Due to our ideas for amputation and grafting in Ultimate ADOM we right away started to build pretty detailed skeletons for the beings in the game – and we do not just mean this in the animation sense like so many games but rather in the actual content sense: Skeletons for beings have lots of details in order to combine them with game effects (we even do have thumbs and stomachs for e.g. humanoids – although in the current pre-alpha the actual game effects yet need to be implemented).

Having detailed skeletons is nice because this allows us to amputate bodyparts and graft them. But here the fun just begins… having more detailed skeletons also allows for a lot more detail in inventory management:

  • Take the simple example of an ettin (a two-headed giant): Due to having two heads it actually can wear two helmets, potentially enjoying the benefits of both of them if they are enchanted (and of course there also might be a disadvantage to having two heads but having only one helmet as that leaves open some vital part of your body for attacks).
  • Think about heads: We now have the eyes as part of the body. Which allows us to add eyewear (goggles, patches, whatever).
  • We do not stop there: Ears are next on the list – and with ear comes advanced jewelry like earrings which again can have interesting effects.
  • Having more (or less!) than two arms will have obvious effects (like being able to wield more than two weapons) while having more than the required number of legs will add extra stability to your character (and other beings).
  • Then there are tails (tail spikes anyone?), claws, wings and so on.

Which brings up the next level of detail:

  • Monsters are differently sized (from tiny to garganutuan).
  • So obviously bodyparts might have different sizes, especially if they are grafted to another body than their original one.

This leads to new challenges because a small hand obviously won’t be able to wield a large sword. And you might be able to graft a different number of bodyparts to available joints… e.g. one medium-sized arm might take up as much room as two small or four tiny arms. And there might be limits to what you can graft… a gargantuan arm on a small body probably doesn’t work well.

All the features above in combination lead to interesting UI questions: how do you handle two-handed weapons if you have one medium, one large and two small arms? And is “two-handed” even the correct term? or is this solely dependent on item size versus body size? (yes, I would say!) And don#t get us thinking about n-handed weapons (like a medium sized warrior being able to wield a huge swords if he can stabilize it with four medium sizes arms… maybe).

Side remark: As we obviously are using item sizes (because small swords won’t make much sense for a huge giant) item weight obviously also will be affected by item size. Try lugging a colossal moloch armor around… you need to be a strong adventurer for that!

As you can see there will be room for lots of experimentation in Ultimate ADOM!