Dungeon Master Forum

Would it be possible to extend the definition for items?

I'd like to be able to have a DESCRIPTION optional property that shows up when the item is held to the characters eye. This would be really handy for magic items that carry runes -- the player needs to inspect the item closely to learn its rune.

There's plenty of room on that panel in the inventory for a few lines of text... ok, so I couldn't match the font, but you get the idea...

I support this suggestion, it would make a nice addition and would be more atmospheric than having a scroll for the message for every such item.

Lol, first make the rune carrying work...then yes, I like the idea that items can have descriptions

And if we are about, such comments could be associated with certain properties of the character beholding it, i.e. an inscription only a Master Wizard/Priest can see...

@Beowuff: The runes carrying does work already -- you can assign them to any item that you wish! Hence me asking for even more stuff!

I've found a bug adding it with the editor to a weapon...have you successfully created one in your sample dungeon?

Bumping up in the hope this is added to 0.29....

Woot! I just noticed this has been added in v0.32 -- in fact, it was added back in v0.29 -- cheers George!

0.32 ! oh you've just added the download sticky post in RTC/General but it's dated from 2004 Jan 28, and of course, nobody can see it as a new post..

The sticky post has been there for a year. The posting date doesn't change when it's edited, and in fact George edited it this time. The reason it's sticky is so it stays at the top of the board and you can check it for yourself...

maybe a quick 'new version' post should be posted at the same time so it shows up...i don't check my beowuuf mail all the time so i missed old versions and this one, and we aren't getting mails anymore, right?

I suppose I could go to the great lengths of deleting the old sticky each time and just recreating it.... yeah, I'll do that if it's helpful.

Well, don't have to go that far...jsut add a post to it saying 'new version v0.32' then delete that each time so the sticky doesnt' get unweildy

That might be better -- I'll keep it uptodate whatever method I use...

I've been playing around with item descriptions and while it works great, it's not really what I had in mind. My original thinking was that the description would be added on a per-item basis in the dungeon itself, so that you could arbitrarily add interesting text to any item. At the moment, you have to clone an old object and add the description to it there - this seems overkill for a one time only description.

Would it be possible to implement descriptions the way I originally envisioned?

*bump*

bump

Why are you bumping this, it's been supprted now! Hasn't it?

Yes, it is supported, but not in the exact way Gambit wanted ;-)

My understanding is that you can create the *exact* effect requested by creating an object and specifying text for it, then placing it in the dungeon. If you want a different object with different text then you create a new object with the new text and add it to the dungeon.

What Gambit wanted though is for you to be able to create a single object and then specify the text in the [items] section (for example, like a scroll does).

As you can already achieve the desired effect, then this is way down my list of priorities. In fact, the way its currently done is better because you can create the object with the text on the fly (for example as the result of a spell / swap etc), whereas if you have to specify the text in the [items] section, then you can't so I've no idea why you'd want to do it the way that this thread was suggesting!

Anyway, if I've understood wrongly, let me know.

Ah, oops, I get it, like assigning a charge or runes to have 'this is the sword of fleeble' for a specific sword which is still of type sword, rather than have to clone 'sword_fleeble' and assign a type description to it

Guess it saves on op_bys though - if you have to acount for all the variants of sword you've assigned descriptions to (just like having to have an op_by for every scroll with different writing)

I need to read this again -- very confused now!

Lol, i guess add clone_sword can have description attached, but sword doesn't have description= property attached.

Both would be cool, in my humble opinion, for reasons stated such as the op_by. It's nice to flavour say the original DM dungeon with 'sword of filius' or 'iron key or fleeble' without that item's function changing (it's still a sword, it's still one of the multiple iron keys, etc)

Good call, the OpBy argument is the clincher. I've now done this for V0.37...

George Gilbert wrote:In fact, the way its currently done is better because you can create the object with the text on the fly (for example as the result of a spell / swap etc), whereas if you have to specify the text in the [items] section, then you can't so I've no idea why you'd want to do it the way that this thread was suggesting!

Anyway, if I've understood wrongly, let me know.

I see you've now implemented this!

Just to clarify though, you did rather miss the point. If I have 20 swords, and they all have spell runes attached, and I wanted to have a description for each one saying which rune was on the sword, I would have had to clone it 20 times just to add a description -- this seemed pointless to me. Being able to add descriptions to items on a case by case basis using the editor therefore was the original reason for this request.