ToME WikiRavenRed: Just a quick thought in regards to a possibel reworking of the way that locks work in ToME. The way it works now, anyone can basically "brute force" a lock with relatively little Disarming skill by just standing there, pressing 'o' and waiting the x hundred turns required.
From what I can see in the code, the difficulty of a lock appears to be fixed.
/* Extract the difficulty */ j = i - get_flag(o_ptr, FLAG_LOCKED);
- (cmd2.c)
(Please correct my awful attempts at reading code... as required) which would appear to say that lockpicking gets easier (as your Disarm skill grows), but never harder. For mine, picking locks should never be easy.
My solution is to allow lock "strengths" on both chests and doors to vary drastically between levels and between locks on individual levels. Difficulty should scale up to about 8x the "standard" difficulty (perhaps at a rate of 1x per 12 dungeon levels) with variance within any given level based on the quality of the lock.
- Normal (1x base Dlev difficulty)
- Cheap (.5x base Dlev difficulty)
- Rusty (1.5x base Dlev difficulty)
- Complex (2x base Dlev difficulty)
- Unique (see below)
"Unique" locks could be highly rare, and require a specific "Key" to be placed somewhere on the level. Yes, it may be easier just to bash it down, if possible.
This may then be modified further for doors (and possibly chests, if you want "steel" to be harder to unlock than "wooden). Another key is to make doors no longer tunnelable. Either Bash them down, Magic them open or pick their locks.
Similarly, Doors can diversify somewhat. Instead of just "Power 1", "Power 2", you can have
- Rotting Wooden Door (power 1, Brown '+', Dlev 1)
- Wooden Door (Power 2, Umber '+', Dlev 4)
- Reinforced Wooden Door (Power 3, Umber '+', Dlev 8)
- Iron Banded Wooden Door (Power 4, Grey '+', Dlev 14)
- Iron Gate (Power 5, black '+', Dlev 20, possibly doesn't block sight)
- Stone Door (Power 6, white '+', Dlev 30, rock remover... removes!)
- Steel Door (Power 7, blue '+', Dlev 40)
- Adamant Door (shimmer white '+', Dlev 50, cannot be bashed down at all)
Please note that door strength is separate from the lock power. If you find an rotting wooden door with (for some reason) a particularly strong lock, you'd be better served spelling or smashing than trying to work at the keyhole with picks and hooks. Similarly, a sttel door isn't really worth testing your strength against.
However, it's not all about increasing difficulty. A new item: "Lockpicks" (wearable in the Bow slot) will substantially increase your Disarm skill (when applied to lockpicking). Indeed, a basic lockpick is necessary to even pick locks at all. "Fine", "Hobbit Made" and "Master's" versions would be available, with predictably enhanced effects. What this will mean is that sneaky-type characters will have an advantage in dungeons, especially in the late game, where doors of Adamant may make life especially difficult. (Oh, and I'm not letting spellcaster off... see here for the mods to Disarm)...
2c worth and counting...
Chatter
FeathinSilyar: Sounds fun, though typically if a door offers me much trouble I just tunnel around it. Sometimes even when I'm at a spot where I can tell there's a secret door rather than trying to search it out I'd just tunnel. This could be very useful in vaults though, where it'd be combined with permanent walls. Or special levels, especially with the 'unique' locks.
RavenRed: I agree. I've never been fond of the "Carve-your-own-dungeon" aspect of ToME. Maybe a Permanent Rock Doorframe would be a nice addition...
ReenenLaurie: In fact, the "Carve-your-own-dungeon" is one of the aspects I particularly dislike. I think without that part the game would be harder, but you could compensate by making the creatures less strong.
RavenRed: Simnple solution is to remove "tunnellable" from almost all terrain types. You could make an exception for sandwalls and rubble. Dwarves could get the old "bash a wall and turn it to mud" power, and of course you'd always have the Dig spell and the Wand of Thrain. This would make the dungeon a hell of a lot less permeable and require different problem-solving techniques...
Orvin: See related idea at http://forum.t-o-m-e.net/viewtopic.php?t=7028
RavenRed: You'd need to link that in to ensure that they WERE two halves of the same quest, but it's not a bad idea. However, we don't necessarily want ToME to become Tomb Raider (although a module of same would be... interesting).