On the Fly "Charge" Adjustment methods?

[Brokenbone]

Hey. Possibly a "mostly tech" question. Inspired though by some loot tables, both the sorts of generators you find online, but also the spreadsheet thing on the DMFTP (designed for NWN1 but it would still work now).

Is there any way to adjust item charges, like for wands and the like, on the fly by a DM?

Treasure tables "out there" sometimes suggest some pretty good bargain type items, like partially depleted wands. Sake of argument, a 50% full CLW(1) wand, worth 375gp rather than the full 750. Or a better example might be a higher level wand which would cost a fortune if full of charges, but hey, maybe you can see your way clear to a find of a Wand of CSW (5), if it was a mostly drained one. Full wand would be 13,500, but a 10% wand of only 5 charges would be 1350. I can picture ALFA PCs stepping over their own mother for one of those.

I kind of wondered if there's any easy way to screw around to drain a wand? Old days my DM avatar might have gone off to an OOC area and shot off a whole bunch of rounds from a wand (still taking 6 seconds per Fireball for instance, shooting up an OOC zone), I wondered if any of the sub-menus of any existing DM tools would maybe accommodate setting charges, whether by inputting a number, inputting a percent, inputting a negative or positive number to adjust existing by, whatever.

I figured on asking if that was a worthwhile or even "someplace existing" function (maybe it's even a console command that I've never known of), before starting to do some very boring tooling of like "Wand of Cure Light Wounds {25%}" or "Wand of Invisibility {50%}" type copy-pastey work.

I guess on the fly adjustment could also be helpful in the rare cases of mini rollbacks / do-overs where a DM wants to do something combat related with a more hand-managed way, and wants folks not to lament using a powerful charged item and having that rolled back too... but I really think that's rare except for many CvC or complete technical snafus.

[Zelknolf]

I figured on asking if that was a worthwhile or even "someplace existing" function (maybe it's even a console command that I've never known of), before starting to do some very boring tooling of like "Wand of Cure Light Wounds {25%}" or "Wand of Invisibility {50%}" type copy-pastey work.

Please please please please please don't do this. It's bad for the modules/ DM clients, and it effectively kicks some very good work that AL did in its naughty bits, then laughs at it while it writhes on the floor.

There is a standard function available that adjusts the number of charges on an item fed to it, and the ACR is extremely accurate and responsive on the costs of potions/ wands/ scrolls-- and so we're in very widgetable territory here. We're probably (actually, certainly) very far away from a full item customization suite, but maybe a widget that drains 10 charges from its target?

[Brokenbone]

Won't do it then! Though this kicking and writhing thing sounds interesting.

I think I'm confused about there being a standard function "available", but maybe there's a difference between "available" and "implemented... into such and such DM tool."

Not at all speaking on behalf of any DMs, but man oh man wands are great loot, even when they're just partly charged. Same I suppose with Rods or Staves, values can be pretty much in the stratosphere if too many charges / too high a level powers, things with "several -10's on it" draining something to 10 charges might mean some more dramatic items seeing play.

[Zelknolf]

It means that someone would have to write it, but it would only be a few lines of code. We'd make an item activated script something like:

Code: Select all

void main()
{
    object oWand = GetItemActivatedTarget();
    object oDM = GetItemActivator();
    int nCharges = GetItemCharges(oWand);
    if(nCharges < 1)
    {
        SendMessageToPC(oDM, "That item is not chaged, and cannot be uncharged.");
         return;
    }
    else if(nCharges < 11)
    {
        SendMessageToPC(oDM, "Recharging "+GetName(oWand)+".");
        nCharges = 50;
    }
    else
    {
        nChages -= 10;
        SendMessageToPC(oDM, "Reducing charges of "+GetName(oWand)+" to "+IntToString(nCharges)+".");
    }
    SetItemCharges(oWand, nCharges);
}

And I will lol mightily if that actually compiles. I don't have the lexicon handy atm.

But once that's cleaned up and (presumably) using the correct function names, it should clip 10 charges off of a targeted wand, unless the wand has 10 or fewer charges, in which case it would recharge it. It'd be a little slow and awkward (3-24 seconds to get the wand you want), but it'd get the job done in the short term.