The SHAOL glyph currently has a number of issues that are undesirable. Some of them are bugs, some are issues of theme, and one of them is an issue of utility. So as to not encourage bug abuse, I'll not mention the bugs beyond the necessity of addressing my ponderings on how to fix them and their potential for abuse is presently minimal (thanks in no small part to past bug squishing). The issue of utility is that containers when filled above the weight capacity simply stop following the owner. There isn't a statement about it or a warning or anything, just one room you have a bag following you around and then you enter another room and the bag doesn't follow. I probably severely hampered my ability to sell that glyph effect because I felt the need to explicitly warn potential customers that they shouldn't use large containers and that even with containers with a 50 pound weight limit they should be constantly vigilant about not losing track of it.Wiki wrote:One of the most iconic glyphs of the Arcanists, the power of the `shaol` glyph will cause a held item to begin levitating of its own accord and follow its owner. While it will avoid collisions and interference from others, it can in no way be specifically directed or guided - it simply follows the owner, and that is all. Its weight limit is around 50 pounds, and it seems to avoid carrying living creatures even if they weigh or are applying pressure under the weight limit, so it unfortunately cannot be used as transport for living beings or as, say, a stepstool or similar. The levitation effect draws some energy from the owner, and the owner may experience lowered overall energy levels with heavier items even up to a minute or so after the levitation effect has ended.
My recommendations for fixing the assorted issues:
- For the utility issue, add more noise (an active statement on entering the new room and potentially also one on leaving the prior room, or a warning that it looks to be getting unsteady as weight is added, etc) to the weight check function so that containers do not invisibly stop following OR make SHAOL not work on containers with a capacity greater than 50 pounds (and consider removing the weight check or increasing the weight limit by a small amount to account for the weight of the container itself)
- Make the "levitating" tag override the "this object can be sat on tag" and the "this object can be laid on tag" so that levitating objects are no longer valid targets for sit or lay.
- For tools that have the levitating tag, treat the tool as also having the "in use" tag so that the tool cannot be used (because it cannot be held while levitating)
- For other items that have interactions for which the item can be on the ground (darts and dice but I can't recall any others) have the levitating tag mask the use tags (so dice cannot be tossed for example)
- Require the owner to have a free hand when the levitating object is dismissed, and move it to their first open hand as with get to prevent weirdness with placing things on the ground that otherwise couldn't be
- Consider modifying campfire bundles to spawn a new campfire object that is tied to the room in which it was lit rather than changing the existing object
- NPCs that notice a levitating object but not an owner should probably be automatically made paranoid