials with objects is more trouble
than it's worth.  If we add a few more materials and skip listing the
materials if the object has a description, we should be able to get almost
as much flexibility with far less hassle.


> The current list is:
> 
> #define M_PAPER         1
> #define M_IRON          2
> #define M_GLASS         4
> #define M_LEATHER       8
> #define M_WOOD          16
> #define M_ORGANIC       32
> #define M_STONE         64
> #define M_CLOTH         128
> #define M_ADAMANT       256
> 
>  Looking at my AD&D chart (which is not perfect, but does give some guidance),
> things that are missing:
> 
>  bone or ivory
>  ceramic
>  crystal or vial (which can be included in glass above)
>  liquid (which I think you added)
>  metal hard (we have as iron)
>  metal soft
>  mirror (really a combo of metal and glass, so don't need to worry about that)
>  wood or rope, thick
>  wood or rop, thin
> 
>  So we cover most of the bases.  I could see adding a metal soft (not
> quite as durable as iron).  Don't really know if we need a ceramic - that
> probably matches pretty closely with glass in terms of most saving throws.

    Liquid is done.  I'd like to add bone and ice as well as soft metal,
since they have different enough qualities and are rather common materials. 
I suppose mithril is close enough to adamantium.  Mithril objects just need
descriptions so they won't be mis-labelled as adamantium.  Silver has the
significant attribute of being lethal to lycanthropes (which might, at some
point, become a race and/or disease) but is otherwise a soft metal.  That
should probably be left for the slaying tag.  Can anyone else think of
anything important we're missing?


>  I think the issue may be the addition of a material when coming up with a new
> item which just doesn't really match the behaviour of the current materials and
> is different enough.

    One way to make it easier to add materials would be to round up all the
hard-coded variables related to them and put them all in a "material.h"
include file.  That should be pretty easy, especially since I've just gone
through that code recently.  I'll try to get that done while it's still
fresh in my mind.

-- 
            -Dave Noelle,                 dave@Straylight.org
            -the Villa Straylight,  http://www.straylight.org
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