Artifacts found at 600ft

[Malak Darkhunter]

Okay I was trying a run with a half-troll warrior, I am a little uncertain about running warriors as I like my detection spells. Boy what a run so far....I just found the rapier Forasgil lying on the floor at 600ft. Then I just killed wormtounge on the same level and he dropped the long sword Evagil. Has anyone else noticed this same rapid find of artifacts. The level feeling said I felt a little lucky, boy what an understatement.

[Adley]

Wormtongue, on 750', dropped Cammithrim. pretty nice
800 ft : Phial of Galadriel
900 ft : Thingol

quite shallow.

on nice items dropped at shallow depths, i found
Studded leather armor of elvenkind at 500ft
Smeagol gave me a maul (holy avenger) with SeeI too.

[jsv]

Forasgil is pretty common (rarity 8) and it's base depth is 750', so finding it at 600' is not a big wonder. Wormtongue's drop is always excellent (because in the book he dropped the Palantir), so if you're lucky you can get a really great item from him. I can remember getting decent boots of speed (+5 or +6) from Wormy.

[Malak Darkhunter]

I'm at 800ft now Nar just dropped some steel shod boots of stability, found a robe of elvenind and some gauntlets of slaying. Never had this kind of luck before, started power diving right after character generation. Smeagol dropped a broad axe of slay undead. In earlier versions of Angband I've had to go as far down as level 30 just to find an artifact, and the ego's were quite rare to, now i'm finding them all over the place. I guess a little bit of it is the RNG gods smiling at me.

[Napsterbater]

I'm at 800ft now Nar just dropped some steel shod boots of stability, found a robe of elvenind and some gauntlets of slaying. Never had this kind of luck before, started power diving right after character generation. Smeagol dropped a broad axe of slay undead. In earlier versions of Angband I've had to go as far down as level 30 just to find an artifact, and the ego's were quite rare to, now i'm finding them all over the place. I guess a little bit of it is the RNG gods smiling at me.

How do you kill Nar at 800' when diving? I have a tough time killing him even at 1500'

[Magnate]

Okay I was trying a run with a half-troll warrior, I am a little uncertain about running warriors as I like my detection spells. Boy what a run so far....I just found the rapier Forasgil lying on the floor at 600ft. Then I just killed wormtounge on the same level and he dropped the long sword Evagil. Has anyone else noticed this same rapid find of artifacts. The level feeling said I felt a little lucky, boy what an understatement.

Heh. Both Forasgil and Elvagil were made much more common in 3.1.2, because they're really only useful if found early. So it's nice to see it working out as planned.

[PowerDiver]

Heh. Both Forasgil and Elvagil were made much more common in 3.1.2, because they're really only useful if found early. So it's nice to see it working out as planned.

This is a real problem making the game way too easy. To the extent that artifacts are made more useful, they need to be *less* common. That's to maintain game balance.

We should be thinking about changing the name from "vanilla" to "easyband".

[Zikke]

I've played several new characters since 3.1.2 and most of them don't find artifacts like you have been. I think it's still balanced, but you've gotten lucky.

[Malak Darkhunter]

This is a real problem making the game way too easy. To the extent that artifacts are made more useful, they need to be *less* common. That's to maintain game balance.

We should be thinking about changing the name from "vanilla" to "easyband".

I hate to say it, but I totally agree, in the hands of a half-troll warrior, these weapons make you almost unstoppable. I haven't even had to worry about healing pots or staves. I'm practically destroying everything, uniques included.I *Like* the idea behind finding the less usefull artifacts much earlier in the game. however they are way over powered. Forasgil for instance has an enchantment of (+12+19). Now I am doing 3 blows per round at an average of 40 points per damage against creatures not resistant to cold. Don't get me wrong, I love finding artifacts, but I believe I can probably skip down to 2000ft just because of what I found so far.

I sort of have a fair game balance suggestion if you will. If you can find these artifacts at shallow depths, maybe reduce their power level. Say instead of Forsagil having an enchantment bonus of (+12+19). Lets make it instead
(+10+12). Just a little bit better than a good ego weapon. Which is generally about (+6+9) or so at that level depth.

[Malak Darkhunter]

How do you kill Nar at 800' when diving? I have a tough time killing him even at 1500'

Well I did have Forasgil, and my AC was about 40, with 220 HP, I ended up taking a dare with 4 HP left and hit him one more time as he was near death anyway, I got lucky and slayed him, It was close though. I was simply to strong on the melee damage with Forasgil. He dropped some steel shods boots of stability, Resist Nexus. Do you even need Resist Nexus at 800ft?

[Hariolor]

This is a real problem making the game way too easy. To the extent that artifacts are made more useful, they need to be *less* common. That's to maintain game balance.

We should be thinking about changing the name from "vanilla" to "easyband".

I haven't had this kind of luck with artifacts in 3.1.2 yet, so I'm not sure it's gotten that much easier.

That being said - if the lower levels are easier, people will just dive faster. I was never a big fan of pounding jackals and worms for EXP to begin with. Eventually even with a great weapon, issues like speed and resists will creep up.

I've got a pretty decent standart dive going with a gnome ranger (loving the auto-id on staves and wands). But I've hardly been overflowing with artifacts - at DL 43/CL33 and all I've found so far is Celegorm, Thingol, Paurugen, Galadriel, and Evenstar - nothing exactly game-changing. OTOH, I have had an embarrassment of riches in terms of ego ammo, bows, and weapons, so it sort of evens out so far...

*edit/update*

moments after making this post, I kill a ranger chieftain on DL 45 and he drops Thranduil - I already had a helm of ESP (purchased at 3!!) and Rblind , but the buffs are nice...maybe this *is* an easier game now...

*edit again*

a few mins later killed Ren the Unclean on DL 46 - Arvedui, Thorin, and a longbow of Lothlorien (x5)...and found Firestar on the ground in the same room - holy shite, I need to complain on the forum more often

*edit again, again*

a few doors down on the same level - ancient gold dragon drops BoS (+10)...holy moses!

[Napsterbater]

Well I did have Forasgil, and my AC was about 40, with 220 HP, I ended up taking a dare with 4 HP left and hit him one more time as he was near death anyway, I got lucky and slayed him, It was close though. I was simply to strong on the melee damage with Forasgil. He dropped some steel shods boots of stability, Resist Nexus. Do you even need Resist Nexus at 800ft?

Not until Nexus hounds start showing up at 1350'.But even then you're better off with Stealth if you can find it. Keep it around as a swap once you get that deep. But since your melee is that high, you'll only see yourself swapping in a hopeless situation, ie entering a level surrounded by them in an open room.

[Malak Darkhunter]

It would be nice to have some stealth but I don't think I'll be able to get sneaky enough to hide my half-troll. They are terrible bad at stealth, about as bad as loud mouthed dwarves no?

[Napsterbater]

It would be nice to have some stealth but I don't think I'll be able to get sneaky enough to hide my half-troll. They are terrible bad at stealth, about as bad as loud mouthed dwarves no?

+3 stealth goes a long way, even for a half-troll. I think the racial mods are only -1 or so.

[Malak Darkhunter]

DL 22 just found 2 rings of damage, and the cloak of Thingol, in the same room as a trident of slay demon. So far this has been a cake-walk. The game is literally throwing items at me. You know usually you find cursed rings of damage first. But the first 2 I have found have been +7 and +10.



Then I run into Kim and Mim who disenchant a few things, at least their gone for good. Now on Dl27 and things have finally started to slow down, just getting ego and magical items now.