proposed new 'range attack': disarm

[Peter Mardahl <peterm@soda.berkeley.edu>]

I propose this:  a new range attack:  'disarm'.  It could be used by
those if high dexterity to disarm runes (or set them off!! hehehe)
or other traps.  A somewhat hokey alternate use of 'disarm' could be
to unlook doors and open/disarm chests.  Doors and chests could then
be seen as monsters for thieves to kill, and you could award experience
for that.  Disarming could become dependent on the difference in level
between trap/door/chest and the thief.

It occurs to me that there is NO reason, none at all, that the rune
code could not be used for NON magical traps!  You set the damage type to
physical, and don't put in a spell, give the 'rune' an appropriate face,
and there you are, a non-magical trap. It is eminently possible to make
pits, mousetraps, dart shooters (would require spell coding if you wanted
darts to appear in inventory).  Hell, even the message is readily definable.
"you set off a dart trap".
 
I'd have to change the rune code around a little bit, but I could do this
very easily.

I hadn't realized how flexible my rune code actually was.  All it took
was a different point of view, and instead of just magical runes containing
spells, I have traps of all kinds--only the archetypes and bitmaps have
to be made.  (Plus some minor modifications to the rune.c file, no
problem.)

Hell, runes won't even attack people who are flying.  Beautiful.

PeterM