Sauron excellent drop not so excellent

[Timo Pietilä]

Hello.

I just killed Sauron and he dropped:

1 mage book Resistances and Scarabtarices

...and that's all. Even checked squelched items. Every one of them. Summoned mind flayer dropped better items (small wooden chest and resistances bodyarmor).

Version is 3.1.2 (R2041).

I think drop reduction has gone a bit too far for high-level monsters. We probably need to add MAX_DROP or similar flag like old MAX_HP was for HP in older versions to ensure maximum drop from high-level uniques.

[fizzix]

My worst Sauron drop was a single shovel of digging.

[Bostock]

That was cuz Sauron really digs you.

[Djabanete]

The magic staircase is the best drop anyway =D

[Ycombinator]

My worst Sauron drop was a single shovel of digging.

Same here. 15 uniques have DROP_GREAT flag and Sauron is just one of them (lvl 99 hardly matters), probably he should stand out a bit more. OTOH, that's probably not a thing worth fixing asap.

[Timo Pietilä]

Same here. 15 uniques has DROP_GREAT flag and Sauron is just one of them (lvl 99 hardly matters), probably he should stand out a bit more. OTOH, that's probably not a thing worth fixing asap.

I think they should drop more. Not necessarily better. Shovel of digging can be used for digging after all (while my drop was pure junk, nobody, not even mages, would do anything with that book at that stage of game). Dropping an single item is broken. Especially with Ewert changes drop ratio could go a bit up in general, it is now a bit too low:

Other oddities is that in this entire game I have found only one rod of recall (warrior). That was quite early in the game. That rod is something I would like to see a bit more often. My first rod of acid balls was found at clvl 4900'. Stack of those were in a bit older versions useful as a weapon, but single rod is not going to be very useful.

[Estie]

My last warrior didnt find a single rod of detection. At some point I actually checked if it wasnt accidentally squelched (it wasnt).

[Timo Pietilä]

My last warrior didnt find a single rod of detection. At some point I actually checked if it wasnt accidentally squelched (it wasnt).

This game seems to give things in bundles. The level where I found my first elvenkind boots gave six of them, three +5 two +3 and one +4. I had something like 15 rods of detection (sold many).

[Lord Fell]

I had an idea for a alternate to Sauron dropping the stairs...

I was thinking that the stairs down to level 100 could always be arranged in a certain way:

#g#
g>g
#g#

...where # are permanent rock, and "g" are golems... but these would be Watchers of the Black Gate. They would be representative of the gargoyle type creatures that cast a forcefield to try to keep Sam & Frodo out of Mordor in the Two Towers. They would Gaze to Terrify, Gaze to Drain, Breathe Dark, Shriek to Aggravate, Summon, and assorted other unpleasant powers.

Then, 99th could be the lowest level a person could set their Recall to, and it would always be necessary to break through the Watchers to attempt Morgoth, regardless of whether Sauron has been defeated or not.

Note: I have been submitting a lot of ideas... but that doesn't always mean I think they're great ideas. I think "brainstorming" might be a better way of putting it.

[bio_hazard]

I had an idea for a alternate to Sauron dropping the stairs...

I was thinking that the stairs down to level 100 could always be arranged in a certain way:

#g#
g>g
#g#

...where # are permanent rock, and "g" are golems... but these would be Watchers of the Black Gate. They would be representative of the gargoyle type creatures that cast a forcefield to try to keep Sam & Frodo out of Mordor in the Two Towers. They would Gaze to Terrify, Gaze to Drain, Breathe Dark, Shriek to Aggravate, Summon, and assorted other unpleasant powers.

Then, 99th could be the lowest level a person could set their Recall to, and it would always be necessary to break through the Watchers to attempt Morgoth, regardless of whether Sauron has been defeated or not.

Note: I have been submitting a lot of ideas... but that doesn't always mean I think they're great ideas. I think "brainstorming" might be a better way of putting it.

Probably into variant territory here, but this would be nice for DL98, or earlier. Maybe similar to one of the ToME special levels where T-level doesn't work, and it can't be bypassed. Or alternatively, maybe Sauron can't appear until all 9 ringwraiths are dead, or else Carcharoth, and once this condition is met, the guarded staircase appears to allow deeper progression in the dungeon.