ToME WikiGreyMatter: Sentient weapons are one of the coolest sounding things in ToME. But it just doesn't seem like their implementation is done very well. I apologise beforehand, this is the first wikipost I've made. Actually the first ToME community post I've made.
I have two different proposals as how to change the way that sentient weapons level:
Alchemy type leveling
- Sentient weapons should earn experience and you can manually spend it via the 'm' menu simular to alchemy It could be either a specific leveling IE I want this so I save up to buy it. Or similar to the current system where you would "purchase" a realm and a random ablility from that realm would be assigned. But it would give the user more options than the current.
Monster type leveling
- I think this would be alot harder to implement. But I think it would probably be the coolest feature. Using this leveling system your weapon would gain abilities based upon the creature(s) it killed when it levels. IE, you kill a vampire and your weapon levels. A vampire has attributes from certain realms: Dark, Undead etc. So your weapon would get a ability from one of the realms. With the lesser realms having a larger chance of being selected. A variant of this system could be that the leveling depends on the amount and quality of the monster's it kills. IE you've been hunting dragons with sting and it adds the various realms that dragons have attributes in.
RavenRed: I quite like the second idea, although I'd limit it somewhat in terms of the type of monster that it can "soak" up. A "Dragonslayer" weapon could absorb draconic abilities wheras a "Beastslayer" could be specifically geared towards getting the speed of a wolf or sight of an eagle. A generic "absorb-all" weapon interests me a bit less. You could also limit the XP gained to being ONLY for kills of that specific monster. You could gentle the Levelling XP required as a bit of a compensation... it's an interestnig idea, at any rate.
GreyMatter: I see what your saying, but highly specialized weapons don't see much use. I was thinking more along the lines of a level cap. So a player would have to be careful in developing their weapon. Only using it when they see certain creatures to gain the abilities that the player decides. Add a challenge to developing the weapon. But allow the player to at least give the weapon a direction to develop in. Give the weapon a maximum of 10 abilities or so. But you have to kill certain creatures to get those abilities. And the ablities come from realms so there's no guarantee you are going to get one ability etc...
J_Gilmore: I've thought of it in a somewhat different way - These things are sentient, right? Means smart. So why in tarnation am I getting "Resist Fire" when I have the immunity, four items than grant the resist, and inate resistance besides?!?! Ok, so it's an extreme example, but there should be some influence that the player has over what abilities are gained. My thoughts on the subject go mostly as follows:
Based on what you have - this would reduce or eliminate the chance of gaining a resist/power that you already have. Of course, sometimes you want to have duplicates, so you can discard than ring of confusion resistance... It would make even more sense to make this depend on how many times you have any given ability, and whether or not it's inate.
- Based on what you want to have - like the fumblefingers quests, give the player an option to choose from a list of three or so. Perhaps with also an option to 'skip' and save the points for later? Of course, that might work better if the currently internal point system is exposed...
- Based on a pre-determined, artifact-specific list. The *thanc weapons would have specific, realm-based progression, with minor random factors. This method could be combined with one of the others for even more fun.
Based on what you want to eventually have. Perhaps like the fumblefingers, but also make it so that some abilities depend on having others. Can't get fire immunity without fire resist, can't get light-2 without extra damage from fire, etc. This could be extra fun because you could lie about it. List fire immunity as an option, but when selected it gives a message to the effect of "sorry, master, I can't do that right now, but I'll gain fire resistance and next time maybe I'll be able too..." But next time, it gains light-1 instead, whether or not light-1 is normally a prerequisit for fire immunity. Of course, there has to be some chance that you'll get random_greatly_desired_ability or the game would stop being fun, and people would stop playing, and use a double-ego weapon instead.
- Based on class/race/skill. A table of probabilities assigned to the abilities, or even just to the realms of abilities. Kinda stinks for a mage's blade to gain anti-magic doesn't it? For an unbeliever or fighter, on the other hand... I think this would be fairly simple to implement on top of the existing system.
One of the problems with the sentient weapons is that many of them eventually gain impact and/or clone, making them useless. Or at best iffy. For my own games, I consistently hack the source so that doesn't happen. I really hate impact...