ron@wjvax.UUCP (Ron Christian) (04/02/85)
Why should the wizard's inventory be completely random, anyway?
The tourist, for instance, will have food (simi-random) and two
potions of extra healing every time. (Apology for non mini-spoiler
heading.) I think even a novice wizard would know enough not to
tackle the dungeon armed only with two potions of sickness and a
wand of create monster! I agree that he shouldn't start with a wand
of wishing, but a collection of moderatly useful wands (striking,
magic missle) potions (healing, object detection) and scrolls (remove
curse, food detection, enchant armor) would be appropriate. If he
got only useful magic, but NOT any of the heavies like genocide,
wishing, etc., it would serve to put this character on an even level
with the others. As it stands now, the wizard is either a wimp,
(no weapons, lots of bad or useless magic) or too powerful. (As
when he starts with a wand of wishing and 2 scrolls of genocide.)
I think that with a little thought on what objects these characters
would be expected to be carrying, we can make the odds pretty even
of a specific game (any character) being a total winner.
One last thought. Unless you are postulating that the tourist finds
his food and potions outside the cave before entering, he should
know what the hell he has when he goes in. (Two blue potions????
Does he like the color blue or something?) Similarly, the novice wizard
would be expected to recognize some (but not many) of the magic objects
right off the bat. At least know the usage of the ones he is carrying.
We need a new character -- half-god. See, he has a magic weapon he
uses to call for help, and a deamon familiar.....
BTW, when is someone going to come up with a multi-user version of
hack???
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Ron Christian (Watkins-Johnson Co. San Jose, Calif.)
{pesnta,twg,ios,qubix,turtlevax,tymix,vecpyr,isi,idx}!wjvax!ron
"But it won't let me make a directory called R&D!"