New memorable randarts

[Pete Mack]

OK, here's one.
a) the Rapier 'Farost' (5d6) (+16,+12) <+2>
Dropped by Akhorahil the Blind at 2550 feet (level 51)
+2 strength.
+2 speed.
+2 attack speed.
Slays trolls, giants, undead (powerfully), demons (powerfully),
evil creatures, orcs.
Branded with weak fire, weak poison, acid.
Provides resistance to lightning.
Cannot be harmed by acid.
Blessed by the gods. Prevents paralysis.

When activated, it restores your constitution.
Takes 155 to 190 turns to recharge at your current speed.
Your chance of success is 91.4%

Combat info:
7.5 blows/round.
With +0 STR and +2 DEX you would get 7.8 blows
This weapon may benefit from one or more off-weapon brands or
slays.
Average damage/round: 505 vs. creatures not resistant to fire, 505
vs. creatures not resistant to poison, 644.7 vs. creatures not
resistant to acid, 644.7 vs. trolls, 644.7 vs. giants, 924.8 vs.
undead, 924.8 vs. demons, 505 vs. evil creatures, 644.7 vs. orcs,
924.8 vs. undead, and 364.6 vs. others.

Bit of a step up from Halberd of Westernesse

[Pete Mack]

That's a nice midlevel bow. Go kill Smaug and some Bile Wyrms.

[StMicah]

And this just seems wrong....

Long Bow of Tareth (x3) (+6 +15) (+1)

Slays dragons
Branded with poison
Immunity to acid

And it's activation is: makes you very hunger but restores strength and constitution.

The only fair thing about it is the lowish to hit/to dam.

[StMicah]

I like this (as a swap) because it is so simple:

Cloak of Maloki [1 +12]
Provides immunity to lightning, fire.

Sweet.

[Pete Mack]

I never checked. But with heal as the activation, it could not be a minor artifact.

[Timo Pietilä]

I got a weapon with four out of five brands, along with *slay* demon and some others. It also activated for healing. Unfortunately it was only (2d6) (+10,+13). Putting on slays does not make that weapon more powerful. More powerful means it can do more than 220 damage per turn after the slays are applied.
Weapon power should be based on dice and max damage after slays; if it is only mediocre all the slays in the world don't make it more powerful.

Which standart item it was based on? If that's not very powerful either, then that's perfectly OK, if it was something very powerful then not.

[Derakon]

I got a weapon with four out of five brands, along with *slay* demon and some others. It also activated for healing. Unfortunately it was only (2d6) (+10,+13). Putting on slays does not make that weapon more powerful. More powerful means it can do more than 220 damage per turn after the slays are applied.
Weapon power should be based on dice and max damage after slays; if it is only mediocre all the slays in the world don't make it more powerful.

The randart generator takes into account how much more powerful each brand makes the weapon, I believe including examining the monster list to say "okay, if this brand is added to this weapon, then it will do X bonus damage against Y additional enemies of respective power levels Z, that it didn't already do bonus damage to." In other words, the randart generator is perfectly aware that the marginal additional utility of an extra brand on a small-dice weapon is pretty small, so it doesn't assign much value to those brands when calculating the randart's power.

[Pete Mack]

I got a weapon with four out of five brands, along with *slay* demon and some others. It also activated for healing. Unfortunately it was only (2d6) (+10,+13). Putting on slays does not make that weapon more powerful. More powerful means it can do more than 220 damage per turn after the slays are applied.
Weapon power should be based on dice and max damage after slays; if it is only mediocre all the slays in the world don't make it more powerful.

[Pete Mack]

Nice! Gorlim AND Haradrim (and Vilya and Cambeleg too.)

Especially when you play a martial artist: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=16703

[PowerWyrm]

Well combat pluses are always a huge deal on armor: even Gorlim is tempting to try, though I've never quite pulled it off.

Especially when you play a martial artist: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=16703

[Timo Pietilä]

Of course, for armor pluses are less relevant, because AC has less impressive effects.

That's mostly because you have five slots for armor and one for weapon. If you would get all of your AC from just single item, then that AC would become pretty d*mn important.

You can sacrifice one piece of armor completely for other features if the rest still give you usable amount of AC. The way angband is made makes AC a side-effect of other armor features: when you have a good set of armor-related features, you also have good AC almost without exception.

[Nick]

Well combat pluses are always a huge deal on armor: even Gorlim is tempting to try, though I've never quite pulled it off.

I guess you mean you've always pulled it off

[Pete Mack]

Well combat pluses are always a huge deal on armor: even Gorlim is tempting to try, though I've never quite pulled it off.

[Derakon]

I've had randart crowns in the past with nothing more than an AC boost. Or randart weapons with only tohit/todam boosts. Those are clearly marginally better than a "good" item, and clearly worse than any ego... No idea if randart generation will be rewritten someday, but it would be nice to ensure that artifacts get at least one extra ability besides tohit/todam/toac, even if it's something useless like feather falling.

One of the big lessons we learned in the ego remix project that was part of v4 is that pluses are one of the better attributes weapons can get. Think about it: would you rather have a Mace (2d4) <+0, +0> with See Invisible, or a Mace (2d4) <+10, +10>? It's not remotely a straightforward choice (unless you're a mage). The fact is that in current Vanilla, ego items are always built "on top of" good items, so they get the pluses from the good item and then often get additional pluses on top of that. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but oftentimes the pluses overshadow the other abilities on the item.

Of course, for armor pluses are less relevant, because AC has less impressive effects.

[Estie]

I've had randart crowns in the past with nothing more than an AC boost. Or randart weapons with only tohit/todam boosts. Those are clearly marginally better than a "good" item, and clearly worse than any ego... No idea if randart generation will be rewritten someday, but it would be nice to ensure that artifacts get at least one extra ability besides tohit/todam/toac, even if it's something useless like feather falling.

Is that really horrible ? I find it amusing when I get one of those randarts. As long as there are bad randarts in the game, it doesnt matter in which way they are bad - they arent getting used anyway.

That crown by the op is perfectly fine, just not stellar. It has FA and pconf.