Level Restrictions

From: Chuck Carson (chuck@EDEN.COM)
Date: 05/13/98


I think most people look at level restrictions the wrong way. I base my
game of AD&D specifically Forgotten Realms. In standard D&D, a low
level player would not be capable of acquiring a very powerful item, that
is in the spirit of the game. Also, for example, it would be impossible for
a low level player to accompany a high level group into any such environment
that would produce high level eq. From a code point of view, that is
essentially
what level restrictions are doing. They prevent a high level player from
giving
a low level player outrageously powerful eq. You would not see a veteran
warrior
in a D&D setting giving some schmuck in cotton clothes a magical axe that he
nearly died acquiring. I have been playing D&D for nearly 18 years and
coding
muds for 4 and have never seen a problem with level restrictions. I have my
code
now so that if a player happens to kill a mob _alone_ and the mob posseses
eq higher than the players level, the eq level is set to that of the
players. I have
increased the object value array from 4 elements to 8 and I use the 5th
element
for the level flag. It makes it real easy to manage, I just use the
GET_OBJ_VAL
macro and have had no problems with this method.

Remember to look at the game from a coder's point of view, not a players. If
you
do away with donation rooms, tweak your economy system so that money is a
valued resource, you will not see high level eq floating around anyway. I
provide things
such as houses, ships, and etc that high level players can look forward to
buying
so they need money just as bad as low level players, thus all high level eq
is either
sold to shops that in turn sell it for more money or saved with the high
level players.

My 2 bits,
Chuck


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