Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (
More info?)
Just to fill in a few gaps IdW didn't fill in.
Twisted One wrote:
[Comparison of wishing and acquirement]
> Looks like Crawl has an in-between compromise [...]
Linley, the "founder" of Crawl, started development after playing quite
a bit of NH and Angband and getting some ideas about what he liked and
disliked from both. It seems he liked neither the sureness of wishing
(leading to "ascension kit" phenomenon) nor the utter randomness of
*band acquirement (which takes some of the fun and the strategizing out
of the matter). There's still enough randomness that I think the name
fits.
> (many RLs' "wishing"). Instead you pick a category and get a random
good
> item constrained to the category?
Right, and for whatever reason (pretty printing? design decision?),
staves and rods are placed in the same category. Like IdW said, your
skills and what you've already seen affect, but cannot fully dictate,
the outcome of acquirement.
> And "staves" as a category name
> includes actual staves and also rods -- which I'm guessing...
To reiterate IdW:
Staves: usable as weapons, not very good as weapons, are divided into
mundane (quarterstaves) and magical; magical staves augment
spellcasting in some way, and some have ego effects. They cannot be
enchanted up, however, which makes them quite inferior for battle even
when they provide good egos. For spellcasting, their effects are
devastating if used well. Think of them as *mage staves* of
*reallypowerfulness*.
Rods: Not usable as weapons. Hyper-rare in the wild. Each contains one
or a few spells, which become available when, and only when, the rod is
wielded. No charges, use caster's MP, independent of spellcasting (and
INT), no food cost unlike spells, no failures unlike spells, confuse
you when used without enough MP, use evocations ("device") skill.
Both staves and rods (and most things things all of the time and all
things most of the time) are immune to item damage in Crawl... thank
God.
Both must be wielded to be used and are 2-handed, which is an important
strategic consideration in Crawl.
> electricity vulnerable. I'm guessing Crawl goes the Nethackish route
> here and has wands cover all this territory, letting you target them
at
> the player or, for some effects, not target them at all. As for rods
....
> I dunno.
Rods were discussed above.
Crawl wands:
- are plentiful
- have charges
- are "expensive" to recharge in that recharging sources are limited --
you need to carefully consider every charge on the more valuable wands
-- "can I get this done with a less valuable resource?"
- are all targetable effects, unlike rodspells
- use Evocations
- need not be wielded
- cannot be destroyed; this fact makes wands that overlap with potions
and scrolls veeery valuable in the endgame, which is heavy on item
destruction.
> recover health and mana, mind you. I'm guessing Crawl rods are not
the
> same, but still function as devices that are used to evoke magic,
> particularly some of the more powerful targeted attack spells,
without
> having to be of some spellcasting class.)
More important perhaps are the utility rods, since a character who's
ignored spellcasting can still kill things quite efficiently by other
means, but utility spells are otherwise hard to replace.
A character who ignores spellcasting, pumps fighting skills, tops out
Evocations (Crawl is heavily skill-based), and has a broad arsenal of
acquired rods can walk all over the game. It's a hard situation to set
up, though.
Erik
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