Mage equipment

[d_m]

2: +4 CON is really the important part about Thorin. The game really penalizes you if you don't get to 18/200 con, and being able to get 4 points from a shield slot is huge. In randart games, where shields like thorin don't exist, I'm often hurting for CON and need something like a crown of might to help me out. I would consider each point of CON on equipment to be an interesting thing on its own, especially on a shield. If thorin had no other abilities but +4 CON, it still would be a strong endgame shield. Similarly Elros looks really powerful.

For the final fight I agree with you.

That said, immunities are a huge boon when trying to get other end game gear from dragons, demons, etc. Acid is probably not the #1 immunity, but black dragons, bile demons, etc are a lot nicer with it.

[Derakon]

Acid damage really doesn't bug me any more. In the short term, you lose a few points of AC, but it's hard to say how much of an impact that has on your survivability. In the long term all your equipment ends up being artifacts or otherwise acid-immune, excepting non-mithril boots of speed and iron crowns. But again, a few points of AC is not worth losing sleep over.

The real benefit of elemental immunities is protecting your pack. But I'd rather have +100HP than a protected pack (i.e. Thorin would be a more powerful item if it kept +4 CON and lost imAcid than vice versa).

[Timo Pietilä]

Well, to me "overpowered" has two meanings:

1. absolute: something is so grotesque it unbalances the game all on its own (e.g. buggy randarts with +4 blows, all slays/brands, +30 to_dam etc. etc.). Hopefully there aren't any standarts in this category, except perhaps The One (and that's perma-cursed).

By that count also Ringil, Bladeturner, Vilya, Nenya, Narya and Feanor are overpowered because they are absolutes. You could as well count in Morgoths crown and hammer. Especially Feanor, because it really doesn't have competition. It is best boots you can have in practically all possible combos.

2. relative: something is so powerful relative to other items in its class that it is a "no-brainer" choice. Thorin has long been in this category (though the addition of Elros in 3.3.0 begins to address this).

Thorin has no fewer than five must-have attributes:

+4 CON
IM_ACID
RES_SOUND
RES_CHAOS
FA

From those five I agree only about CON. All others are either easily got from other gear or are not that important. It doesn't have four "must have" attributes nearly every other shield has: basic four resist. It is a tradeoff.

Only thing that makes this a "non-brainer" is the CON, which is no way "no-brainer". If you have Caspanion that gives you poison resist and +3 to spellcasting stat and you have to choose using it and resistance shield or some other bodyarmor that gives basic four, confusion & RoRPoison with Thorin, I think Caspanion combo wins.

Even combo with Thalkettoth where you possess +5 RoCON and have +7 speed without Thalkettoth, but no RoS and no other source of poison resist than RoRPoison makes shield of resistance better than Thorin.

How does that make it overpowered? Basic shield of resistance is better with many combos.

It is powerful, but more like highly valued than overpowered because CON is so highly valued in the game, and that makes the "overpowered" being an illusion. It is better than its competition for many cases, but I don't agree with overpowered.

Is finding powerful artifact bad? The fact that it is different and matches better your needs? Ringil is then overpowered, but if you change the attribute that makes it "overpowered" you do just that what I said you being doing: make things more equal, making game dull.

[d_m]

Is finding powerful artifact bad? The fact that it is different and matches better your needs? Ringil is then overpowered, but if you change the attribute that makes it "overpowered" you do just that what I said you being doing: make things more equal, making game dull.

I totally agree that making Thorin less powerful isn't very interesting.

Do you think Thorin should be a bit rarer? I very rarely find Ringil or Bladeturner or Feanor these days, whereas almost every game that I win (or come close to winning) I find Thorin.

It's hard to tell... maybe I'm just luckier with Thorin?

I tend to often find 1-2 rings of power, but usually very late in the game, just before the final battle. I wouldn't mind making them rarer but shallower, so that some games I won't find them at all but others I'll find them a bit sooner.

What do you think?

[d_m]

Acid damage really doesn't bug me any more. In the short term, you lose a few points of AC, but it's hard to say how much of an impact that has on your survivability. In the long term all your equipment ends up being artifacts or otherwise acid-immune, excepting non-mithril boots of speed and iron crowns. But again, a few points of AC is not worth losing sleep over.

The real benefit of elemental immunities is protecting your pack. But I'd rather have +100HP than a protected pack (i.e. Thorin would be a more powerful item if it kept +4 CON and lost imAcid than vice versa).

I was thinking mostly of the actual damage from acid. If I see a black dragon pit (with Great Bile Wyrms) I'd rather have acid immunity than +100 HP. Maybe I value immunity too highly, but for my games getting the first immunity is a big turning point, after which I go out seeking various monsters/uniques which have become much less dangerous.

[Timo Pietilä]

Do you think Thorin should be a bit rarer?

What do you think?

Maybe. It is not that powerful though. It belongs more like a natural advancement in power of the character category. Problem with Thorin is not that it is powerful, it is that it doesn't have much competition that wrestles in same category (I don't mean same level of power here, but similar set of useful attributes). At the point where you find Thorin it feels right to find something of that kind.

Elros is now same kind of thing so it isn't completely alone anymore. Because there are now two of them (actually three, Haradrim is also same category thing, it is just too deep now), it could be a bit rarer.

There is a problem with rarity scale though. I would prefer that it gets fixed before we "fix" anything else, otherwise there is a danger that we need to readjust those again just after changing that scale. Thorin isn't far from where it belongs. It is powerful item, but you are expected to find powerful items at the time you find it. If you don't then game got more boring.

There needs to be more variance in general in different games. Things should be rare, but also things should not be quite so predictable. It is good to get some really OoD powerful things every now and then. I don't mind if that thing is OoD powerful monster.

OTOH I can't say much about 3.x series anymore, because I don't play it. I play Frog-Knows now (actually it is 1.31 PC-version with targetting, so it isn't quite the oldest version of the game). All I can say that at some point game has got horribly worse. If Frog-knows can be better game barring UI then there is something seriously wrong in current vanilla.

[UglySquirrell]

Thorins great but if I have access to double resistance, spell or cloak I usually use something else. The shield with stat preservation and resist disenchantment (can't remember the name right now) Anarion or haradrim.

[Magnate]

I was thinking mostly of the actual damage from acid. If I see a black dragon pit (with Great Bile Wyrms) I'd rather have acid immunity than +100 HP. Maybe I value immunity too highly, but for my games getting the first immunity is a big turning point, after which I go out seeking various monsters/uniques which have become much less dangerous.

And there was me thinking not of the physical damage nor the AC but of all the destroyed arrows, scrolls, staves etc. etc. Those are the reason I rate acid immunity #2 behind fire - because it protects so much stuff.

I did forget Haradrim, 'cos it isn't in the same place as the other shields in artifact.txt (I went looking for Elros). Note that before I added the +1 blow (for which I seem to remember receiving a certain amount of criticism) it had almost nothing to offer. Even now it's only a competitor to Thorin if (i) you don't need CON and (ii) you already aggravate. Fizzix is absolutely right about the over-importance of CON (but that is not Thorin's fault).

[Magnate]

I totally agree that making Thorin less powerful isn't very interesting.

Do you think Thorin should be a bit rarer? I very rarely find Ringil or Bladeturner or Feanor these days, whereas almost every game that I win (or come close to winning) I find Thorin.

It's hard to tell... maybe I'm just luckier with Thorin?

Well, we can now look at the stats and see. It'll take me a while to learn how to write the query, but my money is on Thorin being at least an order of magnitude more commonly found than either Bladeturner or Feanor, probably two (but maybe only 5x as common as Ringil).

"Relatively overpowered" is of course dependent on how common it is. I have no desire to weaken Thorin if it's as rare as Ringil or Feanor or Bladeturner (which are not absolutely overpowered btw - even Bladeturner has its gaps, and Ringil has plenty of competition).

[Timo Pietilä]

I did forget Haradrim, 'cos it isn't in the same place as the other shields in artifact.txt (I went looking for Elros). Note that before I added the +1 blow (for which I seem to remember receiving a certain amount of criticism) it had almost nothing to offer. Even now it's only a competitor to Thorin if (i) you don't need CON and (ii) you already aggravate. Fizzix is absolutely right about the over-importance of CON (but that is not Thorin's fault).

Haradrim doesn't aggravate in 3.3 and it does have STR and CON-bonus just like Thorin (only smaller), it sustains those stats which Thorin doesn't do and it has poison and blindness resistances which IMO are more important than any resist Thorin gives and it gives combat bonuses. I would say it is quite good competition to Thorin.

[Magnate]

Haradrim doesn't aggravate in 3.3 and it does have STR and CON-bonus just like Thorin (only smaller), it sustains those stats which Thorin doesn't do and it has poison and blindness resistances which IMO are more important than any resist Thorin gives and it gives combat bonuses. I would say it is quite good competition to Thorin.

Wow. I just looked at artifact.txt and Haradrim is nothing like I remember it. Jens added +5,+5 hit/dam and made it twice as common; you removed the +1 blow and put the STR/CON up to +2 and removed the aggravation. I haven't found it since either of those changes.

You are right that without the aggravation it is a competitor to Thorin: you are trading +2 CON, +1 STR, IM_ACID, rsound, rchaos and FA for the two sustains, +5 hit/dam, rpois and pblind. That's a fairly even trade.

Just goes to show how broken aggravate is. One day we'll fix it.

[Timo Pietilä]

Just goes to show how broken aggravate is. One day we'll fix it.

Speaking of aggravation I have suggestion about that. Making a new thread (before I forget it again).

[fizzix]

Just goes to show how broken aggravate is. One day we'll fix it.

why one day? this is a trivial fix. Give aggravating items -stealth ratings instead. We have multiple pvals now, so this is easy. In fact, it's easy enough that I'll put a branch on github for it.

[Magnate]

why one day? this is a trivial fix. Give aggravating items -stealth ratings instead. We have multiple pvals now, so this is easy. In fact, it's easy enough that I'll put a branch on github for it.

Well, I said one day for several reasons. One is a dim recollection of there not really being a consensus about how to "fix" aggro; one is a similar dim recollection of takk's view, and one is because I didn't know anybody who would find the time to do it - thanks for taking care of that!

[Malak Darkhunter]

Just found a artifact robe with newest official release of angband
The Robe of Amarath [+4] gives +4 to strength and cannot be harmed by fire,electricity, cold,acid. Is this new with the randarts? If so then thanks Magnate my mage was pleasently surprised.