Broomstick

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Broomstick
Weapon information
Precise dimensions 5 x 1/12
Material wood
Weight 3 3/9
Thaums/sec 6 stable / 7 talisman / 12 max
Hands 2
Commands bash wildswing
Melee type Polearm
Judge data
Speed 6 Quick 6
Maximum damage 8 Quite high 8
Average damage 2 Very low 2
Str Overall Attack ease Parry ease
16 10 good
10
11 rather easy
11
14 incredibly easy
14
17 10 good
10
11 rather easy
11
14 incredibly easy
14
18 10 good
10
11 rather easy
11
14 incredibly easy
14
19 10 good
10
11 rather easy
11
14 incredibly easy
14
20 10 good
10
12 very easy
12
14 incredibly easy
14
21 10 good
10
12 very easy
12
14 incredibly easy
14
22 10 good
10
12 very easy
12
14 incredibly easy
14

A broomstick is one of the most recognizable symbols of a witch, demanding almost as much respect as the pointy hat. Witches can use their brooms to fly about the disc, providing rapid transportation over long distances.

There is now another version: the iron broomstick obtained sometimes when defeating Shelox.


Long Description

This is what a non-customized normal broomstick looks like:

a broomstick

This is an ordinary sweeping implement that consists of a long handle to which a brush of twigs is attached.  You may be able to use it to fly, but only under certain conditions.  You must be well practised in things witchy, and you must possess the wondrous, mysterious, and womanly talent called headology.
It has the hazy octarine sparkle of a magical talisman.

Appraises As

The broomstick is about five feet long and an inch wide. It is made of wood and could be used as a weapon of type polearm.

Acquiring broomsticks

Broomsticks can be found in the following locations:

It might be worth noting that closets are very dark, you might want to bring a light source if you want to be able to see.

Fuelling

Broomsticks do not use GP when they make a flight, rather, they are fuelled up beforehand from the witch's GP, and that fuel is used up each flight.

Normal broomsticks have a maximum fuel capacity of 300 GP, and use up 100 GP with every flight. Thus, they can store a maximum of three flights' worth of fuel. Iron broomsticks have a capacity of 400 GP, allowing four flights' worth to be stored. Witches can 'shake' their broomstick to determine how much fuel is left, in terms of number of flights.

Up to half the witch's magic.methods.mental.channeling bonus in GP can be fuelled into the broom in a single go without risk of failure, however, there is no limit on how quickly successive fuellings can be.

Attempting to take off with 0 GP in the broom simply results in no take off attempt being made. Attempting to take off with 1-199 GP fuel in the broom will result in the witch running out of fuel mid-flight, and crash-landing. This will break both your legs.

While it is possible to fuel in combat, it is much more difficult. Slightly less than half the gp that can generally be fuelled may be reliably be fuelled, for certain values of slightly.

Attempting to fuel a broom with more GP than it can hold will cause the excess to go to waste, unless the broom is already completely full, in which case the attempt simply won't be made.

Fuelling a broom will automagically cause it to be held in your hands, displacing any weapons you were holding.

Broom slots and recording

Each broom has a number of 'broom slots'. Witches can 'record' a particular location in a broom slot, and then use the slot to fly back to it later.

Brooms initially come with 12 slots. When the broom is bonded, this number of slots changes to an amount dependent on the witch's adventuring.direction bonus, via the following table.

Note that some bonuses are missing from the table because we're not sure about those yet.

Please add any missing bonus/slot pair that you have confirmed is correct in game on the table in the research page.

Broom slots Adventuring.direction bonus
13  ? - 102 - ?
14 115 - 124
15 131 - 146
16 148 - 169
17 171 - 200
18 201 - 235
19 236 - 275
20 276 - 320
21 322 - 370
22 371 - 419
23  ? - 481 - ?
24  ? - 505 - ?

Only valid fly-to locations can be recorded. Thus, they must be:

When recording a location, a description may be provided. This description can make use of colour.

A witch can list her broom slots at any time by using the 'recall' command.

It is also possible to swap recorded locations or to rename what it looks like on recall.

Taking off

The witch's bonus in magic.items.held.broom determines how well she is able to use her broom for taking off and landing  research If this has been marked on a page, it's because there was something that probably isn't known, that the person who edited the page thinks could be found out. Perhaps you could figure this thing out, and be famous evermore. . Taking off is also considerably more difficult at night.

There is a small period of time - about 1-2 seconds - after landing in which the witch will not be able to take off again.

In order to take off, the witch must be holding her broom, however, the broom will automagically be held on take off if it is anywhere in her carried inventory.

When taking off, the witch must designate a target to fly to - this may be either a unique named NPC or player, or a pre-recorded location slot.

To take off, the following conditions must be satisfied:

  • The witch must be outside
  • The target must be outside
  • Both witch and target must not be in no fly zones.
  • The broom must have fuel.
  • The target must not be a creator.
  • The broomstick must be held with two hands.

Note that some NPC targets are un-fly-toable (typically, these are the same as the NPCs which are unscryable), irrespective of where they are.

Passengers, pets and minions

Witches cannot carry passengers on their brooms.

Ambulatory pets and minions must be picked up by the witch before flying, lest they be left behind. Some exceptions include the Sto Lat pets, which will automagically show up at the destination.

Flying minions (such as dragons, fruitbats and fireflies), however, will fly after the witch to her destination.

Misflights

With each flight, there is a chance that the witch will not end up at her intended destination. The chance of a 'misflight' is affected by the following:

When a misflight occurs, it will send the witch to the current location of a randomly chosen player who is outside. Note that this location is selected at takeoff, so the witch may land and find no-one is around if that player has moved in the meantime.

An unfortunate consequence of this is that witches are more likely to misfly to groups than solo players, and groups are more likely to be in dangerous zones (such as The Snail, The Shades, etc.). Therefore it is recommended that witches have enough fuel for at least two flights before flying, as this gives them enough left to get away from anywhere hostile on landing.

In flight

After take off, witches enter the special 'flying room'. In this room, they can take no action other than look. After a few seconds, they will return to the ground. All witches pass through the same flight room while traveling on broomsticks.

Flying room curiosities

Whilst in the flying room, you may see:

  • Fellow witches, possibly accompanied with their trusty giant fruitbat, moon dragon, swarms of fireflies and/or flying pets.
  • Npc witches flying off from some danger to remote locations or a random player.
  • The T-shop zooming past.
  • Creators lounging on the clouds.
  • Non witches unhappily falling through the air as a result of misportalling to a flying witch and entering the door anyway. They are in for a painful landing...
  • Hattian priests visiting you at the wrong moment (also in for a painful landing).
  • Possibly people being catapulted from Sto Lat or kicked by Dunky, through they may go through a falling room (see below).


Falling room(s)

However, the flight room is not the same as the room(s) through which you fall from great heights (like when using the wrong exit in Brass Neck) or from much smaller heights like from bridges in Ankh-Morpork, for example when going down outside the player house at 8 Holofernes on New Bridge, which doesn't even hurt at all. The falling rooms notably differ in that you can twist a blue ring or fly off to somewhere else while falling through them.

Flying room bugs

Occasionally, you may find yourself stuck in the flying room. This is very unfortunate, because you cannot make any commands (such as, 'tell <liaison> Help!'). Should you find yourself in this unpleasant situation, the approved way to deal with it is:

  • Create a guest character
  • Log on with guest character
  • IMMEDIATELY tell a liaison 'Help, my witch character (<name>) is stuck in the flying room'.

Crashes

There are two things that can cause a crash:

  • Taking off with less than 100 GP fuel.
  • Losing one's broom mid-flight (for example, due to fumbling).

When either of the above happen, the witch will crash-land. This causes the following:

  • A <witch>-shaped crater appears in that room.
  • The witch breaks her legs.
  • The witch falls unconscious for a while.

Broken legs are bad for a great many reasons:

To fix broken legs, the witch needs to get to a doctor. There are various options for doing this:

  • Crawl there. This is usually only an option if the doctor is very close.
  • Carry around portal scrolls and a blorpled ring to the doctor, ask a friend to create a portal there and crawl through(JPCT has a dancing stage which cannot be done with broken legs).
  • Ask for help - the witches channel can usually arrange a rescue; otherwise priests may be able to passage you to a doctor, and wizards may be able to portal you there.

Alternatively, if you know how to splint, you don't need a doctor.

Other uses

Broomsticks have a few other uses beyond flying:

Utensil

Broomsticks are utensils, and as such can be floated with Grammer Scorbic's Household Guard.

Weapon

Broomsticks can be used as a weapon of type polearm. They judge as 'very good', and can be used to bash.

Note that Imperial guards don't consider broomsticks to be weapons (clearly, they are simple sweeping implements), and hence will not confiscate them.

There are advantages and disadvantages to witches using a broom in combat:

Advantages
  • The broom is a fairly good weapon.
  • You always have a means of escape ready to hand
  • You don't incur additional burden from carrying broom and weapon.
  • The broom is not recognised as a weapon on the Counterweight Continent (aka Agatea) and its cities (aka Bes Pelargic), therefore no weapons permit is needed to carry it and it will not be confiscated.
Disadvantages
  • The polearm skill depends on two parts constitution and three parts strength, neither of which are stats witches typically have much of.
  • There are better polearms that can be used.
  • If your broom is filched or breaks due to combat damage, you have nothing to fly with.

Decoration

Broomsticks can be painted with a brush and an (opened) tin of paint.

paint <broomstick> with paint in <container>

Once painted with a <colour> a normal broomstick then looks like this:

a <colour> broomstick

This broom consists of a long handle, which has been painted <colour>, and a tail of bushy twigs.  You may be able to use it to fly, but only under certain conditions.  You must be well practised in things witchy, and you must possess the wondrous, mysterious, and womanly talent called headology.
It has the hazy octarine sparkle of a magical talisman.

It can then be referred to as <colour> broomstick, which is helpful when dealing with many broomsticks to recognize which is which.

Syntax

Flying to remembered locations

Both of these commands have the same effect:

fly to <number> on <broom>
engage <number> with <broom>
Flying to named targets
fly to <target> on <broom>
Fuelling the broom
fuel <broom> with <amount> gp
Determining how much fuel is left
shake <broom>
Recording locations
record <location> as <description> on <broom>
Listing stored locations
recall from <broom>
Swap recorded destinations
swap 1 and 2 on <broom>
Change the location's description shown in recall
rename 1 on <broom>
Setting broom takeoff message

Verbose by default. This should also affect what others in the room see.

set <broomstick> [to] 

Verbose:

You seat yourself on your broomstick.
With the flamboyance that only a witch could have, you adjust your <clothing> and prepare for liftoff on your broomstick.  Unfortunately, the effect is somewhat spoiled when you start running up and down to bump start your trusty steed.  At last you succeed, and take off with a WHOOSH!

Brief:

You seat yourself on your broomstick.
With the flamboyance of a witch, you jump start your broom and splutter off into the sky.

Messages

Failure to take off

Target doesn't exist
Your broom splutters a bit, then rests quietly in your hands.
Target is a (no destination set) broom slot.
Your broom revs up as if ready to go, then falters and goes passive in your hands.
Your broom splutters a bit, then rests quietly in your hands.
Target is in a no-fly zone or otherwise not fly-toable.
Your broom splutters a bit, then quivers questioningly.
Target is indoors
You attempt takeoff on your broomstick but have to abandon the idea because your destination is indoors and you would have trouble landing in the confined space.
Witch is indoors
You attempt takeoff on your broomstick but have to abandon the idea due to the confined space.
Fail magic.items.held.broom skillcheck
You trip over a cat, tree root etc.
Flying to the current room
You jump onto your broom and into the air... and land again with a thud.
Flying within 1-2 seconds of a previous flight
You are still suffering from jet lag from your previous flight.

Fuel reserves

The following are the messages a witch gets when she shakes her broom:

400 GP left (iron broomstick only)
You shake the broomstick vigorously and from the sloshing inside you guess that there is fuel enough for four trips.
301-399 GP left (iron broomstick only)
You shake the broomstick vigorously and from the sloshing inside you guess that there is fuel enough for three trips.
300 GP left
You shake the broomstick vigorously and from the sloshing inside you guess that there is fuel enough for three trips.
200-299 GP left
You shake the broomstick vigorously and from the sloshing inside you guess that there is fuel enough for two trips.
100-199 GP left
You shake the broomstick vigorously and from the sloshing inside you guess that there is fuel enough for one trip.
1-99 GP left
You shake the broomstick vigorously and from the sloshing inside you guess that there is not enough fuel for even a single flight.
0 GP left
You shake the broomstick vigorously and, from the complete lack of sloshing inside, deduce that it's quite empty.

See Also