Before we get into this, realize that no item you create yourself will be a permanent item. The party will be able to keep it only as long as they are in your scenario. If they travel to another scenario it will be gone. This is because the information you create to describe your item will be unknown to other scenarios and therefore your characters will not be able to enter another scenario with that item.
You can access the item editor from the treasure editor. A button labeled Edit Items will bring up the item worksheet as shown in Figure 5.0.
You can only edit items number 900-999. You can't edit any of the permanent items as that would cause problems with character files so we can't allow that.
The lower left hand corner of the worksheet lets you select a condition or spell. This is purely for reference. Note that the condition number, as listed, has a different number than in the Key Codes menu. That will be explained later.
I will first make a quick list of what each field in the worksheet does and what are valid values.
Is Magic: Check this box if the item you are creating will radiate magic. By that I mean will it be detected as a magical item if a Discover Magic spell is cast in the treasure collection screen.
Strength: The amount of strength to add or subtract from the character when the item is being worn. This will not adjust any damage done by the character, however, it will adjust the amount of weight they can carry.
No. of Hands: The number of hands the item takes when equipped. If the weapon is a two handed weapon such as a bow or great sword then place a 2 here. Otherwise put a 1 here for all other weapons. If the item is not a weapon then you can leave this blank.
Luck: The amount of luck to add or remove from the character when this item is worn.
Movement: The number of movement points to add or remove from the character when this item is worn.
Armor Rating: The amount to add to the character's armor rating when this item is worn. A value of 3 in this field would raise the characters armor rating by 3. A negative value (Common for a cursed item) would lower it.
Magic Resist: The amount to add or reduce to the character's magic resistance when worn.
Magic Plus: The magical plus of an item (Weapons mostly). The TO HIT percentage will also be increased by 5% times this value. This should also be the same as the + value labeled for weapons. Example: A +3 long sword would have a 3 entered in this field and would be +15% to hit and +3 to damage.
Spell Points: The amount of spell points to add or remove to the character's maximum spell points when worn. A value of 30 would increase the possible spell points that character could store by 30. Make sure you don’t give this item the ability to be worn by NON spell casting characters or it will cause problems.
Weight: How much the item weighs. Note: Items that lose weight as they are used up (like torches or rations) should have a value of 0 entered here. You will see why later.
Cost: How much this item will cost in a shop. This is for a shop that has a normal inflation rate of 100%. This should be filled out for any item even if you intend for it to be found and not bought. This is also how the shop determines its offer when you go to sell this item.
Special Note: The cost field is also how you set an item to be unique. If you give the item a negative cost, it will be treated as a unique item. Example: An item with a cost of -3000 will still cost 3000 gold to purchase but will be treated as a unique item.
Charges: The number of magical charges the item has. If it can cast a spell then this is the number of times it can cast that spell before it needs to be recharged. By selling items to a shop and buying it back again you can recharge magical items.
Sound: The sound the item makes when used. This is a popup menu. If you click and hold the mouse button on SOUND it will give you a popup menu of sound choices.
Blade: Used to tell Realmz if the weapon is a sharp or a blunt weapon. Note: The popup menu is not used to enter values, it's just there for a quick reference as to what the valid values are.
Icon: The Icon ID that represents the item. If you build a special item that uses an icon from the Vault of Arcana, you will have to make sure you use the correct Icon ID . Otherwise, you can use one of the standard icons.
Curse: If an item is cursed, use the +/- buttons to scan through the possible names that the cursed item will display. As long as the item is not worn or in a shop, it will appear as whatever string is displayed here. You can also click on the CURSE button to get a popup list of item names. The Popup will only display 200 item names at a time.
Items are broken down into 5 catagories. To choose a cursed name from the following item types, type the first value in the range into the Curse field prior to clicking the popup menu.
0 - 199 Weapons
200 - 399 Armor
400 - 599 Gloves, Shields, misc.
600 - 799 Magic items
800 - 999 Supply / Special items
Type: This tells Realmz what type of item this is. As you scan through the types look for the one that most fits the type of item you are making. Characters are limited as to the number of items they can wear. Be sure to choose the Type of item that best describes the item you create.
Note: All your items you make will have either a Type 25 or a negative value. The negative value tells Realmz that it's a scenario specific item. That will cause it to get stripped off the character before they enter a new scenario. You HAVE to do this. Otherwise, if an item is defined in the new scenario of the same ID, it will change to the new items and could cause lots of problems.
Race / Caste Restrictions This lets you set restrictions for an item. You can choose which races or castes types can or cannot use the item. If the item is usable by everybody then leave all these check boxes blank.
Edit Item Catagory Each item must be classified as a specific catagory of item. Choose one one catagory that best describes the item. If you choose more than one it will not work at all.
When you choose an item catagory, you can also set the item to be usable by a specific race or caste only. See the Key Codes Menu for race and caste ID numbers.
Damage: This is the base damage a weapon will do in combat. A value of 6 would do 1 to 6 of damage. Any additional damage for a magical plus as filled out in the Magic Plus field would be added. Thus a +3 in the Magic Plus field would make this weapon do from 4 to 9 points of damage.
Extra Heat Damage: If the weapon does any additional heat damage, put the value here. Example: Sting is a +3 dagger that also does 1-4 damage in heat damage because the blade radiates flames. A value of 4 is what should be present for Sting in this field.
Extra Cold Damage: Same as heat but does cold based damage.
Extra Electrical Damage: Same as heat but does electrical based damage.
Extra Damage Vs. Undead: If the weapon is successful in a strike against an undead creature, it will do an additional amount of damage of 1 to X. Where X is the value of this field.
Extra Damage Vs. De/De: If the weapon is successful in a strike against a demon, devil or daemon, it will do an additional amount of damage of 1 to X. Where X is the value of this field.
Extra Damage Vs. Evil: If the weapon is successful in a strike against a lawfully evil creature, it will do an additional amount of damage of 1 to X. Where X is the value of this field.
Note: Attributes that determine if a creature is undead, demon, devil or evil are set for each individual monster in the Monster Editor. See the chapter Monster Editor for more details.
Special 1 through 5. These are extra fields that help describe what an items does. What values go here depend on what type of item it is and what you intend it to do. I will come back to these at the end of this section. This is the only tricky part of making an item and I need to talk about this in detail.
Weight x Charge: If the item has a variable weight, this is the weight of a single unit of this item. This applies to some items like torches, rations, darts, arrows, etc. If an item such as darts come in bundles of 12 and each has a weight of 2, then you would put a value of 2 in this field and a value of 0 (Zero) in the weight field that is just above the cost field.
Example: The character has a bundle of 12 torches. Each has a 20 weight. If that character uses one torch, his weight will be reduced by 20 as the charges reduces to 11.
Drop On Empty: Some items should be dropped automatically when they are empty. Items such as food, torches, darts, etc., are useless when they are reduced to 0 charges. If this is the case with your item, put a value of 1 here, otherwise leave it blank. Other items that may have a charge may still be recharged or have a weight value even though drained. Weapons that can cast spells are an example of an item that you DON'T want to be Dropped on Empty.
Can't do a thing, if you don’t type that string!
In the upper right hand corner of the sheet you will notice 3 boxes. The upper left is where you type the name of the item as it would appear in an unidentified state. i.e. As the party finds it lying on the ground.
The upper right hand corner is where you type the name of the item that will appear once it has been identified. Do not type in something so long in either of these first two field that it stretches all over the screen. Keep it short and to the point.
The last box (The big one) is where you put the full description of the item. You can type up to 255 characters here. You don’t have to fill out this field if you don’t want to. This is what will be displayed provided the player uses the SHOW INFO button in the items screen.
I suggest now would be a good time to scroll through the items. You can only edit items 900 or higher but you can see how other items are set up.
Notes on the ability of items to do special things:
Special 1 Through Special 5: I said I would come back to this later and here I am. This is the real meat of any item that does something special. Up to now it has been pretty basic. That’s all going to change.
The text to the right of the worksheet has some reminders of what these fields do, but you really should read through this if you want to know what is actually going on.
I will just list the different things you can do in these fields and give you an item ID of current items that do the same thing. You can look at those items and see an example of what I am talking about.
An item that can cast a spell: This is pretty common. Put the power level of the spell in negative value -1 through -7 in Special 1 and the spell number in Special 2. If you want the power level of the spell to be random, then put a value of 8. (Not -8, just 8). See item # 6 (Sting) for an example. Sting casts spell number 1104 (Flame Hands) up to 30 times before it needs to be recharged. Since the value in Special 1 is 8, the power level of that Flaming Hands spell will be random each time it is cast. See item #600 or higher for a whole bunch of items that cast spells in a similar way.
An item that has a weight that reduces as you use it: See item #600. It is a potion of Invisible Skin. Each time it is used, its weight is reduced by 3. When it is used up it will be dropped because the Drop On Empty value is 1.
An item that gives the character special abilities: See Tools. Item # 666. It gives the Rogue +5 To two abilities. Ability #7, Disarm Trap (see the Key Codes menu for the numbering of abilities) and Ability #12, Defeat Lock.
An item that can activate an Extra Action Point. See Item 662 as an example of an item that does this sort of thing. That is the “Crown of Safe Return”.
They can do that! Yes they can. You set the item Type to 23 and enter the Extra Action Point ID that is to be activated in Special 5.
An item that can impart a condition to a character who wears it. See Item 203 as an example of an item that does this sort of thing. That is “Robe of Many Favors” that gives the wearer the condition "Magic Aura"
Place the condition number in Special 1 and the value you want that condition to be in Special 2. See item #206 (Robe of Speed) that sets condition 43 to -1. Now, a word of explanation here. The condition number for items is different than the condition number for spells or that which is listed in the Key Codes menu. If you look at the lower left of the Items worksheet you will see some buttons. By clicking on the +/- buttons you can scroll through the spell numbers and condition numbers as they apply to items. The spell numbers are the same as everywhere else but the condition numbers are a little different.
If you set the condition to + something then it will wear off a few rounds after the item has been worn. So if you want the condition to be permanent as long as they are wearing the item, give it a negative value.
For example: The gloves of regeneration set the condition of Regeneration (Condition ID = ) to a value of -1. That will give the PC one point of stamina back each round. If you set it to -5 it would give 5 points back each round. That is pretty drastic so don’t go too hog crazy on this kind of thing.
An item that can impart a condition to an enemy on a successful hit in combat. See Item 913 in “Destroy the Necronomicon” as an example of an item that does this sort of thing. That is “Fang of the Serpent” that inflicts 2 more rounds of poison each time the victim fails a DRVs. Chemical.
To do this is a little tricky.
Step 1) Set Special 1 to a value of -10.
Step 2) If you want the condition to be imparted all the time, set Special 2 to a value of 0. If you want the condition to be imparted only on a failed DRVs, then set Special 2 to a value of 1. If you want the condition to be imparted on a percent chance, then set Special 2 to a value of 2.
Step 3) Set Special 3 to the condition you want to be added. This number is the same as the condition number in the lower left of the screen. This is NOT the same value as listed in the Key Codes menu.
Step 4) Set Special 4 to the DRVs Spell value you require for the condition to be imparted. (This value is in the Key Codes menu.) -OR- Set Special 4 to the percent chance the condition will be imparted.
Step 5) Set Special 5 to the duration of the condition you want imparted. Example: A value of 3 would cause the condition to last for 3 rounds. A value of -2 would cause the condition to have a magnitude of 2 and it would be permanent. i.e. A -2 value for the condition of poison would cause the Character/Monster to take 2 points damage from poison EVERY round until cured.
