Constructing a set of randarts

[Pete Mack]

If you make that change, then you should ignore any negative combat maluses on weapons and bows, since they would become essentially temporary. Give them a fixed negative cost, roughly the same as a weak removable curse. Obviously, it shouldn't apply to non-melee objects like Rings of the Mouse.

You're right, and that is actually really easy. The new curses are implemented via a fake object whose properties are added to the existing object properties; for example the vulnerability curse "curse object" has -50 to AC and the aggravate flag.

[PowerWyrm]

I'm actually not sure what to do about the bad artifacts.

They're there to generate a couple nasty randarts...

[Derakon]

If you make that change, then you should ignore any negative combat maluses on weapons and bows, since they would become essentially temporary. Give them a fixed negative cost, roughly the same as a weak removable curse. Obviously, it shouldn't apply to non-melee objects like Rings of the Mouse.

Note the chance of losing the item when trying to break the curse. Curses aren't completely irrelevant just because they can be broken, just like we don't assume that all wands/staves have infinite charges.

[Pete Mack]

@derakon--
Sure. But that's a fixed cost; it doesn't scale with the size of the malus. If you make it an actual curse, say 'fumblefingers' costing -20 to_hit, you can apply it to Morgul and Nazgul weapons too, so when they are uncursed they are around +10 to hit, but with the curse active, around -10. It also means Rangers and the like can't fix it with enchantment.

[Derakon]

@derakon--
Sure. But that's a fixed cost; it doesn't scale with the size of the malus. If you make it an actual curse, say 'fumblefingers' costing -20 to_hit, you can apply it to Morgul and Nazgul weapons too, so when they are uncursed they are around +10 to hit, but with the curse active, around -10. It also means Rangers and the like can't fix it with enchantment.

That's true. Could you stack the same curse multiple times, so that you run increasing risks of the item being destroyed if you want it to be completely uncursed?

[Sky]

a few suggestions ..

i would keep the three rings of the elves; they are part of the legendarium, and randomizing them rarely gives something better than a RoS +10. it's also weird to find two different rings of adamantium, or two arkenstones for the matter.

i would also keep standarts lights. when your phial gives you +4 CON and a couple important resists, you really dont care you don't have the map-level ability.

it would be nice if the artifacts where kept in the same ballpark as they are now. instead of having a randart game with 12 shooters, 7 diggers, 2 rings, 5 lights ... of which 2 were torches, +1 light. artifact torches are silly. stay tuned for the Toilet Paper of Ostil, the Baked Beans of Gunnar, and the Toothpaste of Tindor.


the idea is that the randarts exist in the same world as the standarts. so, you can have the Pike of Ustillan, but the Power Dragon Scale Mail "Bladeturner" would be the one and only, same for the RoPs.

that's why i also like the idea of having a mixed set between some artifacts not randomized, and some randomized.

[Derakon]

Counterargument: I don't want any fixed artifacts, because the entire point of randarts is that I've seen all the standarts a million times already and they're not special any more.

But yeah, the ability to mix standarts and randarts is a sufficiently common request that I suspect it'll be implemented as some kind of slider-based option at some point. I'd be surprised if it let you specify which standarts to keep, though.

[Estie]

a few suggestions ..

i would keep the three rings of the elves; they are part of the legendarium, and randomizing them rarely gives something better than a RoS +10. it's also weird to find two different rings of adamantium, or two arkenstones for the matter.

i would also keep standarts lights. when your phial gives you +4 CON and a couple important resists, you really dont care you don't have the map-level ability.

it would be nice if the artifacts where kept in the same ballpark as they are now. instead of having a randart game with 12 shooters, 7 diggers, 2 rings, 5 lights ... of which 2 were torches, +1 light. artifact torches are silly. stay tuned for the Toilet Paper of Ostil, the Baked Beans of Gunnar, and the Toothpaste of Tindor.


the idea is that the randarts exist in the same world as the standarts. so, you can have the Pike of Ustillan, but the Power Dragon Scale Mail "Bladeturner" would be the one and only, same for the RoPs.

that's why i also like the idea of having a mixed set between some artifacts not randomized, and some randomized.

The idea of randarts is to let you experience the surprise of your first playthroughs again. Back then, you didnt know how many lights there were nor that they could map a level.

When you play standart game, you have certain expectations and the surprise is limited to unlikely finds or lack thereof. With randarts, I want as little knowledge of the ballpark as possible; a light source with con and resists is _exactly_ the stuff I want.

At some point a long time ago I got bored of Angband, but realized that the reason for that was that looting vaults had become an exercise of looking at base items: this augmented chain mail is junk because I already have Caspanion, the mithril plate mail could be Celeborn and that longsword over there is not 4d5 so I can ignore it. Randarts are a salvation and the only time I get disappointed now is when I see the stupid plain gold ring.