nsmryan
Dagger Mechanics
There are a few aspects of the dagger item that I think we need to work out.
It should stun an idle golem for longer, but we have not specified how much longer. I will make it 1 extra turn, which stacks with the idea of using a dagger on a golem in the currently direction that the player is facing.
Should it work on alert golems? If you walk out into a room and end up next to a golem, you could stun them. Or if a golem walks out next to you from behind a wall, like you set a trap for them. This would make stealth a bit easier since you would have a turn to recover the situation with a stun if you were close to the golem.
This issue is similar to issue #464. I went ahead and closed that issue so that we can discuss it here. I think that the dagger should stun alert golems, but only for one turn, and it should stun unaware golems for three turns, though I'm open to negotiation on the turn count.
Just for clarity - when I said 'alert' I meant in the Alert state. Right now I don't think an Attacking golem could be hit by a dagger at all. There is a "stealth' style of attack which does not work on attacking golems.
So my thought about daggers was that we should make two changes: the player should start with one, and we would allow daggers to stun even alert golems briefly. I wanted to give players more options in the very early game in case of harsh level generation. Another option would be to start players with a different weapon, maybe a short short sword that has a short range stab, like a less effective spear, and then keep daggers as only stealth weapons.