Gotcha. I guess my question is, what would you be using it for?
That's a valid question. A simple system that comes to mind is a weapon repair service that could charge the player variable amount of Aura based on the item's
consumedAfter stat, or could perhaps enhance a stat on the weapon (maybe enabling whetstones to boost the weapon's
strPlus stat instead of directly modifying the character's stats).
Another, much more complex, system that comes to mind is one that would allow the player to collect herbs and mix concoctions for healing wounds, boosting abilities and resistances, or cure status effects, by modifying the stats on a single item. It'd effectively be custom potion brewing, themed a bit more in line with the Telepath universe, without requiring a unique item class for each potential combination of effects.
(It would be rather difficult to develop a scripting framework for item stat modification based upon inventory List position that would actually be useful to modders, since any kind of item can be in any position--there would need to be a variety of Actions just relaying the various properties of items at any given inventory position just to let you discern which item to act upon!)
That's true. Another potential method of accessing an item (that comes to mind) could involve adding a read-only id to each and every item instance that could be used in lieu of
characterName,itemIndex to pick an item. Without knowing the intricacies of the engine, this could simplify the issue you mentioned, although it would bring with it a set of new complications. Passing that item id to the script would require a new action, and the calling script would, at least once, need to go through extra work to determine if that id corresponds to the item or item type it wants. I could also see determining which character/object is actually carrying the item (which could be necessary to actually get/set an item's stats), if an item with that id even exists within the current map or shared inventory, increasing time complexity in a very nasty way (since nested for loops, one for the units on the map and one for the items in each inventory, are an O(n
2) operation).
[spoiler]
Another alternative method would be adding in support for a vetted scripting language, such as
Lua, although I imagine that would require a total overhaul of both the game engine and already existing maps.
[/spoiler]
TL;DR: I can imagine a couple use cases for being able to more directly manipulate items, but I can definitely understand not wanting to implement it.