new guy reporting

[Sky]

hello fine people of Angband.

i've been lurking here for close to 15 years, i finally decided to register. Have been playing angband more or less seriously since 2007, still no legit win.

I'm a 44yo originally hailing from sunny italy, now living in Glasgow (for the moment). Been playing RPGs since the red box D&D, and i really got into the variants with the first ToME. I did play Vanilla back in 2.something when there were still *cursed* items but never managed to figure out how people can play and beat the game .. i guess wisdom comes with age.

I guess it's FTL that really won me over, made me appreciate thinking and planning ahead, so i started playing 4.0 and i really like it. But the questions have become too many and i needed answers, ergo i had to register.


I spend my internet time mostly on Anandtech and ESR, if you go there you might know me.

[Pete Mack]

hello fine people of Angband.

i've been lurking here for close to 15 years, i finally decided to register. Have been playing angband more or less seriously since 2007, still no legit win.

I'm a 44yo originally hailing from sunny italy, now living in Glasgow (for the moment). Been playing RPGs since the red box D&D, and i really got into the variants with the first ToME. I did play Vanilla back in 2.something when there were still *cursed* items but never managed to figure out how people can play and beat the game .. i guess wisdom comes with age.

I guess it's FTL that really won me over, made me appreciate thinking and planning ahead, so i started playing 4.0 and i really like it. But the questions have become too many and i needed answers, ergo i had to register.


I spend my internet time mostly on Anandtech and ESR, if you go there you might know me.

Welcome! A lot of first time posters recently. Great to have new blood.

[Sky]

tnx. i'm looking to find out a few things, namely what stats do (exactly), how the presence of artifacts is determined, "which version was it that had ..", possibly more, but can't think straight right now.

[Derakon]

tnx. i'm looking to find out a few things, namely what stats do (exactly), how the presence of artifacts is determined, "which version was it that had ..", possibly more, but can't think straight right now.

STR: carrying capacity, melee damage bonus, # blows/round
DEX: to-hit bonus (irrelevant), AC bonus (irrelevant), # blows/round
CON: hitpoints
INT: arcane caster stat; magic device skill (negligible effect)
WIS: holy caster stat; saving throw

In general, you care about the three physical stats and your caster stat (if a caster). STR is the most important physical stat early on, CON is the most important in the late game (getting CON high is vital for surviving big attacks in the late game), and DEX is just useful for getting more blows/round -- but that's pretty dang important.

Any equipment item can be "promoted" to being an artifact if it passes enough dice rolls and there is a valid artifact of that type available. If there isn't, the item just becomes a supercharged ego-item with unusually high pluses.

[Sky]

what stat determines rod activation percentage? zapping rods of teleport and healing is fundamental to a warrior, or at least so i think now. i've actually managed to dive quite deep once but ran into a though mob and burned through ALL my healing. decided to start again from lev 1 to restock, got tired and bored, and died before i could realize what was happening.

regarding artifacts, let's say i have killed morgoth but i am not wearing the crown.
i'm on level 125 scumming. i swear i've done DL 101-125 and not found a single artifact, while there are still plenty to be found (playing with preserve), Ringil, the armor that heals 1000hp, the axe that casts Mban, TOR, chaos blade / mace, fingolfin, the +15 boots, even two of the daggers have not shown up.

is there some hidden list of artifacts that is pre-generated?

or is it, that when a level has (generate artifact here), it then tries to pick one from the entire list, and if that one is already known, it then fails?

because i would imagine that if it was "pick one artifact", then surely all the daggers should have come out.

do i need to be at a specific DL in order to find the artifacts native to that level? it doesn't work like that for mobs, i.e. jackals will also generate at DL 99.

[Derakon]

what stat determines rod activation percentage? zapping rods of teleport and healing is fundamental to a warrior, or at least so i think now.

Your Magic Device skill determines success rate, and that skill derives primarily from your class, and secondarily from your race and your INT score. Warriors have awful Magic Device skill, unfortunately.

i'm on level 125 scumming. i swear i've done DL 101-125 and not found a single artifact, while there are still plenty to be found (playing with preserve), Ringil, the armor that heals 1000hp, the axe that casts Mban, TOR, chaos blade / mace, fingolfin, the +15 boots, even two of the daggers have not shown up.

is there some hidden list of artifacts that is pre-generated?

No, every artifact can be generated in every game, and as long as you haven't actually picked the artifact up (and thus learned its name), it is still able to be generated. You've just had bad luck.

do i need to be at a specific DL in order to find the artifacts native to that level? it doesn't work like that for mobs, i.e. jackals will also generate at DL 99.

No, it works basically like monster generation does. If you're too shallow, then the item has to pass special "out of depth" checks, which make it more uncommon, but the only thing slowing you down when you're deeper is that there's more valid items to pick from, diluting the pool a bit. However, there's so many more items of all kinds deeper in the dungeon that you're still best off going deep if you want to find artifacts.

[Pete Mack]

Some artifacts are simply rare, and do not show up very often. The ones you listed are among them.

[krazyhades]

Welcome to the dungeon
we love fun and games

[Nick]

Welcome to the dungeon
we love fun and games

...and most of us were around in the 80s