38
« on: August 31, 2023, 12:52:49 am »
Fortress mode has many useful items to organize a fortress with and tend to the needs of a city, but beyond the typical combat gear and containers the adventurer doesn't have much in the way of cunning tools.
Ropes and chains!
There are a lot of exploration uses for this versatile item, including the adventurer using them to restrain foes (Req236 in the old dev log).
Affixing items to the ends of ropes would create lots of object interactions - you could throw something (with a little bit of velocity damping, given the weight of the rope also should apply), then easily haul it back in with the rope still in your hand. Tie ropes to other ropes to make a longer chain.
Tie yourself to the rope to climb more safely, though slower and with a shorter chain.
The game should have enough physics information to tie arbitrary items and units together, and exert tension between the ends and the points of rope.
Grappling hooks (weapons-grade metal) & pitons (any metal)
The adventurer should be able to toss ropes upwards, but to get them to stick you'd need to wrap around a branch/bar, tie them around a piton you planted, or affix a grappling hook to the end of your rope.
Lockpicks (wood, metal, bone)
Use the Mechanic skill (or a new one, primarily based on Agility and Kinesthetic Sense) to unlock doors and containers silently, and defuse mechanical traps. Any TTRPG rogue swears by these. Since having cheap bulk gear run out is an interesting complication, low-quality lockpicks should be very fragile.
Torches (wood, other materials?) and candles (wax)
The ability to make campfires is all well and good, but it feels a little cheap to be able to make a square of fire from nothing. Having distinct torches for adv mode fire needs could streamline fire usage, adding a material component while also allowing the various interactions that come from handheld heat without being burned to a crisp yourself. Tie a torch to a chain to swing as flaming poi.
Tent (cloth, leather)
Though armies moving overland do create tent structures, the adventurer should also be able to raise their own. It'd be a bulky item, but being able to make a sealed area for cover in just a few moves would be a great assurance against supernaturally foul weather or predators on the road. Perhaps it could be treated as a building and given unique inside and outside sprites in Premium, and look like a stack of /|\ in ASCII.
Caltrops (ammo-grade metal)
A special form of trap/ammo that can be thrown, creating hazardous tiles and controlling the flow of a skirmish. The slower an adventurer travels over them, the less damage they take. Blunt caltrop-types should be able to trip foes instead of directly dealing nonsensical bludgeoning damage.
Chemicals (oil, poison)
Carry a flask of chemicals and throw it at a surface to splatter a couple tiles in globs and contaminants. Merchants should sell animal and vegetable oils, preferred by adventurers more for their flammability than anything culinary. Contact extracts should also be deployable in the same manner, but with poisonous material properties instead.
Net (cloth)
Another pseudo-trap, throwing a net at a unit can cause it to become restrained as if stuck in a spider's web. This tactic is less effective against larger and more agile targets.
Skill aids
Other forms of equipment might not have as interesting function, but still aid in skill rolls. Equipping crampons to your feet would make climbing less risky, wearing decorated/expensive clothing gives a bonus to social rolls (though that invites its own social peculiarities already asked by the game's value sliders), fishing rods would add on to the player's fishing checks, the list goes on.
This is more of a footnote, but it's one avenue where the mechanics of adventure mode can be tied back into fortress mode. If the adventurer needs specific tools to craft items on the go, having the tools in the fortress wouldn't preclude the task but rather become personal items that add a bonus to their crafting checks.
