I'm working on some new items and I'd like some feedback from you, especially for balance concerns and errors I might have made. GitHub fork is
here.
Of the new items added, there are several new magical items to increase the diversity, so that the player has choices what kind of bonus he wants from each of his equipment slots, plus there are some new aritfacts, especially non-weapon ones, because we have way too few non-weapon artifacts.
New helmets include a helm of indomitable will, which increases willpower - not useful now, but hopefully willpower will have uses in the future, and in the meantime the helm is very rare and quite good even without the magical bonus.
Helm of telepathy (ESP) and teleportation (teleportitis) - give the player options to pick from. I don't believe helm of telepathy makes amuelt of ESP obsolete - all magical helms are rare, so you're more likely to ahve the amulet than the helm, and if you wish for one - go for it, that's exactly the kind of choices I would like to see.
Helm of teleporation is of course most useful with ring of telecontrol.
And an artifact radiant helm of Macula. It gives enchantment to perception and infravision.
New belts include a belt of protection, which is harder, heavier and generated with better materials than normal belts. I'm thinking about making it indestructible, but I'm not sure about this. However, I want some belts that could conceivably be used instead of belt of levitation, so what do you think?
Then two atribute bonus granting belts - belt of giant strength and thief's girdle. Inspired by CLIVAN, those give bonuses to AStr/LStr for giant strength and Dex/Agi for thief's. However, they are very, very rare and only give +1 attribute per +2 enchanment, so they are actually not more efficient than the respecitve gloves or boots. They can of course be used to stack bonuses, or used with different gloves/boots for overall bonuses, whichever the player prefers. I actually think those might work very nice as an alternative to use or wish for instead of belt of levitation.
Amulets were also changed a bit - amulet of elemental protection had its resistance bonuses halved. It is now on par with resistance rings, still making it powerful (three rings combined), but not so incredibly overpowered as it was before. Please try it out and tell me if you feel the same way.
Amulet of unbreathing grants gas immunity, to prevent those pesky mustard clouds from trapping you.
Then two amulets were added that are temporary - both are made from spoilable materials and cannot be material changed, thus making them powerful but temporary boon for the player. Amulet of speed grants haste, while amulet of phasing grants ethereal. Yes, amulet of phasing is powerful, but it was given rather short spoil time, plus it is not generated normally and can only be wished for - it might be good to wish for before some major battle or to quickly run through a floor, if you ahve the wish to spare, but it will hopefully not break the game. Shadow veil is still vastly superior, being a permanent source of ethereal.
Ring of light is a small novelty item - it glows!
I also ported sol stones from CLIVAN, as they are IMHO very interesting item.
Two artifact whields from CLIVAN weer added - now I hope some of you who find them will actually use shields.
Blessed shield of the Phoenix grants life saved while wielded - just don't haev your arm chopped off before it can save your life.
Aegis is then an unbreakable shield with some small resistance bonuses, making it rather nice is you lack some resistance rings.
Several new cloaks were added, two of them artifacts:
Werewolf fur cloak is based on CLIVAN, giving lycanthropy.
Mantle of Al-Khan gives several nice powers - it gives uncontrolled teleport and both enchantment to endurance and invisibility, so it will increase danger level like crazy. Plus it cannot be material changed from expensive fabric - the rewards are worth it, but the risk is high.
Cloak of flying and quickness is based on suggestions on forums by Ischaldirh. Cloak of flying can only be wished, it's a possible substitute for belt of levitation, to let you decide which slot to use for levitation. Also it's red. Cloak of quickness affects agility, but only gives +1 Agi per two enchantments.
Cloak of protection is a heavy armor special claok, a metal cloak with low penalty to Dex and Agi. Still very heavy, so the choice between resistance cloak made of light material or high-AV cloak of heavy material makes the player think.
Finally, one artifact weapon was added - the mage staff named Y'yter Durr. It give you both polymorph and polymorph control - IMHO, this will lead to cool and rather unusual gameplay. Try for yourself.
I also changes how artifacts work - they no longer can be wished nor material changed. Artifacts should be special items, legendary and ancient. How comes you can easily change them with mortal magic, transmuting them without any difficulty? And they are all already powerful enough with their original materials, no need to make them overpowered by changing them into better materials. As for no wishing,
it allows to easily gain copies of the same artifact, while artifacts already were not cloneable. You shouldn't have multiples, plus no wishing makes them more special and the player will treasure them more
when he can only find the artifacts and cannot wish for his favourites every game. With more artifacts added, this does not make the game poorer in artifacts, only makes artifacts an unpredictable bonus to your run. What do you think?
I will attack a compiled game with the changes - it works well on Linux, but I unfortunatelly cannot try it out on Windows right now, so hopefully it will also work.
Thanks!