Authoring Tool: Combat?
Neil K.
"Denis Malyavin" <dmal...@trentu.ca> wrote:
>I am interested in writing interactive fiction. My main field of interest in
>fantasy.. and what is classic fantasy without a little combat... what I was
>wondering is.. is there an authoring system that supports combat options?
mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
> You can certainly do this in any of the major systems, on a pure
> text level (SWING SWORD AT ORC). However, the general feeling seems
> to be that it's a very bad idea: no author I've ever encountered
> has been able to make prolonged combat interesting in a text game.
Agreed. There are a few TADS modules that people have written that add
simple combat abilities to TADS games; all available on ftp.gmd.de.
There's also a game, Shadowland, that features a lot of combat. But, as
Mary rightly points out, the results are rather - well... boring.
There's a reason why Zork I features simple combat and hardly any
subsequent Infocom games do. Violent graphical arcade games are about
reacting. Text adventures are about thinking. I strongly doubt it's
possible to combine the two in a plain text game, particularly one that
isn't real time.
As for magic there are add-on libraries for both Inform and TADS that
support your traditional Infocommish magic systems. Of course, you could
be adventuresome and invent something new...
- Neil K.
--
t e l a computer consulting + design * Vancouver, BC, Canada
web: http://www.tela.bc.ca/tela/ * email: tela @ tela.bc.ca
Denis Malyavin
Dear newsgourp members,
I am interested in writing interactive fiction. My main field of interest in
fantasy.. and what is classic fantasy without a little combat... what I was
wondering is.. is there an authoring system that supports combat options?
And magic options as well.
Sincerely,
Denis Malyavin
Mary K. Kuhner
>I am interested in writing interactive fiction. My main field of interest in
>fantasy.. and what is classic fantasy without a little combat... what I was
>wondering is.. is there an authoring system that supports combat options?
>And magic options as well.
You can certainly do this in any of the major systems, on a pure
text level (SWING SWORD AT ORC). However, the general feeling seems
to be that it's a very bad idea: no author I've ever encountered
has been able to make prolonged combat interesting in a text game.
It's probably better to keep combat off stage: for example, the
characters must accomplish some task before they can fight
the monster, but once that task is accomplished the author simply
describes the victorious combat.
There is a magic system in the example Inform game balances.inf (it
can be found in the Inform directories on ftp.gmd.de) based on the
one in _Enchanter_. You'll get more praise if you make your own,
though, as that one is very familiar to players.
Finally, it's worth bearing in mind that at least one archetypal
fantasy hero, Frodo Baggins, does no fighting to speak of.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Julian Arnold
In article <6459vi$7l9$1...@news1.tor.acc.ca>, Denis Malyavin
<URL:mailto:dmal...@trentu.ca> wrote:
> Dear newsgourp members,
>
> I am interested in writing interactive fiction. My main field of interest in
> fantasy.. and what is classic fantasy without a little combat... what I was
> wondering is.. is there an authoring system that supports combat options?
> And magic options as well.
No and yes.
No in that there are no systems or libraries (afaik) that implement
combat systems. Yes in that, depending on what you actually want to do,
it shouldn't be too hard to write one from scratch.
As for magic, you might like to look at the Inform code for Balances:
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/infocom/compilers/inform6/examples/Balances.inf
and the Hugo example code for the same spell system:
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/programming/hugo/library/contributions/spellsys.zip
Both of these implement a system similar to that used in Infocom's
Enchanter series.
Jools
--
"For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand
ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from
ever completing anything." -- Herman Melville, "Moby Dick"
bard
> Agreed. There are a few TADS modules that people have written that add
> simple combat abilities to TADS games; all available on ftp.gmd.de.
> There's also a game, Shadowland, that features a lot of combat. But, as
> Mary rightly points out, the results are rather - well... boring.
>
> There's a reason why Zork I features simple combat and hardly any
> subsequent Infocom games do. Violent graphical arcade games are about
> reacting. Text adventures are about thinking. I strongly doubt it's
> possible to combine the two in a plain text game, particularly one that
> isn't real time.
>
> As for magic there are add-on libraries for both Inform and TADS that
> support your traditional Infocommish magic systems. Of course, you could
> be adventuresome and invent something new...
>
> - Neil K.
>
> --
> t e l a computer consulting + design * Vancouver, BC, Canada
> web: http://www.tela.bc.ca/tela/ * email: tela @ tela.bc.ca
A true fantasy battle isn't just bloody violence, if done correctly it
is a game of strategy and not just hack 'n slash. As long as the battles
aren't TOO frequent and each one is different (you dont end up typing
the same line over and over...) then yes, it will be fun and engaging,
and yes you WILL have to think.
Jeff Pack
On 10 Nov 1997 05:43:46 GMT, Mary K. Kuhner
<mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu> wrote:
>You can certainly do this in any of the major systems, on a pure
>text level (SWING SWORD AT ORC). However, the general feeling seems
>to be that it's a very bad idea: no author I've ever encountered
>has been able to make prolonged combat interesting in a text game.
I thought Telarium's _Nine_Princes_in_Amber_ did an okay job...
--
Jeff Pack '99 (book...@brown.edu) "Here I am, up on the podium,
Brown University, English and Here I am, up on the dais;
American Lit., Honors Program There I go, playing with words again,
St. Anthony Hall K'96, Lit. Chair There I go... turn the phrase."
Den of Iniquity
On Mon, 10 Nov 1997, bard wrote:
>A true fantasy battle isn't just bloody violence, if done correctly it
>is a game of strategy and not just hack 'n slash. As long as the battles
>aren't TOO frequent and each one is different (you dont end up typing
>the same line over and over...) then yes, it will be fun and engaging,
>and yes you WILL have to think.
It depends on how it's done and how good your descriptive text is. It
would be very frustrating if a player loses a battle because one can't,
from the text, tell a lunge from a forward defensive stroke. :)
Now, mentioning strategy, I'm put in mind of the deployment of forces -
battles between sides containing numerous partcipants. If done well, I can
see how that might be a more interesting sort of battle.
> CAVALRY, LURE LEFT FLANK AWAY
--
Den
Jerome T. Nichols
In article <6459vi$7l9$1...@news1.tor.acc.ca>, "Denis Malyavin" <dmal...@trentu.ca> wrote:
>Dear newsgourp members,
>
>I am interested in writing interactive fiction. My main field of interest in
>fantasy.. and what is classic fantasy without a little combat... what I was
>wondering is.. is there an authoring system that supports combat options?
>And magic options as well.
>
>
>Denis Malyavin
>
>
I working on that very problem now {using Hugo}
The rudaments are in:
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/programming/hugo/library/contributions/newlib01.
hug
The code could look something like this:
!---------------------------------------------------------
before
{
object dohit
{
local x
if xobject.type = weapon
{
x = random(object.dex)
if x = 1
{
print "You hit the ";the(object);" with the ";the(xobject);"."
object.hits -= xobject.damage
}
}
else
print the(object);" laffs at you. Get a weapon!"
}
}
!--------------------------------------------------------
My IF page:
http://cub.kcnet.org/~jnichols/hugo
Help save the environment live in virtual reality.
http://oak.kcsd.k12.pa.us/~jnichols/
-- Jerry and The Ig
Mary K. Kuhner
>A true fantasy battle isn't just bloody violence, if done correctly it
>is a game of strategy and not just hack 'n slash. As long as the battles
>aren't TOO frequent and each one is different (you dont end up typing
>the same line over and over...) then yes, it will be fun and engaging,
>and yes you WILL have to think.
It seems to me that the main problem with combat in an IF format is
how to provide enough information--to put it another way, how to cue
the correct actions--without simply leading the player through by the
hand. Combat doesn't fit well into a "try weird things until one
works" schema the way a lot of traditional IF puzzles do. In combat,
if you try many stupid things--or even one stupid thing, often--you
should die. So the player needs enough information to be able to think
of smart things to do. (If the character dies hundreds of times the
game will not be very engaging as a story, and since I think stories
are a strength of IF, I'd find this disappointing.)
If you sit me in front of, say, a text fencing simulator, I will be at
a loss. I'll try poking at my opponent more or less at random, because
I have no idea what the author thought would be a good or a bad move.
Eventually, if I stick with it, I'll figure out the author's concept,
but by then the immediacy of the game is likely to be gone. And my
experience is that by that point I no longer think of my opponent as
a "real fencer" but just as a kind of puzzle: I do this-he does that-
I skewer him.
It might work better, as another poster said, with more abstraction.
The kind of combat in the mid-series Ultima games, where each character
makes a decision each cycle as to who to attack or what spell to cast,
could be transferred to IF--though the lack of the overhead map makes
physical manuvering hard to handle, which would cut tactical
complexity a lot. It seems to me (admittedly I'm prejudiced) that
you'd end up with a pale copy of Ultima or Nethack.
I don't have anything against fantasy combat per se, I just don't think
it works well as IF. It's an interface problem. If nothing else, for
me the visceral impact of combat comes across much more clearly if I
can't think for ten minutes about each move: but real-time IF doesn't
work for me, as I lose my ability to type coherently when flustered.
All this is only my opinion, though: I'm sure there are players out
there with quite different tastes.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Daniel Shiovitz
In article <fake-mail-091...@van-52-0417.direct.ca>,
Neil K. <fake...@anti-spam.address> wrote:
[..]
> There's a reason why Zork I features simple combat and hardly any
>subsequent Infocom games do. Violent graphical arcade games are about
>reacting. Text adventures are about thinking. I strongly doubt it's
>possible to combine the two in a plain text game, particularly one that
>isn't real time.
Nethack and other roguelike games do it pretty well (yet another
roguelike/IF crossover), but their combat is just as different from
Advanced Techno Mario Street Fighter II as ">KILL TROLL WITH ELVEN
SWORD" is.
> - Neil K.
--
(Dan Shiovitz) (d...@cs.wisc.edu) (look, I have a new e-mail address)
(http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~dbs) (and a new web page also)
(the content, of course, is the same)
Wonder Boy
I know that some people don't like the game so much, but I liked
Journey a lot and would be interested in seeing another game with a
similar combat system if it could be done as well. I'd think that such a
thing could be done with Inform or Hugo?
-jon
"I come not to praise Caesar, but to bust a move." -mamster,
Adventurer's Lounge
(Text game fan? Check out http://fovea.retina.net:4001)
Jeff Pack
On 10 Nov 1997 17:39:53 GMT, Mary K. Kuhner
>It might work better, as another poster said, with more abstraction.
>The kind of combat in the mid-series Ultima games, where each character
>makes a decision each cycle as to who to attack or what spell to cast,
>could be transferred to IF--though the lack of the overhead map makes
>physical manuvering hard to handle, which would cut tactical
>complexity a lot. It seems to me (admittedly I'm prejudiced) that
>you'd end up with a pale copy of Ultima or Nethack.
Ooh! IF NetHack! (Hey, if we can have Foom and Sylenius Mysterium, why
not IFHack?)
Brock Kevin Nambo
Jeff Pack wrote in message <647qnk$e...@cocoa.brown.edu>...
>Ooh! IF NetHack! (Hey, if we can have Foom and Sylenius Mysterium, why
>not IFHack?)
UMM!!! He compared a Comp game to an already established one!!! Somebody
call the authorities!!!!
>>BKNambo ;)
Brock Kevin Nambo
Nick wrote in message ...
>> Frodo Baggins
>Shelob?
Excuse my ignorance, but to whom are you referring with "shelob"? Sounds
like a spell to combat inflation...
>>BKNambo
Nick
> Finally, it's worth bearing in mind that at least one archetypal
> fantasy hero, Frodo Baggins, does no fighting to speak of.
>
> Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
>
Nick
Gunther Schmidl
Shelob is the beast in the Tower of Minas Morgul that stings Frodo,
rendering him unconscious; she is wounded by him in combat, then killed by
Sam (I think).
--
+------------------------+----------------------------------------------+
+ Gunther Schmidl + "I couldn't help it. I can resist everything +
+ Ferd.-Markl-Str. 39/16 + except temptation" -- Oscar Wilde +
+ A-4040 LINZ +----------------------------------------------+
+ Tel: 0732 25 28 57 + http://gschmidl.home.ml.org - new & improved +
+------------------------+---+------------------------------------------+
+ sothoth (at) usa (dot) net + please remove the "xxx." before replying +
+----------------------------+------------------------------------------+
Brock Kevin Nambo schrieb in Nachricht <#$zxHzl78GA.292@upnetnews03>...
John Francis
In article <Pine.SGI.3.95L.97111...@tower.york.ac.uk>,
That isn't really combat - it's solving a puzzle by using the right
object ("Sting") in the right place (under Shelob).
--
John Francis jfra...@sgi.com Silicon Graphics, Inc.
(650)933-8295 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. MS 43U-991
(650)933-4692 (Fax) Mountain View, CA 94043-1389
Unsolicited electronic mail will be subject to a $100 handling fee.
Gunther Schmidl
0. NOTE
-------
This is a rather lengthy discourse about combat in Interactive Fiction
systems. It contains possible spoilers for some I-F games (Zork 1, Beyond
Zork, Journey, Hollywood Hijinx, Border Zone, Arthur, Sylenius Mysterium),
so be careful.
1. COMBAT IN EXISTING GAMES
---------------------------
As far as I know, there are five Infocom games that use actual hand-to-hand
(or sword-to-sword, or chainsaw-to-bat, or whatever) combat: Zork 1, Beyond
Zork, Hollywood Hijinx, Arthur and Journey.
1.1 ZORK 1
----------
The system used in Zork 1 contains mainly of one command: ATTACK x WITH y.
Depending on the experience and status of the player, a hit is more or less
likely to succeed. For example, the thief is very hard to dispatch unless
you have a lot of experience and are rested enough from previous fights (i.
e. enough turns have passed since you've last been hit), although it's
possible to carry around gold sarcophagi and tons of other stuff.
The designers themselves were not very happy with this system, and so it was
never again used in this form.
1.2 BEYOND ZORK
---------------
One of the "style experiments" of Infocom, Beyond Zork has a rather
"RPG-ish" feel about it, with the player having different attributes:
Endurance, Strength, Dexterity, Compassion, Intelligence, Luck. These are
used in combat to determine the outcome of each hit, done again via the
simple "ATTACK MONSTER" command, conveniently placed on the F7 key this
time.
However, there is at least one different possibility of getting rid of each
enemy besides fighting. Some involve diverse Rods, others take advantage of
some monsters' special disabilities (like the sensitive eyes of the
Dornbeast; it can be irritated by cutting an onion), and some (like the dust
bunnies or Christmas Tree monsters) can't be fought at all, and must be
tricked.
1.3 JOURNEY
-----------
Someone mentioned this game, but as far as I remember, there is but one
avoidable fight in this game, and it can be "walked around" if you have a
scout. The combat system lets you win a fight in one way only, and it
usually involves clever thinking and usage of spells than brute force if one
wants to avoid injury or death of party members.
1.4 HOLLYWOOD HIJINX
--------------------
I name this game only because the end-game has a hilarious combat scene, in
which one must determine which of the movie props that lie around is not
really a prop, but a real weapon to get rid of your foe, but it again
consists only of "ATTACK x WITH y", and is really just for fun.
1.5 ARTHUR
----------
Arthur lets the player fight out a tournament in one place, but it is very
clear what you have to do to win, and it involves no commands, but simply
gives you choices a, b, c, of which you must select the correct ones.
2. REAL-TIME COMBAT
-------------------
2.1 BORDER ZONE
---------------
Interestingly enough, Border Zone, Infocom's only real-time game, has lots
of time-dependent puzzles, but none of them involves fighting.
2.2 WHAT I'M DOING
------------------
In my current game-in-progress (If I ever get it done :), I plan to include
a real-time combat system. To get an impression of this, play the arcade
section of the competition game "Sylenius Mysterium" for the principle of
the real-time mechanism.
The combat system would respond to single key-presses, e. g. L for attack
left, R for attack right, B for block or whatever, and react to the player's
input as far as possible, but not making a combat impossible to win and not
too linear (several strategies can win you a battle). This, however, is only
a plan, and I'm not too sure if I ever get so far. It would look something
like this (the lines coming in real-time)
XYZ swings his sword at you!
The sword is now dangerously close to your throat
>B [block]
You manage to parry the blow just in time. Your opponent stumbles back!
>S [stab]
You stab the sword at him, and manage to pierce his side! As you pull out
the sword, blood starts rinning from the wound.
Seemingly unaffected, XYZ quickly throws a dagger at you!
The dagger comes closer!
The dagger is now dangerously close!
>D [duck]
Too late! The dagger hits you.
[...]
3. COMMENTS
-----------
My personal opinion is that real-time combat would be the most interesting
form of combat in I-F, taking out the static "HIT x WITH y" part. However,
it may prove difficult for slowly-reacting players (but then, one could
always implement difficulty settings) and could be hard to program (though I
don't think so).
Another idea would be to just let a player win a combat when he's properly
equipped to do so, and warn him otherwise, though it might be hard to find
reasons for that, and rather reminds me of AGT (shudder).
The most uninteresting form is still the one seen in Zork 1 and Beyond Zork,
and random elements in games have always proven to be more of a nuisance.
If, however, the outcome depends on the player's dexterity (and I mean the
*player's* dexterity, not the dexterity of the on-screen character like in
Beyond Zork), it might just prove to be very interesting and challenging.
HOWEVER, good measure should be used; to take Sylenius Mysterium again, I
couldn't even get through the first level, and four (or five?) levels may
prove to be too much for even the most patient of players. Same for
extra-long, extra-hard combats.
Giles Boutel
Nick <npm...@york.ac.uk> wrote in article
<Pine.SGI.3.95L.97111...@tower.york.ac.uk>...
> > Finally, it's worth bearing in mind that at least one archetypal
> > fantasy hero, Frodo Baggins, does no fighting to speak of.
> >
> > Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
> >
> What about Shelob?
> Nick
>
IIRC, it was Samwise who bagged the old girl. Can't recall if Frodo fought
her, though.
-Giles
Trevor Barrie
In article <649muq$1ble$1...@alijku04.edvz.uni-linz.ac.at>,
Gunther Schmidl <sot...@xxx.usa.net> wrote:
>1. COMBAT IN EXISTING GAMES
>---------------------------
>As far as I know, there are five Infocom games that use actual hand-to-hand
>(or sword-to-sword, or chainsaw-to-bat, or whatever) combat: Zork 1, Beyond
>Zork, Hollywood Hijinx, Arthur and Journey.
Zork 3, where you fight the cloaked figure in the land of shadow.
For that matter, you have the sword in Zork 2 as well and there are plenty of
creatures you can try to whack on. Nothing you can actually beat, though.
>The combat system would respond to single key-presses, e. g. L for attack
>left, R for attack right, B for block or whatever, and react to the player's
>input as far as possible, but not making a combat impossible to win and not
>too linear (several strategies can win you a battle). This, however, is only
>a plan, and I'm not too sure if I ever get so far. It would look something
>like this (the lines coming in real-time)
>
>XYZ swings his sword at you!
>The sword is now dangerously close to your throat
>>B [block]
>You manage to parry the blow just in time. Your opponent stumbles back!
>>S [stab]
>You stab the sword at him, and manage to pierce his side! As you pull out
>the sword, blood starts rinning from the wound.
>Seemingly unaffected, XYZ quickly throws a dagger at you!
>The dagger comes closer!
>The dagger is now dangerously close!
>>D [duck]
>Too late! The dagger hits you.
>[...]
This looks potentially interesting... I'd have to try it to say whether
I'd like it.
>The most uninteresting form is still the one seen in Zork 1 and Beyond Zork,
>and random elements in games have always proven to be more of a nuisance.
>If, however, the outcome depends on the player's dexterity (and I mean the
>*player's* dexterity, not the dexterity of the on-screen character like in
>Beyond Zork), it might just prove to be very interesting and challenging.
My gut instinct is that I'd _much_ rather have a puzzle test the on-screen
character's dexterity than my own.
Torbj|rn Andersson
"Gunther Schmidl" <sot...@xxx.usa.net> wrote:
> As far as I know, there are five Infocom games that use actual hand-to-ha=
nd
> (or sword-to-sword, or chainsaw-to-bat, or whatever) combat: Zork 1, Beyo=
nd
> Zork, Hollywood Hijinx, Arthur and Journey.
I'd add Zork 3, Leather Goddesses of Phobos and maybe Planetfall to
that list. Of course, I too may have forgotten some.
> The most uninteresting form is still the one seen in Zork 1 and Beyond Zo=
rk,
> and random elements in games have always proven to be more of a nuisance.
You do have a point, of course, but I can't believe I was the only one
callous enough to actually enjoy finally getting rid of a certain
individual in Zork 1.
Torbj=F6rn
Scott Steubing
>1. COMBAT IN EXISTING GAMES
>---------------------------
>As far as I know, there are five Infocom games that use actual hand-to-hand
>(or sword-to-sword, or chainsaw-to-bat, or whatever) combat: Zork 1, Beyond
>Zork, Hollywood Hijinx, Arthur and Journey.
Zork III also has combat, in a similar vein to Zork I.
>2.2 WHAT I'M DOING
>------------------
>In my current game-in-progress (If I ever get it done :), I plan to include
>a real-time combat system. To get an impression of this, play the arcade
>section of the competition game "Sylenius Mysterium" for the principle of
>the real-time mechanism.
I dislike real-time IF. Hell, I dislike real-time games, period. But
getting back to IF, if combat, real-time or not, is central to the
game, I'll probably give it a pass. I play IF to immerse myself in a
story, not to run around killing things. I can always go play Doom or
Dark Forces if I want to do that.
I don't mind how combat was done in Zork I & III. It didn't dominate
the game. Beyond Zork borders on tolerable, depending on how often I
have to restore my game and how soon I find the Rod of Annihilation.
<*> Scott Steubing
<*> ScottS...@worldnet.att.net
<*> http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/2355 - The Unofficial Whizzy Home Page
E-mail address intentionally messed up to prevent spam. Add ".net" to the end.
There is a special circle in Hell reserved for those who send out unsolicited commercial email.
Joe Mason
In article <64d2su$7vl$1...@nntp5.u.washington.edu>,>I liked the game just fine until the first arcade sequence. I think the
>ways in which I identify with an IF protagonist and the ways I identify
>with a twitch-game protagonist must be rather different. It was
>horribly jarring to see the hard-boiled detective reduced to a little
>manniken jumping, squatting, and firing off loads of bullets. I
>couldn't care about what happened to the manniken, and the whole thing
>was just a big pest.
Reminds me of Sierra's Manhunter: New York, which seemed like a pretty decent
game until the arcade sequence in the alley outside the bar, which was just
stupid and ruined the atmosphere completely. Space Quest, on the other hand,
managed to place the action sequences (dodging rocks in a skimmer, for
instance) prety well IIRC.
Joe
Look What the Cat Dragged in
Scott Steubing wrote:
> I don't mind how combat was done in Zork I & III. It didn't dominate
> the game. Beyond Zork borders on tolerable, depending on how often I
> have to restore my game and how soon I find the Rod of Annihilation.
I just cheated on Beyond Zork. I was going to go into the cheat process
here, but I don't want to spoil the game, and it probably won't work
anyway. Basically, I just got all my figures up to 128, no probs, by
hacking two Apple II images I saved from an emulator. Yes, I got the game
off the Internet, but it's unplayable anyway without the packaging as I
found out later, after cheating, so I'll just buy Infocom: Masterprices
from somewhere ;-).
Byezy.
--
J.Smith
------------------------
To reply by Email, change the 'z' in lwtcdz to i
Spam e-mail is Evil!!
-------
Well, well, well... Look What the Cat Dragged In - Bloated in a nightbreed
style...
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7691
------------------------------
Terence Fergusson
In article <01bcefa6$b2cfbe60$2a00...@Cygnus.uwaterloo.ca>, Joe Mason
<jcm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> scribed:
>
>
>John Francis <jfra...@dungeon.engr.sgi.com> wrote in article
><64a88r$3q...@fido.asd.sgi.com>...
> >> Finally, it's worth bearing in mind that at least one archetypal
>> >> fantasy hero, Frodo Baggins, does no fighting to speak of.
>> >>
>>
>> That isn't really combat - it's solving a puzzle by using the right
>> object ("Sting") in the right place (under Shelob).
>
I agree with this point, but Frodo has used a weapon a number of
times.... once on the barrow downs against the wight, once against the
Nazgul upon Weathertop. He was involved in an entire fight in Balin's
Tomb. However, he did not use a weapon against Shelob; merely, he used
the light of Galadriel's Phial to blind Shelob, and then they made their
escape. He did use Sting against Shelob's web, but that's more of a
puzzle. However, at the end, Frodo was involved with one last combat
against Gollum, on the slopes of Mount Doom.
So, I believe in total that Frodo was only involved in two real fights;
the rest were just puzzles: (Say Elbereth; Attack Black Rider).
Of course, that's just with what I remember offhand.... I've probably
missed some. Oh well.
Hope that helps.
Ciao,
Terence Fergusson
-- Student of Advanced Murphodynamics
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Yes, yes, I *know* that, Sidney... *Every*body knows *that*... But look:
Four wrongs *squared*, minus two wrongs to the fourth power, divided by this
formula, *do* make a right!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------