where are my arrows?

[Pete Mack]

Morgoth has a 1/2.5 chance of breaking a Rune per attempt, I believe.

[Estie]

@Grotug: as far as I know, there is no Holy Might mithril ammo for slings. Weaker ammo is the one weakness of Slings of Buckland. But even Slay Evil or Wounding shot is plenty deadly.

I have found Holy Might mithril shots before; they are just very rare. I suspect that is because of a multiplication of rare base items with rare mod. For sling archers, the branding spell is exceptionally useful.

[Sky]

Because Rangers get the Rune spell, but don't otherwise have need for much mana vs Morgoth, sea of Runes is cheap but effective. What else are you going to do with the saved restore mana potions?

specifically against morgoth, nothing. but against other uniques, you phase, and then spam CLW. generally thats enough to bring you up to full health, saving your !Heal for the last fight.

[Derakon]

specifically against morgoth, nothing. but against other uniques, you phase, and then spam CLW. generally thats enough to bring you up to full health, saving your !Heal for the last fight.

...where you had more healing potions than you could possibly ever use anyway. Has anyone ever told you you have a hoarding problem?

[Sky]

the first time i died to morgoth it was because 90% of the fight went like this:
morgot causes a mana storm
me: drink heal
morgoth: mana storm
me: drink heal
morgoth: mana storm
me: drink heal
morgoth: mana storm
me: drink heal
morgoth: mana storm
me: drink heal
morgoth: mana storm
me: drink heal
morgoth: mana storm
me: drink heal
morgoth: mana storm
me: drink heal
morgoth: mana storm
me: drink heal
morgoth: mana storm
me: drink heal
morgoth: mana storm
me:

[Grotug]

Question about Randarts. Last three games I won I played with the same randarts, and all three games I found an acid/slay evil <+2> extra attacks scythe. An insanely good weapon. Now, in all the many games I played Standarts I only found Aule or ToW a few times each. I'm pretty sure the scythe in the randart game was better than the two Standart weapons. Is it easier to find better artifacts in a randart game than standart? There is at least one artifact in the Standart set I've never even found.

Also, why do the stars and phials in randarts get better bonuses than the standard ones?

Okay, I'm on my 4th game with the same randarts (I can't seem to change the randarts on my games, but that's another issue), and I am finding the same powerful artifacts over and over: an armor that grants telepathy, holds life, and resist just about everything but Dis and Nexus and +5 WIS. Just found that Scythe, of slay evil and acid <+2> extra attacks again. A star of <+4> Speed, a bunch of stats <+3> rDis, hLife. And an artifact weaponmastery amulet that sustains wisdom as well, rNether, rDis, and pFire. Like, helllloooo. On my way to another easy win. If anyone is having trouble winning and wants a good Randart set, you may want to try this one out. It's only weakness is that it has no good rNexus artifacts. But I work around this by playing with Forced descent on so I can fight Sauron without rNexus. Tons of Wisdom bonuses in it, too, so I'd recommend a green book class. Last game I had 190 Wisdom as a HT/Warrior even though I was trying my hardest to get my DEX up.

[Nick]

Okay, I'm on my 4th game with the same randarts (I can't seem to change the randarts on my games, but that's another issue)

What version are you playing? That shouldn't happen in 4.1.1.

[Grotug]

EDIT: I removed all my Angband files from my computer and reinstalled the latest Nightly afresh. And it seems to have worked. I'll let you know for sure when I find an artifact.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

In all the recent 4.*.* versions Angband crashes when I start a game with randarts on Mac OS X Yosemite. To get around this, I copied the contents of a randart.txt I had saved and pasted it into the artifact.txt inside the executable. Then I ran Angband with standard artifacts and got the randarts as I hoped. But whenever I put in different randarts into the artifact.txt I keep getting the same randarts the last 4 games. The game I just finished (narrowly) had the same super scythe artifact set; it was the nightly version from Nov 26th.

So I'm not sure where it's actually reading the randarts? I thought it was reading them in the Artifact.txt inside the Angband executable: Resources -> Lib -> Gamedata -> Artifact.txt. Very confusing.

[Nick]

In all the recent 4.*.* versions Angband crashes when I start a game with randarts on Mac OS X Yosemite. To get around this, I copied the contents of a randart.txt I had saved and pasted it into the artifact.txt inside the executable. Then I ran Angband with standard artifacts and got the randarts as I hoped. But whenever I put in different randarts into the artifact.txt I keep getting the same randarts the last 4 games. The game I just finished (narrowly) had the same super scythe artifact set; it was the nightly version from Nov 26th.

So I'm not sure where it's actually reading the randarts? I thought it was reading them in the Artifact.txt inside the Angband executable: Resources -> Lib -> Gamedata -> Artifact.txt. Very confusing.

OK, here's how it should work.

• The game reads your artifact.txt file; it uses the one in the App as you described, although if you have a file called artifact.txt in your Documents/Angband it will use that instead
• If you are starting a new randarts game, it will create the randarts, replace the usual artifacts with them in the game, and write a file called randart.txt in your Documents/Angband directory
• When you close the game, it moves that file to your Documents/Angband/archive, and renames it something like randart_0e3f461f.txt (the string is your randart seed)
• When you re-open the same character, it loads artifact.txt, and then moves randart_0e3f461f.txt back to Documents/Angband, renames it back to randart.txt and loads it to replace the standard artifacts

So the way you described replacing the artifact.txt in your App bundle should work, although putting it on your Documents/Angband is probably easier and safer. Getting the old randarts is puzzling, but maybe from my description and checking all the appropriate places you can work it out. You can get weird things happening if you are using a randart file as your artifact.txt and then try to start a new game with randarts, as some of the object kinds (Phial, Star, etc) are read from artifact.txt.

If I had to guess, I would guess that you have a file called artifact.txt in your Documents/Angband with the old randart set you keep seeing; I'm not betting on it, though.

EDIT: I wrote the above before seeing your edit

[Grotug]

Thanks Nick! That is super helpful! I'm guessing I first edited the artifact.txt in /documents/Angband and then later edited the actual executable. Anyway, thanks for the clarification.

So, yes, it's working now. New artifacts. And so story time:

I love it when Angband plays out like it was scripted. So I was diving a bit recklessly 'cause what else to do when the levels are boring or too dangerous to stay on? I haven't found any good gear yet, I have rCold and rAcid and that's about it. And FrAct. I'm doing about 30 dam a round. I come to a level (DL25) and the confuser brothers are here. I'm like oh man, I can't take these guys. But it's a 6-7 level so I'm at least gonna screw around awhile until I run out of resources or find something good. I try my wands of wonder on one of the confusers and I'm not making much progress. I try to lure him to one side of the level and then _teleport hopefully near some treasure. Just as I'm luring him away while _curing tengu brings me back 15 squares. Jeez, so much for bringing the Confuser away from where I'm trying to go. So I ?phase and am in a new area above. The layout of the level was good, with lots of horizontal hallways connected by small and medium rooms with some dead ends to prevent everyone from getting everywhere. It's a great level for ?Phasing. But invariably I run into his brother and screw around with him for a bit without accomplishing too much and so this time I do _Teleport but it's back to where I started. So I _Teleport again and into the opposite far corner of the map with a bunch of dark hounds. A little scary but turns out they fall pretty easily, even when I can't see anything.

I had recently picked up some mithril arrows from a lesser unique that do 41dam a round. So I figure between the wands of wonder and the arrows I may be able to take down the confusers... with a little luck. Presently, though, I run into Brudda, much more reasonable, and he drops an artifact weapon with some slays and brands but not exciting as at the weapon's better end is only doing the same as my whip. It has pFear and +1 Con so I decide it's good enough to use. It does better damage than the whip against a bunch of Ogres and giants, though, so I am able to scrape by. Lots of Low hitpoint warnings all throughout the level; just how I like, on the edge of survival but not completely lost. I finally start to secure the level sans the confusers and a hallway filled with peeps: paladin, ranger, which summons a displacer beast. The beast scares me a bit, but with a good shot from the wand of wonder and a critical hit from my Glaive he turns out to be not much work at all.

I finally meet one of the Confusers again and this time I think I have a good shot, as I've got him coming down a hallway into a lit room where I am. I start to pelt him with those mithril arrows and feeling really good about the situation when NĂ*r comes out of nowhere and joins me in the room. Arrggghhh!!! So frustrating! I can take Nar, and I can just barely take the Confuser, but I'm totally sunk trying to take them both. (I do have 5 pots of speed, but I'm not blowing them on these guys; not worth it, and even hasted I can't take them both). It wouldn't be so frustrating if I didn't have such a limited number of ?phase (like ten left).

So I ?phase and find myself near an unID'd rod. Ohhh yesss, I think I know what it is. Show me the money! I do battle for a bit with some things guarding it (more giants and ogres) and finally zap the rod and yes, it's a rod of treasure detection. Upon zapping it a bunch of red * show up all clustered together above me. Jackpot! I go in, not much left there, a purple jelly and purple wormass that I take care of with not much trouble. There is another heavy artifact weapon: executioner's sword. Seems like it might be slightly better than the Glaive so I bang around with it for it bit to see if it does anything. I find myself with one of the confusers again in a long hallway. I had bought a rod of light in my one visit to the store so I use it to give me a target. While I was testing it out I "hmmm" on pBlind. Nice. And guess what I "hmmm" about while healing the Confuser with my wand of wonder? pConf. Ohhh yessssss. Oh, not to mention the weapon has Taratol's activation (91 turns to recharge). Hah, the dungeon plays fair! Nar is still with him but with them together in the long hallway and me hasted I'm able to take them both down without *too* much trouble. Nar drops 58+5 armor and Confuser #1 drops gloves of Thievery tyvm.

This is the gamble of diving. If you run into too much trouble you can't handle and have to abandon a fight with a bunch of good arrows strewn all about that you can't go back and get or you don't find anything good after long exhausting battle, you feel doomed and often are. But now I can go onto DL26 feeling like I'm making progress. Ready for my next test.

[Pete Mack]

Lovely AAR. And some really good luck.

[Estie]

When you called them the confuser brothers, my mind immediately conjured up the picture of Jake & Elwood.

[PowerWyrm]

Also, why do the stars and phials in randarts get better bonuses than the standard ones?

Okay, I'm on my 4th game with the same randarts (I can't seem to change the randarts on my games, but that's another issue), and I am finding the same powerful artifacts over and over: an armor that grants telepathy, holds life, and resist just about everything but Dis and Nexus and +5 WIS. Just found that Scythe, of slay evil and acid <+2> extra attacks again. A star of <+4> Speed, a bunch of stats <+3> rDis, hLife. And an artifact weaponmastery amulet that sustains wisdom as well, rNether, rDis, and pFire. Like, helllloooo. On my way to another easy win. If anyone is having trouble winning and wants a good Randart set, you may want to try this one out. It's only weakness is that it has no good rNexus artifacts. But I work around this by playing with Forced descent on so I can fight Sauron without rNexus. Tons of Wisdom bonuses in it, too, so I'd recommend a green book class. Last game I had 190 Wisdom as a HT/Warrior even though I was trying my hardest to get my DEX up.

That's because randarts are now based on any base item. Your Phial could be based on a PDSM or ring of speed and get 300+ power score, adding a lot of good properties.