Why is Calris (-20, +20) instead of (+8, +20)?

[nullfame]

I'm going to kit for Sauron tonight or next time I play. I haven't decided yet but suspect I will wield Calris over Thunderfist (my only weapons) since I will probably aggravate anyway and want melee him so must resist disenchantment. I'll post on the ladder when I'm kitted up where you can discuss my lack of consumables, a decent launcher, and high-level unique kills.

I'm starting to subscribe to theory if you can scum dl1 it should be in the town (though that has some drawbacks IMO). I also believe that if anyone with a lick of sense and an hour to kill would do it (at 0 danger), shouldn't it already be done?

So why is Calris (-20, +20) instead of (+8, +20)? I'm certain I can enchant it up. My rogue did it but zoning out in a corner of the town with Tenser's is considerably fewer keystrokes than buying out the shop countless times. It is trivial to do but time-consuming. That seems broken to me.

I think one of these things would solve this:

* Make Calris (+8, +20) since any reasonable person would (corollary: why is this cursed, but I suspect that will be fixed later).
* Don't sell enchant scrolls in the town (except BM). Requires changes to/removal of heavy curse.
* Make artifacts resist enchantment.

Any thoughts?

Or am I just wasting my time when I should just not worry about the negative to-hit?


EDIT: should probably be in Vanilla but I wasn't paying attention.

[Derakon]

Artifacts do resist enchantment -- any time you try to enchant them they have a 50% chance to resist, on top of the usual difficulty of enchanting. This means that on average you'll have to burn 40 to-hit scrolls on Calris just to get it to +0, instead of the 20 you'd need to burn for a non-artifact weapon (since normally enchanting sometihng with a negative bonus always succeeds).

As for why Calris has a malus to-hit, because it's always been that way? *shrug* It also made it easier to break the curse back in the day, when only successful enchants could break curses.

[fizzix]

I think the solution, which we'll realize soon, is that enchant scrolls will stop being sold in town.

Reworking of curses is also on the to-do list if I remember correctly.

As for the 'if you can scum DL1' argument, I don't agree. When I first started I used to town-scum waiting for restockings, but I don't anymore. If the stores don't have what I need, then I go down without it, and just make the trip shorter than usual. Once you get into the habit you'll realize that it's a lot more fun than town-scumming.

[Timo Pietilä]

As for why Calris has a malus to-hit, because it's always been that way? *shrug* It also made it easier to break the curse back in the day, when only successful enchants could break curses.

In fact for that reason it could have been 0,+20, because only successful enchant into positive number could broke the curse. -20 to 0 always failed in that.

Calris is supposed to be "mixed blessing" -item with difficulty to use. That's why -20 to hit. Also enchantment scrolls were much rarer in older angbands making enchanting it very slow process. In many cases you actually did find scroll of *remove curse* before you managed to enchant it to positive numbers.

I have sometimes wondered if items with resist disenchantment should resist enchantment too making them permanently fixed to whatever value they have, or at least make enchantment harder than usual item.

[Derakon]

Items with resistance to disenchantment are all either artifacts or egos with random resistances (or DSMs); in any case odds are that the item will naturally have enchantments higher than you can achieve with enchant scrolls. So functionally their level of enchantment is fixed.

Only exception I can think of is a shallow Elvenkind armor that happens to get disenchant resistance.

[Timo Pietilä]

Items with resistance to disenchantment are all either artifacts or egos with random resistances (or DSMs); in any case odds are that the item will naturally have enchantments higher than you can achieve with enchant scrolls. So functionally their level of enchantment is fixed.

Only exception I can think of is a shallow Elvenkind armor that happens to get disenchant resistance.

Elvenkind, permanence or aman. Also shields of preservation, but those are usually deep enough to have higher than +10 bonus. If it is DSM it would be rather rare case to have less than +10 bonus. In fact looking at object.txt it looks like minimum bonus for those is +10.

[nullfame]

Artifacts do resist enchantment

Yeah, yeah. I should have said impervious to enchantment

on average you'll have to burn 40 to-hit scrolls on Calris just to get it to +0

Tell me about it. I think I bought the store out half a dozen times when I first found it and got it to -12 before getting bored. On the positive side at least I am still resisting cold.

So now I want to use it. Maybe I shouldn't bother fixing it. Maybe I am defeating the purpose/abusing the game and should just wield it.

I think the solution, which we'll realize soon, is that enchant scrolls will stop being sold in town.

+1. Maybe even remove from Tenser's.

How often do you enchant anyway? Early game, already seen as boring/easy. Fancy ammo w/ low values, shots already overpowered. Breaking curses, themselves currently viewed as broken. Fixing mixed-blessing items, defeating the purpose. Am I missing anything?

As for the 'if you can scum DL1' argument, I don't agree. When I first started I used to town-scum waiting for restockings, but I don't anymore.

Well I think the argument is valid, we should just change what is sold.

I also stopped scumming for restore potions. I can't think of anything else of importance missing that I didn't just shrug over. No heroism? NBD. No resist fire, leave those guys alone. Etc.

IMO restore potions should not be sold in stores either. This would have consequences like avoiding drainers more often, some traps being more dangerous, sustains being more important, and home/inventory slots being dedicated to critical restores. My sense is people think these are bad consequences.

Calris is supposed to be "mixed blessing" -item with difficulty to use. That's why -20 to hit. Also enchantment scrolls were much rarer in older angbands making enchanting it very slow process.

It sounds like it is functionally not that any more. Impervious to enchantment or harder to find enchant scrolls both fix this. Or an added mixed blessing like negative dexterity (assuming mixed pvals).

[Tiburon Silverflame]

fizzix: Enchant scrolls are useful in the beginning of the game. Even if your plan is to drop to DL 10 on your first trip, odds are that you'll have either a weapon or a bow that will benefit from being enchanted.

Sure, you'll *eventually* get something better, but why remove the scrolls from town? I don't see the problem as being their availability in town.

[Timo Pietilä]

fizzix: Enchant scrolls are useful in the beginning of the game. Even if your plan is to drop to DL 10 on your first trip, odds are that you'll have either a weapon or a bow that will benefit from being enchanted.

Sure, you'll *eventually* get something better, but why remove the scrolls from town? I don't see the problem as being their availability in town.

One thing they do is enchant your shooting more than anything else making missile weapons even more unbalanced. If you don't have enchantment possibility (except from dungeon or BM items) for your bow then bows are not that unbalanced.

Now it is very easy to practically skip early game just by enchanting your bow and shooting whatever you meet.

[Derakon]

Generally speaking once I get 10k AU or so I buy out all the enchant scrolls in town each time I visit, just to up my stats a little more. This only stops once I stop having enchantable gear. I don't know if it has a significant impact, but what else am I going to spend my money on? Marginally increasing the chance I can afford something ridiculous from the black market? No thanks.