Lantern of Brightness > Phial of Galadriel?

[Thraalbee]

+1 to Phial radius 3

[WildKhaine]

Personally, I think the phial should have a light radius of 3. It's much rarer now than it used to be so don't really see the need to reduce its radius.

[Antoine]

ArKENSTONE RADIUS 4

a.

[Knight]

I agree. The Phial should stick with the light radius of three; after all, it is the light near which darkness cannot endure. (paraphrased, but you get the point )

[LostTemplar]

Radius 3 and change light colour to blue, just like in FAangband.

[Timo Pietilä]

It should have a light radius of 3 because it's the freakin' Phial and should be a no-brainer improvement over other light sources.

To talk purely Tolkenian point of view, Phial should have biggest lite radius of all lightsources. Arkenstone and Elendil are jewels with internal light, but they are not made as actual light sources. Galadriel is Noldor, close relative to Feanor himself so Phial is actually a Galadriels version of Feanorian lantern with a extra twist of being extremely bright when needed.

IMO we have artifact lightsources in reverse order. Arkenstone was "just" a jewel in the Hobbit, beautiful one, precious to dwarfs but without much magical nature, Star is kind of similar but for humans (dunedain heritage), and Phial is the only one that has been deliberately crafted as magical light source by no other than niece of Feanor himself. Phial in LotR played as weapon in two occassions: Once against the Shelob and once against the guardian-statue -thingies in orc tower. It is an active item, not just a shiny little trinket.

Also the "The Necklace of the Dwarves" has Silmaril on it. Or had it in one time. That probably means that it should have light of its own. In a way both Star and Arkenstone should be amulets more than lightsources. Maybe feanorian lamps should work as Phial-equivalent and Phial itself should be the only artifact in lightsource-category. Maybe.

[Antoine]

To be fair, in LOTR, I think the Phial usually just glitters faintly like starlight. It only lights up like a billion-candela searchlight when Sam tries to use it to get rid of Shelob. If it lit up like that all the time, it would have been pretty difficult for Sam and Frodo to sneak through Mordor without being noticed.

So the most faithful implementation of it would probably be a radius-1 light with an activation for illumination + scare monsters + light-based attack centred on the @.

The Arkenstone, on the other hand, appears to have been quite the gaudy lightshow - "it shone like silver in the firelight, like water in the sun, like snow under the stars, like rain upon the Moon".

The Arkenstone was hard to let go of, and just about everyone who came near it seems to have ended up fighting over it, so the best implementation might be a radius-3+ light source with perma-curse and aggravation. (And some other bonuses - +2 all stats perhaps? - to make it worth using.)

A.

[emulord]

How about Arkenstone has heavy curse, radius 4, aggro, worth like 800,000 AU, keeps its regular activation.

Phial should also activate for heroism in addition to all that stuff. Having it be 1 radius would be so awesome, because Helms of light or something would be such a good item then. Gameplay difference between 1 and 2 radius is HUGE.

However, I don't think they should be changed in Vanilla. Maybe in NPP or a more Tolkieny variant.

[Timo Pietilä]

To be fair, in LOTR, I think the Phial usually just glitters faintly like starlight. It only lights up like a billion-candela searchlight when Sam tries to use it to get rid of Shelob. If it lit up like that all the time, it would have been pretty difficult for Sam and Frodo to sneak through Mordor without being noticed.

It did light up whenever its user needed it to. Sam used it again against those guardians to pass past them, and when Frodo used it at the rim of the Mordor (after he had already got rid of Shelob at the first time) he quickly tucked it away because it was too bright and they would have been noticed.

They didn't use it much in the LotR. It seems that it sensed the mood of the wearer and adjusted the light accordingly. IMO it was the most impressive magical item used in the book if you don't count the Ring itself.

[Antoine]

By the way, now that there are multiple pvals (yay for multiple pvals!), would it be good if some of the artifacts that currently aggravate, instead had hefty maluses to stats or speed?

A.

[Timo Pietilä]

By the way, now that there are multiple pvals (yay for multiple pvals!), would it be good if some of the artifacts that currently aggravate, instead had hefty maluses to stats or speed?

A.

Or just give -20 to stealth?

[PowerWyrm]

What's wrong with aggravate?

[Timo Pietilä]

What's wrong with aggravate?

It is too "on/off" thing. Once you decide that this item or this combo of items is powerful enough that aggravation doesn't matter, aggravation ceases to be penalty for any further items that you find.

[fizzix]

I had a patch that changed aggravate to a stealth malus a while back. It's probably not that far out of date if someone still wants to test it out.

[Magnate]

By the way, now that there are multiple pvals (yay for multiple pvals!), would it be good if some of the artifacts that currently aggravate, instead had hefty maluses to stats or speed?

A.

Yes, I'm a bit surprised that nobody's offered this up, since we've now had multiple pvals for almost two years. It's just a text file edit, so I thought someone would fiddle around and post a "less aggravation" version of artifact.txt.

I'm with Timo on light sources btw. Phial should have radius 4 and be the best and rarest of the artifact lights.