Item Types

by Dale M.A. Johnson

created Nov 8, '07

An item is one of the basic elements that makes up the gameplay of Tactics Heroes. Weapons, armor, healing balms, trinkets; these are all items that are stored in a unit's inventory for eventual use or plot points. There is one overriding guideline that should affect every single point of items in Tactics Heroes:

Item systems are, by nature, a relatively complex gameplay element. The engine should work to keep this complexity to a minimum for both the player and the campaign/rule set creator.

Item Catagories

There are also a few basic types of items (not to be confused with item types) which can be referred to as "item catagories" for ease. What catagory an item falls into determains how the engine handles it, and how the player can interact with it.

• Prop Items are items that cannot be used in any way, but are stored in a character's inventory. They are called prop items because they are designed to act as "props" for the characters to use in the story. They are availible to rule sets, but have little use outside of campaigns. Props do not do anything or affect the unit holding them in any way with the exception of their weight. If you want a key item that grants stat boosts, you should use another item catagory. These are availible as a convinience to quickly churn out a key item.
• Consumable Items are items that a unit can be directed to use on their turn (this will burn their turn). They generally have a set number of uses, and when used will alter a character's stats, either permanently, or temporarily.
• Weapons are just that: items used to boost a character's attack power and allowing them to take place in combat.
• Accessory Items are items that can be activated in a unit's inventory, and grant stat boosts and other benefits so long as they are equiped.
• Persistant Items are similar to Accessory Items, except that they grant their bonuses constantly (so long as the unit holding them can use their item types) and do not need to be activated.

Item Properties

This is a basic list of the most crucial variables that make up items. This list is by no means exhaustive!

string tName

The name of the item. For example, "Sword" or "Tin Can".

string tIcon

The name of the image file for this item's icon.

int iType

What item type this is.

int iCatagory

What catagory of item this is. 1 = Prop, 2 = Consumable, 3 = Weapon, 4 = Accessory, 5 = Persistant. It is recommended that const variables be used in the code for ease of use.

int iCost

The cost of this item to buy. Selling this item yields half the buy value by default. (Individual shops can buy and sell items at different values than this, but they will sell it at this value unless specifically told otherwise.)

int iMaxUses

The total number of times this item can be uses. Values lower than 0 denote unbreakable items with infinate uses.

bool bRepairable

Whether or not this item can be repaired and have its uses restores. If false, then the item will break when used up and will be lost forever. false by default.

int iRepairCost

Cost (per use to be restored) to repair this item. Actual in-game cost is set per shop as a percentage (100% per use is the default).

int iUsesType

Weapons and consumables can be set to require an accessory item be present in a unit's inventory. If this is the case, the engine will burn one use from BOTH items when they are used. The variable denotes the ID of the item type that this item uses. For example, you can require that a bow use arrows, and then have different kinds of arrows that can be used. (The unit will use the highest active accessory.) Note that the unit can make use of this even if they don't have access to the given accessory item type!

int iAtkWith

What stat to use to determain attack power. 1 = strength, 2 = magic, 3 = dexterity.

int iDefWith

What enemy stat to use to determain their defense. 1 = constitution, 2 = resistance.

int iPow

Used by weapons to determain their attack power. For weapons that require an accessory be used, the power of the weapon and the accessory are added together!

int iAcc

The accuracy of a weapon. 100 means 100%. For weapons that use accessories, the accuracy is added together (accessory accuracy would be displayed as "+10%" to the player, for example).

int iWeight

How heavy an item is. If a unit's inventory is too heavy, it will begin to slow them down in combat!

int iRestoreHP

For consumables, how many HP to restore when used. For everything else (except props), how many HP this item will restore per turn.

int iRestoreMP

Same as the above, but for MP.

int iBoostMaxHP, int iBoostSTR, etc.

For consumable items, how much this will permanently raise a unit's given stat. For everything else (except props), how much this will add to a unit's given stat so long as it is active (or, in persistant items' case, present).