Rod of Trap Location {unseen}

[Calandor]

I thought that Artifacts weren't sold in shops. Not sure if Purple denotes an Artifact, but it's definitely being sold on the Black Market, for 3000. It takes ~30 turns to recharge, apparently automatically. Is this worth purchasing, for mages? Is it a bug? Any thoughts? Ty.

Not sure if I should buy it before it disappears, just in case.

[Mondkalb]

All rods are displayed in purple and none of them is an artifact. These are just magic items that can be used for a purpose and then reload over time to be used again.
There are some more powerful rods than this one. (Because they don't have charges, they can't be drained by monsters which drain charges from wands and staves.)

Mages get a "find traps and doors" spell within the first book. So the rod may be not overly useful for you, unless you want to spare some mana. Also, they are quite common and you will probably find one in the dungeon.

[Calandor]

Yes, I initially went to gain gold to buy it, then realised it would only be useful out of combat, where mana seemingly isn't as important.

The real question: are there similar (automatic recharge) items for Detect Monster and the other staples?

[Estie]

Early rods are detecting traps, doors & stairs and treasure. The ultimate detection rod is "of detection" and drops deeper down the dungeon. No early rods detect monsters; warriors rely on staves of detect evil and detect invisible.
As a mage, you only want treasure detection rods, as you have covered everything else with your spells. Eventually you get a spell for treasure, too (book 4).

[Calandor]

I had in mind the Teleport and similar Spells, (for escapes): namely, which mages aren't supposed to rely on mana for, (if blinded, confused; etc).

[Mondkalb]

There are a lot of rods, take a look at the spoiler file:
This is from the spoiler file of an older version of Angband, but I think all of the rods are still in the game:

Rods

     Rod of Trap Location                                     1.5    5      100
     Rod of Light                                             1.5   10      500
     Rod of Door/Stair Location                               1.5   15     1000
     Rod of Illumination                                      1.5   20     1000
     Rod of Polymorph                                         1.5   35     1200
     Rod of Teleport Away                                     1.5   45     1400
     Rod of Slow Monster                                      1.5   30     1500
     Rod of Sleep Monster                                     1.5   30     1500
     Rod of Lightning Bolts                                   1.5   20     2000
     Rod of Disarming                                         1.5   35     2100
     Rod of Frost Bolts                                       1.5   25     2500
     Rod of Fire Bolts                                        1.5   30     3000
     Rod of Acid Bolts                                        1.5   40     3500
     Rod of Drain Life                                        1.5   75     3600
     Rod of Recall                                            1.5   30     4000
     Rod of Probing                                           1.5   40     4000
     Rod of Lightning Balls                                   1.5   55     4000
     Rod of Cold Balls                                        1.5   60     4500
     Rod of Detection                                         1.5   30     5000
     Rod of Fire Balls                                        1.5   75     5000
     Rod of Acid Balls                                        1.5   70     5500
     Rod of Enlightenment                                     1.5   65    10000
     Rod of Perceptions                                       1.5   50    13000
     Rod of Curing                                            1.5   65    15000
     Rod of Healing                                           1.5   80    20000
     Rod of Restoration                                       1.5   80    25000
     Rod of Speed                                             1.5   95    50000

The "Rod of Teleport Away" has it's name changed into "Rod of Teleport Other" along with some other minor name changes.

[Calandor]

So all rods auto-regen their charges, it is implied. This must be useful. I hesitated to buy the teleport staff recommended in guides, because I can't effectively recharge it yet, (unless possibly with scrolls for the improved version of the spell). I suppose if it's useful, then even relying on scrolls for recharge could be fine, assuming the stores continue to stock them.

This could be a nonsense question .. it is late, after much angband, and thoughts grow fuzzy.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

As a mage, you only want treasure detection rods, as you have covered everything else with your spells. Eventually you get a spell for treasure, too (book 4).

Well...a mage would want to replace those treasure detection rods with plain Detection rods when possible. The recharge time is longer though, so you will want 2 or 3 detection rods before ditching the treasure detection rods.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

I hesitated to buy the teleport staff recommended in guides, because I can't effectively recharge it yet, (unless possibly with scrolls for the improved version of the spell). I suppose if it's useful, then even relying on scrolls for recharge could be fine, assuming the stores continue to stock them.

Don't hesitate to buy that staff! Teleport staff is a *Must Have* item for quite awhile, until you can switch to ?Teleport when @ has rBlind & rConfusion (or the Spell when you have a 0% fail rate and those two resists). The staff is your principal escape tool. Yes, it will get burned up sometimes. Yes, it will explode sometimes on recharging. Replace it as soon as you can, or if @ has the Strength and weight to spare, carry two.

[Calandor]

Don't hesitate to buy that staff!

Mission accomplished.

or if @ has the Strength and weight to spare, carry two.

Not likely, sadly. @ = 6 Str, 18/50 Int, 18 Dex, 11 Con, 10 Wis, or so, (Gnome). Even a single staff is the equivalent of lugging a log around. Created before I read guides -- or the right guides, possibly. I'd been dabbling in so many variants that I became confused as to Mage-requirements. In some variants, they seem to be Int-Wis-Dex. In Angband, it's more traditional, (from a certain point of view), Int-Con, primarily, with Str tacked on for carrying capacity, and/or longbows, (again, according to some guides). Some seem to skip the Con, also; or choose Dex for hybridisation.

Unfortunately, the Dex doesn't really help if weight implies -2 to -6 Slow, continually. Possibly I should have rolled for a better character, instead of using point-allocation. I was tempted to play the last version with the Autoroller, (~3.09b or so), for a better character, but this would have foregone other improvements in the overall game, and felt vaguely wrong, for whatever reason. Once I'd tried the Autoroller, (still present in many variants), I lost patience with the standard method for creating characters.

On a slightly unrelated note, I've been mostly Clearing levels, (first character on this variant), rather than descending quickly. Now that I understand WOR better, (it isn't necessary to look for a portal in town, as in some games), and now that I won't accidentally read an unidentified scroll of Deep Descent before I'm prepared, I've decided to 'clear' a single level, then port back, after every level, and see how this works out.

The typical problem I had before was that I'd redescend each time, then become lured by what seemed 'interesting levels'; tempted to explore. This implied quite slow progress through the dungeon, and probably a lot of junk which reduced movement-speed, (hence, constant decisions of what to keep, and what to drop; unnecessarily slow play in all senses).

The sole downside to porting in to each level, then porting back, seems to be that, on descending the next staircase, after completing a single level, sometimes the next level is faintly extraordinary, ('this level is not too risky'; etc). On arrival at (all of) level 7, there were homunculi, and other creatures supposedly not supposed to appear until DL 15: some sort of 'mixed nest', according to ~{Detect Invisible}. Already tired, though, I had to port back to safety to sell things from level 6, to make space for new items, so the faintly 'extraordinary' level was lost -- it would have been too dangerous to remain, probably.

Of course, had the rating been 'Special', rather than merely 'Faintly Risky', it might have been worth remaining. So the question is: how does one decide, for this type of intermediate case?

[Carnivean]

I've decided to 'clear' a single level, then port back, after every level, and see how this works out.

The typical problem I had before was that I'd redescend each time, then become lured by what seemed 'interesting levels'; tempted to explore. This implied quite slow progress through the dungeon, and probably a lot of junk which reduced movement-speed, (hence, constant decisions of what to keep, and what to drop; unnecessarily slow play in all senses).

Very slow play. With "No selling" on, you'll stop bothering with the inventory decisions. You take what you can use, and leave everything else. You get increased gold in the dungeon to (more than) compensate for the loss of income selling trash to shops. You'll soon be going down multiple levels between recalls, saving you hours and hours of gameplay time.

[Calandor]

Very slow play. With "No selling" on, you'll stop bothering with the inventory decisions. You take what you can use, and leave everything else. You get increased gold in the dungeon to (more than) compensate for the loss of income selling trash to shops. You'll soon be going down multiple levels between recalls, saving you hours and hours of gameplay time.

No, this would just make it worse, ultimately, as it implies continual inventory decisions, rather than the ability to delay them, and confine this process to town. Usually new players have no idea what items they need or can leave, so it's necessary to take a breather in town, then look up any improved or magical items, and their possible uses, before deciding what to keep; and so on.

[fph]

No, this would just make it worse, ultimately, as it implies continual inventory decisions, rather than the ability to delay them, and confine this process to town. Usually new players have no idea what items they need or can leave, so it's necessary to take a breather in town, then look up any improved or magical items, and their possible uses, before deciding what to keep; and so on.

I don't see why delaying the decisions should improve things. The contents of the shops and of the "8" home are accessible through the knowledge menu, so the player has the same information in the dungeon as in the town.

[Carnivean]

No, this would just make it worse, ultimately, as it implies continual inventory decisions, rather than the ability to delay them, and confine this process to town. Usually new players have no idea what items they need or can leave, so it's necessary to take a breather in town, then look up any improved or magical items, and their possible uses, before deciding what to keep; and so on.

This does not make it worse. This isn't just my opinion, this is the opinion of 90+% of the players that have given feedback, including players of all levels of experience.

It's a simple choice: Is this piece of gear that I've found better than the one I'm currently using? If yes, use and discard the previous item. If no, then discard the new item. The only time you need to go to town is to restock certain potions or scrolls should the dungeon not supply enough.

Your system is to gather everything on the level, unless your inventory is full, then you work out the least valuable item, drop it, pick up the new item, then take them all to town and compare each item against all of the rest and sell the rest. Then you travel down to the same level and clean it again. You only progress to the next level if you have room in your inventory.

The new and improved system is better than the old system. It simplifies decisions and reduces the time wasted on trips to sell items.

[quarague]

To me the advantage of no sell lies in the items you carry around with you. With selling, you will dedicate some inventory slots to items that are valuable to shop keepers but entirely useless for your character. This leads to difficult decisions whether to keep an item that is useful under some rare circumstances or rather ditch it and carry a for sale item. With no sale on you only carry items that may be useful to your character. Hence no sale characters have better survival chances.