Chapter 8: Inventory management

While you are out exploring the world and fighting bands of monsters, you will accumulate and use many items in your characters' inventories. In addition, the town bazaars are full of wonderful goods for sale, and you will want to outfit your characters with better and better equipment as the game progresses.

This chapter describes the kinds of items that you will encounter in Jewel of Arabia, and how to use them. It also briefly discusses the trading, shopping, and booty interfaces.

The items form

Each of your characters starts the game equipped with the basic necessities of life. To view the items in their inventories, click the "Items" button, and then click through the character portrait buttons one by one. This will let you quickly see what your characters come pre-equipped with.

Items that can be worn by your characters are depicted with a square beneath them to indicate that your character is currently wearing or wielding this item. To equip or unequip these kinds of items, click once to select the item (a bar will appear next to the selected item), and then click it again to equip or unequip it. If you can't equip an item (for example, a potion), then nothing will happen when you do this.

The buttons on the right side of the items form are self-explanatory. But be very careful before you "Drop" an item, since once you drop it, it is gone forever. Also, only items that have a use (for example, a torch) can be used. If the selected item can not be used and you click the "Use" button, nothing will happen.

You can reorder any item in your character's inventory by option-click and dragging it around. When the item is where you want to put it, release the mouse button.

Armor and clothing

Shown here are some examples of different kinds of armor and clothing that your characters can wear. During the game, you will want to outfit your characters with better armor and clothing to help protect them. Characters can wear multiple pieces, as long as they cover different parts of the body. For example, a character can obviously wear only one pair of boots. But less obviously, a character can wear only one "chest covering". These include a variety of items, such as vests and shirts, but also shoulder, vest or breast armor. Thus, you will have to decide on only one of these coverings and upgrade it over time.

A very important piece of clothing that all characters should always wear is a robe. This flowing body covering will protect them from the blistering hot sun, and also increase their dodging bonus during battle. Most other clothing increases a character's armor class (AC) by 1 point of protection. In addition, clothing, especially silk clothing, helps conserve your precious water, since it protects your characters from dehydration.

To see how much protection different kinds of armor offer, click the "Info" button at the shop. It will display information for the selected item (the item with the select bar next to it). Armor is very heavy and very hot. The more armor you pile on your characters, the slower they will move and the more precious water they will need to drink. So carefully consider your choices before you buy!

Weapons: blades and staves

There are two main types of weapons in Jewel of Arabia: bladed weapons and staffs or scepters. Examples of each kind are shown here, with the blades on top and the staves below.

A character may wield only one weapon at a time, and certain character classes are limited to certain kinds of weapons. The Djinn and the Magi may use only small blades and basic staves. They can not wield large swords or scepters, as these are too heavy and interfere with their magic. Another character who is limited is the Hash-shashin. Characters of this class may wield only staves, not blades.

In general, bladed weapons have the edge over staves and do slightly more damage. However, this generalization does not apply to magical weapons. One other thing, staves require both hands and characters equipped with them can not carry a shield.

You may notice the absence of ranged weapons in Jewel of Arabia. This is intentional, as it was considered noble by the people of this region to look their enemies in the eye as they struck them dead. Eastern armies did employ archers, but only in full-scale battles. Everyday adventurers fought their rivals in close combat.

Jewelry

The entire Near East is rich with gemstones, and throughout history men and women have adorned themselves with precious jewelry to indicate their wealth and position.

Your characters may wear as little or as much jewelry as you like, but they can only wear one piece of each kind. For example, a character may wear only one pair of earrings and one ring at a time. Since gemstones are often magical, some jewelry is too. This jewelry is particularly valuable and worth seeking out.

Potions

You will need to buy healing potions from time to time to help your characters out during and after tough battles, especially if you do not know the meditations taught by the Order of Zarathustra.

In addition to potions, most herbalists and al'chemists carry incense to aid in spellcasting and meditating. You may also occasionally run across other interesting items.

Food and water

Throughout the entire game, you will have to carefully manage your party's food and water resources. Your characters will not live long if you do not continually supply them with these.

Food is available at every bazaar, so there is no excuse for letting your characters go hungry. Vessels to carry water in are not as common, and you will have to locate a bazaar that stocks them. Once you buy your characters vessels, they will fill them with water whenever you walk near a fountain or pass over a source of fresh water. However, water can become scarce. Much of the terrain to the south is desert. You will quickly discover how treacherous the desert is when you venture down south.

One thing you can try is rationing water, using the water rationing control button on the main display. Be aware though that if you ration water, your characters will not heal as quickly. You can also try venturing into the desert under the cover of night. During the nighttime hours, your characters will require half the normal water ration for each terrain type. See Chapter 4: Exploring the World for more information on terrain types. And see Chapter 3: Game Display and Controls for more information on rationing food and water, and for info on the night versus day march.

Sources of light

When you explore caves and caverns, you must take along a supply of torches and lamps to help you see inside these dark areas. You can purchase these at some bazaars, but not all. So it's a good idea to stock up when you can. Also, although candles don't provide much light, they're lightweight and easy to carry, and help a lot in a pinch. If you dare to explore in the dark without a light, monsters will be more likely to jump you.

Another time you will need to provide light is if you adventure during the nighttime hours. Unless there is a full moon, you will need to provide a light source.

Trading, shopping, and booty

Trading, shopping, and booty all use a similar and very simple interface. To move items from one side to the other, hold down the option key while you click on an item and drag it around. As soon as you let go of the mouse, the item will be traded, bought, or sold.

Shops at the bazaar will only buy items of their "kind". An offer will only appear in the "Offer" box if the shop will buy the selected item. And if an item is a "multi-item", like food, a shopkeeper will only buy back a full set, not partial remainders.

The following cursors appear during trading, shopping, and booty to help you:

This cursor indicates that the item you are attempting to buy or trade will overload the recipient.

If you see this cursor, it means that the item you are attempting to buy or trade can not be used by this character class. The character can still carry the item, but it isn't a "valid" item for this character class, and you won't be able to equip it.

This cursor appears in several situations: It appears when you attempt to buy an item and do not have enough money. It also shows up if you try to sell an item to a shop that does not buy that kind of item.

This cursor appears when you press the option key, indicating that you are now ready to grab an item.

How much can I carry?

There is no limit to the number of items that a character can carry, but characters can not carry more than their total load. For all character classes but the Djinn, the total load is equal to four times their strength. The Djinn character will only carry up to his or her strength (which isn't very much).

Since all items weigh something, you will eventually reach this limit if you keep piling items into a character's inventory. In addition, the more you weigh down a character, the slower and slower he will move. Since the entire party can only move as fast as the slowest moving member, a heavily loaded character will drag down the whole group. So you will need to carefully trade items amongst your characters to evenly distribute your total load.

Another exception to the "four times their strength" rule is your party's animal. Different animals can carry different loads, depending on the nature of the animal. For example, small animals like a falcon or a cobra can't carry much. But a pack animal can carry many more times its strength than we can. So check the character record each time you get a new animal to see how much load it can bear.

I'm overloaded and can't move: what should I do?

If one of your characters becomes overloaded during the game, your entire party will not be able to move until you deal with the overloaded character. Take the following steps (in order) if you find yourself overloaded:

1. Find out which character or characters is overloaded by checking your character records. If a character's load (first number) exceeds his maximum load (second number), then he is overloaded.
2. Trade items from the overloaded character to other characters.

If this doesn't solve the problem, try these next two more drastic measures:

1. Dump some of your party's water. To do this, move the yellow slider button next to the water icon part way down (this is located on the main display next to the treasure and food icons). Doing this will dump some of the water in the vessels your characters are carrying and might solve your problem.
2. Drop some items. You will only want to do this as a last resort, since once you drop items, you will never be able to recover them.

Shop till you drop

Shopping is encouraged in Jewel of Arabia, and you will gain little by hoarding your wealth. You will find it much more advantageous to spend your treasure on goods that will benefit your characters. Of course, you will probably want to "save up" to buy special items that cost more money, but beyond that, spend away.

Your party is not alone in the world, and other travelers will also trade at the very active bazaars. Each day you visit the bazaar, you will find that the goods have changed, and something you may have had your eye on could be gone. So you will want to return to the bazaars frequently to see what new items are for sale.