The Acquirement lottery

[Djabanete]

I wouldn't ever sell a scroll of acquirement, even if the gold were worth more than the expected value of the item --- it just seems so dirty!

In fact, I'd probably just read it right away because I have no restraint.

But the smart thing to do is either sell it or read it at dlvl >20, >40 if you can manage it.

[PowerDiver]

I wouldn't ever sell a scroll of acquirement, even if the gold were worth more than the expected value of the item --- it just seems so dirty!
.

What's dirty is the whole selling mechanic.

30K right now is worth a couple of orders of magnitude more than a morningstar of slay troll 15 DLs into the future.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Yeah, that's true. 30K early on, means you can buy quite a bit of good gear as it pops. Couple =Prot at +10 or better, aim for +6 or better in most armor slots...and you should still have cash left over if something like a Westernesse or Defender weapon shows in the weapons shop.

The problem with using it, at that low a character level, is that the item is too likely to be useless. Of course, character class plays a huge role; priests and mages have the big restrictions. Still, even for the melee types...the heavier weapons are often poor-ish choices at this point, and of course there are quite a few poor-ish special qualities. You've only got 1 chance with it; the stores give better odds.

[Derakon]

=Protection? No way. =Damage, man. Armor class is almost never worth optimizing for over faster killing speed. The top rings, IMO, are speed, damage, and CON, followed by STR/DEX if they give you extra attacks.

[Djabanete]

What's dirty is the whole selling mechanic.

30K right now is worth a couple of orders of magnitude more than a morningstar of slay troll 15 DLs into the future.

Oh, definitely. I just meant that selling a ?Acq is throwing away the thrill of discovery! (Even though it's often optimal from the point of view of survival.)

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Derakon: you're thinking late-game. The situation here was Raven's comment...finding one on DL 5. I'll take the AC bonus at this early stage. I can also get +12 to +14 rings from the store, reasonably often; I won't find anything in the dungeon this good, for quite some time. No, it won't be something I'll keep forever, but I'll get good mileage out of it for a good 15-20 dungeon levels.

Of course, I prefer to run casters, so =Dam isn't useful at this point. =Str is helpful, for a mage, if for nothing more than letting me haul out a decent amount of stuff, and use a somewhat heavier weapon...one doesn't use spells quite *all* the time. Damage bonuses become significant when you start having multiple attacks, and that'll be a while with a caster.

But really, it's more about the fact that I can *get* those nice, bigger =Prots...Speed is Forget It (black market only, WAYYYYY too expensive anyway), Dam is likely black market only and won't be all that great. With =Prot I'll get a good, useful benefit *for this stage* at a price that's fair to me, that'll let me build up to a more solid gear set that will overall be better.

[Djabanete]

If you can find =Dam in the BM, then that's still better than =Prot. Otherwise it's moot. If you don't feel like town scumming, =Prot can be a reasonable way to go.

[Mondkalb]

In my actual 3.2 game I was extremely lucky:

The Adamantite Plate Mail 'Soulkeeper' (-4) [90,+20] (+2)
Conjured forth by magic at 4300 feet (level 86).

The Palantir of Westernesse (+2)
Conjured forth by magic at 4900 feet (level 98).

I think I never found Soulkeeper before so I seem to be almost more lucky getting it conjured forth. ^^

[Mondkalb]

The Lucerne Hammer of Rantuluin (8d5) (+6,+8)
Conjured forth by magic at 1950 feet (level 39).

Slays giants.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.

Oh please ...
What a waste of an artifact.

[Derakon]

I remember back when I thought that the main purpose of Slay Giant gear was for killing Morgoth. After all, he's a 'P', right? Right?

8d5 would be pretty nice if you have access to branding rings. 24d5 = average damage 72/strike just from the dice.

[camlost]

I remember back when I thought that the main purpose of Slay Giant gear was for killing Morgoth. After all, he's a 'P', right? Right?

Word.

On a related note, is there any compelling reason to separate Slay Giant and Troll? Or at the very least, we could make the ego slay both. That would make the ego slightly more used, right?

[PowerDiver]

Word.

On a related note, is there any compelling reason to separate Slay Giant and Troll? Or at the very least, we could make the ego slay both. That would make the ego slightly more used, right?

No one would use that ego in preference to a flame brand, or even to a lighter weapon that gave an additional blow. If on a weapon light enough for max blows, the slay is mostly pointless anyway.

The point of junk egos is that you don't get the useful egos too often. So if you do merge two junk egos, you need to either reduce ego likelihood overall or add another junk ego.

[Magnate]

The point of junk egos is that you don't get the useful egos too often. So if you do merge two junk egos, you need to either reduce ego likelihood overall or add another junk ego.

Wrong. You don't need to add junk to achieve balance, and if they're "junk" then they're not appearing at the right time on the right items. Broken sticks *were* always junk, but Slay Troll occasionally isn't. Slay Giant is about the least useful, because there are so few giants, but even that has nonzero utility (as well as flavour).

EDIT: all IMO of course. I am beginning to realise that my view of junk is a bit extreme.

[Zikke]

About an hour ago on a new standart rogue, I used a ?Aquirement after popping 12 ?DeepDescent and going to dlvl 45 at clvl 15. It gave me the Glaive of Pain; now I can actually kill some of the things near me. One level later I found a =Acid, so now I'm doing about 600 dmg/round at clvl 18. Crazy.

[PowerDiver]

EDIT: all IMO of course. I am beginning to realise that my view of junk is a bit extreme.

Perhaps we use the same word with a different meaning? Just because you use something 1 game in 10 in some unimportant way does not make the item useful.

I occasionally use iron spikes [thrown for 1d1 damage], perhaps 1 game in 10, to save on my iron shots. I doubt it has ever materially affected any game. If I had a means of setting initial squelch automatically [no per-game keypresses] I'd put iron spikes on the list. That means iron spikes are junk AFAIAC.