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I've been playing Vanilla Angband for about 2 years now. I've found that I enjoy the challenge of playing without artifacts (i.e. set "birth_no_artifacts" to true). I have beaten Morgoth a few times now without artifacts, so it is clearly possible, but there are some problems, and it takes a very long time to get the items you need. The recent postings about playing with no artifacts emboldened me to talk about my suggestions to make playing with birth_no_artifacts a little more accessible. I certainly think that birth_no_artifacts *should* be harder and take longer, but I find it is a bit excessive as it stands.
In fact, just one minor change would go a long way to making birth_no_artifacts more reasonable to play: namely, allow "Metal Shod Boots" to be "(Dwarven)". I'm no expert, but I believe this just involves adding the line "T:30:6:6" to the ego_item.txt definition of "(Dwarven)". I wouldn't think that this would affect the play balance of the main game. It would be nice to couple this with making the chance of finding Metal Shod Boots more likely; change "A:20/1" to "A:20/1:60/1" in the object.txt definition of "Metal Shod Boots". Admittedly this makes Boots of Speed more likely as well, but I think not by so much as to cause concern.
[I am now going to launch into a lengthy and boring discussion about why the above is a good idea, and suggest other small changes. If you are not a fan of birth_no_artifacts, I'd suggest you stop reading right here. You have been warned.]
Playing birth_no_artifacts involves the same sorts of problems that the regular game has, namely: speed, resists, and HP. They are just harder to get. They also tend to conflict, since NONE of the +CON items have any resists (except *Slay Dragon*, and all it has is "resist fear"). For example, you cannot really afford to wear Dwarven body armor to get the +CON: you would have to give up too many resists in exchange. This means that you pretty much have to play either a Half-Troll or a Dunadan (or maybe possibly a Dwarf), and be a Warrior or Paladin, so that you don't need too many +CON items, so you can have those equipment slots available for items that have resists. And even so, you are typically forced to find "Gauntlets of Combat (+2)", which can take a very long time.
Equiping enough resists is a difficult problem. In general, you cannot expect to be able to resist everything (unless you are lucky enough to find Power Dragon armor). The best you can do is to pick which attacks you don't resist, and to carry multiple items to swap between depending on the monsters you face. This is complicated by the fact that NO normal objects or ego items resist Nether by default, so you have to find an ego-item with an "extra" resist (e.g. Elvenkind), that resists Nether in particular. It is also difficult because some of the equipment slots don't have any items that have resists. For example, the Missile Weapon slot, or the Light Source slot. So choices are limited, which means it takes extra time to find what you need.
Becoming fast enough is yet another difficult problem. In order to get enough resists and enough HP, you need to resign yourself to fighting Morgoth with a "base" speed in the 20's, not 30's, and using e.g. Potion of Speed to make up the rest. It is barely possible to get speed in the 30's by spending *enormously* long to find big boots of speed, two big rings of speed, an Amulet of Trickery, AND exactly the right combination of "extra resist" ego-items with exactly the right set of resists.
Having Dwarven boots gives an extra slot for a +CON item that doesn't interfere much with resists, allowing you more choices on how to equip a character. It should also allow at least a couple more choices for race+class to be viable.
There are of course plenty of additional possible changes that would make birth_no_artifacts go faster (by not needing to spend quite so long to find a complementary combination of objects) without particularly making the normal game easier. For example, any or all of:
An ego missile weapon that has a resist (or two).
(Either random, or related to shooting, like blindness or confusion)
Gloves with one random resist
(like a Cloak of Aman, but for gloves)
A normal object "Dwarven Lantern" with +CON and a resist.
(A random resist would actually be best)
Dwarven ego-weapons (only Axes I would think)
(like Westerness, but bigger +str and +con, and no +dex)
At least one Ego item that resists Nether
(e.g. Shield of the Seraphim: resist nether, plus 1 random resist)
Since these items are not individually unduly powerful (in particular, they are weaker than artifact(s) that would occupy the same equipment slot), and could be placed fairly deep (level 60 or 70), they shouldn't interfere with the main-line game.
I would also like to see the likelyhood of finding shields increased. I typically find 5 or 6 times as much Body Armor of Elvenkind as I do Shields of Elvenkind or Shields of Preservation. This is both because there are so many different kinds of body armor compared to kinds of shields (more possible body armor items to be picked), and the body armor occurs deep (making it more likely to be chosen at the deeper levels). This can be adjusted by just adding to the allocation line; e.g. change "Large Metal Shield" from "A:30/1" to "A:30/1:60/1"
In the same way, I think the likelyhood of gloves, cloaks, and boots should increase. Right now, "Gauntlets of Combat (+2)" are nearly a requirement, and they are hard to find since gloves are not common enough at the deep levels. [This would be partially mitigated if other +CON items were available.] Similarly, a Cloak of Aman is often a very useful item, not because it is particularly powerful in itself, but because the random resist can be used to plug a hole in your defenses. But only if you can find one with the right enchantment. Cloaks are not so common at the deep levels, since there are only 2 kinds to select, making a Cloak of Aman a rare find, and the likelyhood of finding one with the right resist very rare indeed.
In fact, just one minor change would go a long way to making birth_no_artifacts more reasonable to play: namely, allow "Metal Shod Boots" to be "(Dwarven)". I'm no expert, but I believe this just involves adding the line "T:30:6:6" to the ego_item.txt definition of "(Dwarven)". I wouldn't think that this would affect the play balance of the main game. It would be nice to couple this with making the chance of finding Metal Shod Boots more likely; change "A:20/1" to "A:20/1:60/1" in the object.txt definition of "Metal Shod Boots". Admittedly this makes Boots of Speed more likely as well, but I think not by so much as to cause concern.
[I am now going to launch into a lengthy and boring discussion about why the above is a good idea, and suggest other small changes. If you are not a fan of birth_no_artifacts, I'd suggest you stop reading right here. You have been warned.]
Playing birth_no_artifacts involves the same sorts of problems that the regular game has, namely: speed, resists, and HP. They are just harder to get. They also tend to conflict, since NONE of the +CON items have any resists (except *Slay Dragon*, and all it has is "resist fear"). For example, you cannot really afford to wear Dwarven body armor to get the +CON: you would have to give up too many resists in exchange. This means that you pretty much have to play either a Half-Troll or a Dunadan (or maybe possibly a Dwarf), and be a Warrior or Paladin, so that you don't need too many +CON items, so you can have those equipment slots available for items that have resists. And even so, you are typically forced to find "Gauntlets of Combat (+2)", which can take a very long time.
Equiping enough resists is a difficult problem. In general, you cannot expect to be able to resist everything (unless you are lucky enough to find Power Dragon armor). The best you can do is to pick which attacks you don't resist, and to carry multiple items to swap between depending on the monsters you face. This is complicated by the fact that NO normal objects or ego items resist Nether by default, so you have to find an ego-item with an "extra" resist (e.g. Elvenkind), that resists Nether in particular. It is also difficult because some of the equipment slots don't have any items that have resists. For example, the Missile Weapon slot, or the Light Source slot. So choices are limited, which means it takes extra time to find what you need.
Becoming fast enough is yet another difficult problem. In order to get enough resists and enough HP, you need to resign yourself to fighting Morgoth with a "base" speed in the 20's, not 30's, and using e.g. Potion of Speed to make up the rest. It is barely possible to get speed in the 30's by spending *enormously* long to find big boots of speed, two big rings of speed, an Amulet of Trickery, AND exactly the right combination of "extra resist" ego-items with exactly the right set of resists.
Having Dwarven boots gives an extra slot for a +CON item that doesn't interfere much with resists, allowing you more choices on how to equip a character. It should also allow at least a couple more choices for race+class to be viable.
There are of course plenty of additional possible changes that would make birth_no_artifacts go faster (by not needing to spend quite so long to find a complementary combination of objects) without particularly making the normal game easier. For example, any or all of:
An ego missile weapon that has a resist (or two).
(Either random, or related to shooting, like blindness or confusion)
Gloves with one random resist
(like a Cloak of Aman, but for gloves)
A normal object "Dwarven Lantern" with +CON and a resist.
(A random resist would actually be best)
Dwarven ego-weapons (only Axes I would think)
(like Westerness, but bigger +str and +con, and no +dex)
At least one Ego item that resists Nether
(e.g. Shield of the Seraphim: resist nether, plus 1 random resist)
Since these items are not individually unduly powerful (in particular, they are weaker than artifact(s) that would occupy the same equipment slot), and could be placed fairly deep (level 60 or 70), they shouldn't interfere with the main-line game.
I would also like to see the likelyhood of finding shields increased. I typically find 5 or 6 times as much Body Armor of Elvenkind as I do Shields of Elvenkind or Shields of Preservation. This is both because there are so many different kinds of body armor compared to kinds of shields (more possible body armor items to be picked), and the body armor occurs deep (making it more likely to be chosen at the deeper levels). This can be adjusted by just adding to the allocation line; e.g. change "Large Metal Shield" from "A:30/1" to "A:30/1:60/1"
In the same way, I think the likelyhood of gloves, cloaks, and boots should increase. Right now, "Gauntlets of Combat (+2)" are nearly a requirement, and they are hard to find since gloves are not common enough at the deep levels. [This would be partially mitigated if other +CON items were available.] Similarly, a Cloak of Aman is often a very useful item, not because it is particularly powerful in itself, but because the random resist can be used to plug a hole in your defenses. But only if you can find one with the right enchantment. Cloaks are not so common at the deep levels, since there are only 2 kinds to select, making a Cloak of Aman a rare find, and the likelyhood of finding one with the right resist very rare indeed.
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