Weapons teaching Lore skills?

I'm using a system of weapon upgrades in my hack, which works fine -- but I'd also like to have each upgrade level teach the character a few spells; or in this case, Lore skills.

First off, I found this: Event command $66: Equipment check by Madsiur (https://www.ff6hacking.com/forums/showth...ment+check). It checks for a piece of equipment, then branches to a given offset. So in theory I could use it to check if the character has the weapon required.

Then I looked at How to have characters learn spells through events by Angelo (https://www.ff6hacking.com/forums/showth...hp?tid=903), which uses event command $8F for teaching a character any given magic spell. However it looks like it can't be used for learning Lore skills. Bummer.

You can probably see it now, what I want isn't really complicated; just a routine that checks your equipment for specific weapons and gives you the corresponding Lores. There are 8 weapons in total which require this routine; there are 2 others, but they are your starting equipment and thus don't need to be checked for.

Can I do this via events, or is ASM necessary? I'd like some preliminary opinions on this.

You could have a monster that targets everyone that's not your lore user with an Sneeze. Now, have it counter Fight commands with the Lore you want to teach. If you give every weapon a different element, you can give up to 8 different Lores.
Its a long complicated way of doing it.

It depends of a few things. If your weapon upgrades are done in the same way as the paladin shield (weapon X become weapon Y at the end of battle) then it's easy too add a specific lore learning when the weapon is upgraded on a certain character.

If all weapons are found in chests or obtained as loots, then you need too hook up custom code in the equip routine that will set the lore(s) learned for the character (for de-equip also if you plan to unlearn spells when weapon is removed).

An event command is not really suitable for this since it involve an event (opening a chest is done through ASM). If you have a special event where an NPC gives you a weapon, you could also call right away a custom command that teach lore X.

Unless I'm mistaken, only Strago has a lore SRAM block, you'd need to reorganize some SRAM to allow more lore learning characters and tweak the code that calls the lore menu entries for your characters.

It's not insanely difficult and I'd consider this a good first ASM project for someone who never coded

It depends of a few things. If your weapon upgrades are done in the same way as the paladin shield (weapon X become weapon Y at the end of battle) then it's easy too add a specific lore learning when the weapon is upgraded on a certain character.

Awesome. Yes, that's exactly how I'm doing it. I'm using your "cursed tweak" code to implement the upgrades. It's a simple system of 5 levels for 2 weapons. Would it be possible to have the character learn different Lores with each different upgrade?

If you have a special event where an NPC gives you a weapon, you could also call right away a custom command that teach lore X.

That's good to know. So I could have the weapons upgraded with the cursed tweak, then talking to a specific NPC who runs a check of my equipment... then if I have the required weapon, she gives me the respective Lores. Would that work?

I'm just throwing these ideas around as I'm not yet 100% sure how I want to make this link between weapon growth and Lore skills. I want each upgrade to unlock different skills, that much is certain.

Unless I'm mistaken, only Strago has a lore SRAM block, you'd need to reorganize some SRAM to allow more lore learning characters and tweak the code that calls the lore menu entries for your characters.

I see. I have to look into that, then.

It's not insanely difficult and I'd consider this a good first ASM project for someone who never coded.

I was a little intimidated by ASM until recently but it looks like the next logical step now.

Awesome. Yes, that's exactly how I'm doing it. I'm using your "cursed tweak" code to implement the upgrades. It's a simple system of 5 levels for 2 weapons. Would it be possible to have the character learn different Lores with each different upgrade?

Yes you could do with with a lore table for each character.

That's good to know. So I could have the weapons upgraded with the cursed tweak, then talking to a specific NPC who runs a check of my equipment... then if I have the required weapon, she gives me the respective Lores. Would that work?

Yes, with a one byte parameter you can allow lore (spell) X to be learned or lore "0" to "7" (with a lore table of 8 spell entries) at the same time if you check individual bits. It depends how you do it and what you need.

That's great to hear, thanks. I need to mull over my options now, I guess I could make it all simple and automatic -- upgrade the weapon, get new lores instantly. But I'm considering something like the NPC route or maybe after you upgrade you go to the inn and rest, *then* get the new lores. I'm not sure yet...