Gnomish Tracking Device (idea)

[Eleena Transient]

Transitink Cognoggin was busy working on his latest device one day. Suddenly, one of those little clockwork rats ran up and nabbed his spanner! He went looking for the defective little guy, but alas he could not find it. He pondered and decided the best thing to do would to be to create something to locate it!

"I'll start with a compass", he thought, "as I want to know direction. Next, I'll need a needle to point me." He went to his tailoring buddy, who else would know needles, and picked up a clockwork needle. "Hmm, I need something to let me know it can find what I want. Maybe one of those indicator lights that Ambleshift made use of, red should do nicely." After afixing the indicator, he needed something to teach it to be aware of its surroundings. Transitink went to the local enchanter guild, and they showed him the Sentinel spell, and how it alerts them when a pupil tried to enter the forbidden rooms. Purchasing a scroll he added it to his contraption. "Now, for power source. Nothing less then a class 6 for this will do". With this mishmash of parts, and some bolts to hold it together, he fashioned the Gnomish Prey Surveyor (GPS for short). He turned it on, told it to look for the clockwork rat. The red light came on, the needle pointed him down the hall and there sat the rat, chewing on his spanner!


Gnomish Prey Surveyor
Tinkered Compass
Clockwork Needle
Red Indicator
2 gnomish bolts
Spell: Sentinel


Ideally, this would give the user +50 tracking. So people that can't track can do so, and those that can get a boost out of it. Could make the items harder to get if deemed necessary, or reduce that 50 to 25. Just something to help folks when they know they are 'close' to hone in on a mob/pc, not for checking if named_mob_02 popped way over yonder.

[Molasar]

It's kinda funny, i used to tease people back after kunark came out that i had a Gnomish Tracking Device.


It was back when you could /tar Trakanon and the like and know when mobs were up. /tar emp, /tar chef .. was great fun to be in one camp and know when a named poped and ooc it, people ask how you know, My gnomish tracking device i got at GM event!

[Ngreth Thergn]

While I think this is an interesting idea, there are two reasons it is not likely.

The whole "stomp on class abilities" thing.

but holding it back more..

Code. Current code just does not allow for me to give the tracking skill. I can give a % mod to tracking skill, but 10% bonus to 0 is still 0...

[Twistagain]

While I think this is an interesting idea, there are two reasons it is not likely.

The whole "stomp on class abilities" thing.

but holding it back more..

Code. Current code just does not allow for me to give the tracking skill. I can give a % mod to tracking skill, but 10% bonus to 0 is still 0...

While I certainly understand the code reason...I don't get the "class abilities" reason, and here's why: what about classes that don't have any particular "class ability"? And why isn't healing a "class ability"? We have healing potions, KEI potions, snare items...there's even a charm animal item in game.

Note, I'm not complaining to you, Ngreth...I just hear that reason a lot when some fairly cool ideas are brought up. I understand not wanting to upset druids/rangers (and even bards) with something like this...but as a BST, there's no ability in the game that you could put on an item that would stomp on MY class ability. (And yes, there are Slow items in use. )