Talk:XNetHack
Thoughts on mithril-coats
Hi! I was reading through xNetHack's change list, and upon you mentioning remaking mithril-coats I was struck with an idea: why not just make 'elven' and 'dwarven' into another kind of object properties, like material?
It generalizes pretty well: elves start with elven items. Those can be enchanted to +7, don't get penalties from being made from wood (as opposed to iron) [1], and elven weapons get a d(+1) against small creatures (e.g. d5 instead of d4, like elven daggers). Orcs start with crude items, which get d(-1) against small creatures and -1 to AC. Dwarves start with masterwork items. Masterwork armor gets +1 AC. With weapons it's trickier: dwarvish short swords get d(+1), and dwarven spears get d(+2). And DnD masterwork weapons just act as +1 that doesn't stack with enchantment. [2] +1 seems the most appropiate to me, but anything works.
Most racial items fit rather well with this mechanic, with exceptions for elven short swords which are d(+2) and dwarven weapons, which are inconsistent as mentioned before. As for mithril-coats, it works perfectly: EMC are elven, mithril ring mails which thus get +1 AC and can be enchanted to +7; DMC are masterwork mithril ring mails and thus get +2 AC but no enchantment bonus. Although if you want to keep them as MC3, you will need to tweak mithril material properties.
If you make all three parameters mutually exclusive (elven masterwork items may be a bit OP), they should fit into 2 bits. You will probably need to manually specify which items gravitate towards which races, but overall it very nicely cuts down on many similar item types. --Tomsod (talk) 10:39, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
