Preventing Weapons

[Donald Hebb]

Is there any way to prevent a person from having an item in his/her weapons slot? I can think of a few workarounds, but if any of you have a better way, by all means, let me know! Thanks alot.

[Fort]

Do you mean having any item in the weapons slot, or a specific one?

 

Either way, though, it would be pretty difficult because the player would have to be checked at practically every turn. It is late, so I haven't thought this through, but doing something creative with a cursed weapon might help.

[Boots]

I'm presuming TM counts cursed items as a "workaround," since he and I discussed the idea awhile back.

 

What effect are you trying to reproduce, TM? The absolute inability to wield a weapon -- as in my attempt to reproduce the effects of amputation -- or simply the illegality of walking around with openly brandished choppers?

[Lilith]

I think, but am not sure, that this relates to TM's desire to make it possible to train a PC as a martial artist. A cursed weapon would be a poor workaround because either Melee Weapons or Pole Weapons skill would have to contribute to hit rate and damage, which he doesn't want. I suppose it could work if he *also* set the appropriate weapon skill to 0 periodically if the character is a martial artist. Still ugly, though.

 

The obvious way would be to check in the scenario START_STATE for an equipped weapon and penalise the player for having it, but that makes it entirely possible to, when hasted, equip a weapon, attack and unequip in the same round. So that idea's out.

 

A solution that's 99% effective but probably complete overkill would be to destroy all the player's items on entering the scenario, give every weapon found in the scenario a special class, and penalise the character for so much as carrying a weapon if he's a martial artist.

 

The only way for the player to get around this would be to pick up and drop a weapon every round, not just to use it but simply to carry it from one place to another; if you make sure the player has to traverse an outdoor section to get from any place weapons are able to be picked up to any place they can be used, even this is no longer a problem, but that's really overdoing it.

[Kelandon]

Well, if you gave the weapons a special class, you could use char_has_item_of_class_equip, but that may check the entire party, not just one character, although it's entirely not clear from the rather badly written documentation.

[Isaac]

Quote:

Originally written by Thuryl:
either Melee Weapons or Pole Weapons skill would have to contribute to hit rate and damage

False. The contributing statistics are:
1) Strength increases damage
2) Dexterity increases chance to hit
3) Any stat of your choice increases both chance to hit and damage. This is normally Melee Weapons or Pole Weapons, but it doesn't have to be. (Morog's Sceptre, for example, depends on Mage Spells skill. It's a ranged weapon, but the same thing works for melee.) For a martial artist, there could be a (possibly cursed) "iron fist" weapon which might be improved by Strength, Dexterity, Luck, Pathfinder, or even Dread Curse, take your pick, in part 3 above. This is always cumulative with the bonuses in part 1 and 2. It might be possible to specify a high number which is not the number of any stat in order to make it not be improved by any, or if that doesn't work, picking a stat like Dread Curse (if you don't give it in the scenario) or Riposte (if the party isn't supposed to be too high-level).

Remember, you can also choose damage per level. As a reference, bare hands do 1-3 damage per level. This is only levels of Strength that it is increased by, not any other stat (step 3 above is left out), as a special property of not wielding a weapon.

[Lilith]

Sorry, momentary lapse. I do know a weapon can depend on any statistic. Your cursed-weapon-based-on-obscure-stat idea sounds pretty clever.

[Donald Hebb]

Since becoming a martial artist is irreversible and there's only 1 PC, I'm "smashing" all weapons that the party has when they become a martial artist. (I also cause the PC's strength and dexterity to soar immensely, so it balances out- Although 50 STR with an actual weapon doesn't.)