New memorable randarts
 

the Elven Cloak of Erennion (+23,+14) [6,+43] <-19, +1>
-------------------------------------------------------
A mantle made of curious silken material by the Galadrim that wondrously takes
on the hues and shapes of its surroundings.

Cursed.
-19 strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution, stealth,
infravision, tunneling, speed, attack speed, shooting speed.
-95% to searching.
Provides immunity to fire, cold.
Provides resistance to acid, lightning, poison, light, dark, shards, nexus,
nether, chaos.
Provides protection from fear, blindness, confusion, stunning.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.
Slows your metabolism. Feather Falling. Speeds regeneration. Prevents
paralysis. Sustains your life force. Aggravates creatures nearby.
Radius 1 light.

I am really curious how something like this can get created. Is -19 speed as likely as +19 speed ? Probably not, since +19 speed can only appear on a few randarts with highest power, whereas -19 has no such limitation. This thing is based on Beruthiel. Without the negative mods, it would be in the line of Deathwreaker I guess.

-19 shooting speed and attack speed. How does that translate to melee and shooting with fractional system? Everything gets 100+ free turns before you get to shoot anything?

You start to shoot and "you die -more-" before you actually make the shot.

I suspect its just capped at zero.

The carzy number here is 19. The only way it can be created other than on randarts would be ring of speed, with an extremely small chance. If created on a randart in a similar way, I suspect the randart woulnt pass its power check (assuming positive 19) ?

So how exactly did this cloak get rolled, I am unaware of the exact generation algorithm.

HaHa! That's hilarious!
How does -95% searching even work??

...and it aggravates as well - glorious.

On a serious note, I wonder what it's max/min depth was? Often bad randarts end up with a max depth shallower than its min depth.

It's always such a bummer when your warrior finds an randart quarterstaff, because you know it's only likely to do a feeble amount of damage... er.

ETA - one-shotted by Kavlax mere moments later. :/ Spoilers claim it was based on Thorin.

Lovely; with that, its hoping to find some off-weapon brand and/or slay :)

First, my eternal thanks for starting a new thread.

Second, which version is this? That's quite a serious bug, if my code generated that ... I'm guessing an overflow error somewhere.

This is in the new 4.0 beta. This is the only randart that's stood out so far: the others I've found have seemed perfectly normal. I've got the spoiler file, if that's any use to you. And I've still got randart.log from that game, but it's too big to attach. Here's the relevant bit:

In 4.0beta I've had an Arkenstone with zero light.
And I don't think I've had a single slay or brand on a randart weapon yet (but I might be going mad, of course).

Huh - you're not going mad! I just searched that artefact spoiler file and the only weapons with slays were two Maces of Disruption with slay undead and Grond.

Thanks, glad my sanity is vouchsafed, for now!

If you are refering to the -19 attacks randart, that was 3.5.1.

I was indeed, and that is a bug which may or may not still be present in 4.0 beta. Nomad's quarterstaff is fine - arguably underrated by the algorithm but there's no bug. The absence of brands and slays is of course a bug - one of many resulting from the vast slew of changes in the beta. Rest assured that we'll get to it before 4.0 is final...

Angband v4beta-121-gb12bbfe nice light source. Enlightenment, FA and one immunity, albeit lightning, is not bad.

f) the Arkenstone of Angwethar <+3>
Found lying on the floor in a vault at 2100 feet (level 42)

Provides immunity to lightning.
Cannot be harmed by fire.
Prevents paralysis.
Radius 3 light.

When activated, it completely lights up and magically maps the
level, detects traps nearby, detects doors nearby and detects
stairs nearby.
Takes 51 to 100 turns to recharge at your current speed.
Your chance of success is 83.9%

Now that is a *lot* of dice...

*And* good damage enchantment. No brands or slays though, is there some off weapon by any chance ?

What's the average damage with that beast?

Sadly, I never found it before being nexus quylthulged into a room full of my discards from a vault on dlvl89 (I'd been too trigger happy with my TO's).

But let's see... I had +7 damage on my gloves, +8 on my armour, a RoDam +14 and the bonus from Str 18/*** is, what, +20 IIRC. So IF I'd found it ( :( ) the calculation would be something like:

6*((16*3)+27+7+8+14+20))=744 average damage per round, against absolutely everything. Plus, of course, critical hits. But I've no idea how to calculate that.

I'm feeling somewhat melancholy now...

My current T2 character just found...

The Mage Staff of Turing (1d4) (+5, +15) [+4]

Oddly appropriate. I think I'll keep it. :P

Edit: whoops, character died to a Blood Sprout before I could get full ID on it. D'oh!

Not bad, as pre-stat gain weapons go...

Is that weak fire, weak cold and weak lightning, or is this another not-so-clear grammar issue?

If those are not all weak, may I suggest that we just plain list those in different order: cold, lightning, weak fire.

I think it was all three weak, yes. (Although I wasn't sure either when I first identified it, so I actually had to check they were all at the same level by comparing the damage per round to work it out.)

The description is clear, each property is separated by a comma. The convenience of not repeating the adjective each time doesnt apply to "code" text.

On a different note, I would remove weak brand alltogether and instead bind power to element:

acid x2, fire and cold x3, lightning x4.

Edit: Just to be perfectly clear, the reading is "Branded with <weak fire>, <cold>, <lightning>."

Great Rings of Power combo
 

I found this excellent combo of Rings of Power only after having found the one ring for the first time ever, so I haven't really had any use for them. Still, together they offer all four immunities and a solid set of resistances.

i) the Ring of Adamant of Tholdur (+4,+3) <+3>
Found lying on the floor in a vault at 5000 feet (level 100)

+3 intelligence.
+3 dexterity.
+3 tunneling.
Provides immunity to acid, lightning, fire.
Provides resistance to frost, poison gas, light, dark, sound,
disenchantment.
Provides protection from fear.
Cannot be harmed by lightning.
Speeds regeneration. Prevents paralysis.

When activated, it fires balls of electricity in all directions,
each one causing 150 damage.
Takes 441 to 594 turns to recharge at your current speed.
Your chance of success is 93.7%


d) the Ring of Fire of Impheb <+4, +1>
Found lying on the floor in a vault at 5000 feet (level 100)

+4 intelligence.
+4 wisdom.
+4 dexterity.
+4 constitution.
+4 infravision.
Provides immunity to frost.
Provides resistance to acid, fire, dark.
Provides protection from fear, confusion.
Cannot be harmed by lightning.
Sustains strength.
Slows your metabolism. Prevents paralysis. Sustains your life
force.
Radius 1 light.

When activated, it cures blindness and gives you telepathy for
9d9+24 turns.
Takes 246 to 300 turns to recharge at your current speed.
Your chance of success is 94.8%

I've never seen either of those activations before!

Second one appears to be the same as a mushroom of Clear Mind(?). No speed in either ring is about the only major deficit.

And the first is the activation on Razorback, a unique multihued DSM.

I find it amusing that the Ring of Fire provides immunity to cold. Curious how "Ring of Adamant" got generated though.

Nenya base item. The Ring of Fire is Narya, while the not seen here Ring of Firmament is Vilya.

So close! That should have been "Im-ho-tep".

Not Clear Mind, Second Sight maybe? Although if it also cures blindness I've never noticed.

not good, but memorable...

playing the npp comp just now, on the floor at 1050', 2d5 longsword branded with acid, that's it, no rAcid, lol! worst randart ever?

Yes, got the wrong one. It does clear blindness.

Now that's just confusing...

Maybe Robert Frost ?

the Elven Cloak 'Essilindo' (+0,+8) [6,+16] <+2>
------------------------------------------------
A mantle made of curious silken material by the Galadrim that wondrously takes
on the hues and shapes of its surroundings.

+2 dexterity.
+2 tunneling.
Provides resistance to poison gas, light, nexus, chaos.
Provides protection from fear.
Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
Sustains intelligence.


Shouldnt the artifact have the base item properties ? Elven cloaks get +1 speed, how come this artifact doesnt have that.

It probably should. I probably won't be chasing down minor randart bugs like this pre-4.1, because there will be considerable changes to the randart code anyway, and a whole fresh batch of bugs to fix.

This one's a bit odd...

Provides regen and one of the tougher base resists to arrange? That's an amazing artifact. Especially compared to Camlost.

:D

Not really, but its not inconceivable that it would be used. For example, a level 30 mage might want regen and has no better use for the launcher slot.

Not really what I meant. It's (x3), but has -3 Shooting Power...

I wonder if arrows from that make any damage at all. Multiplies damage by zero. Is multiplier one minimum or can that actually negate whole damage.

And what happens if it goes negative?...

They heal the monster obviously...

It could harm @ instead?

If @ could target themselves would they hurt or harm?

Oooh...good point...

It turns arrows into foam formed darts. Great for kids to play with!

Playing a mage. If only it had +strength too!

the Short Bow 'Breguin' (x2) (+15,+14) <+10>
--------------------------------------------
+10 wisdom.
+10 speed.
Provides resistance to lightning, fire.
Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
Speeds regeneration. Prevents paralysis.


Min Level 58, Max Level 127, Generation chance 2, Power 375, 3.0 lbs
Based on Razorback.


Found by a priest!

At least now it doesn't provide +10 extra might or extra shots ;)

+10 extra shots would be what in terms of energy?

How does that work in code level anyway? Does it divide energy needed for getting turn or multiply energy player gets / turn?

It reduces the energy cost of the action. So normally, firing a shot would cost you 100 energy; with +10 shots, it would cost you 9 energy (100/11). Thus the amount of time that needs to pass before you get your next turn is greatly reduced.

The energy you get per game turn is strictly determined by your speed; nothing else affects it (except insofar as it affects your speed).

Did not find this one, but had it been named Swiss army knife I wouldn't have been surprised. Decent damage combined with fire immunity, protection against confusion, telepaty and activation for tele other

the Glaive 'Celinath' (4d6) (+8,+13) [+14] <+3>
-----------------------------------------------
+3 strength.
+3 dexterity.
Provides immunity to fire.
Provides resistance to frost.
Provides protection from fear, confusion.
Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
Sustains intelligence.
Prevents paralysis. Grants telepathy.

When activated, it teleports a target monster away.
Takes 90 to 110 turns to recharge.
Your chance of success is 85.8%


Min Level 52, Max Level 127, Generation chance 30, Power 312, 17.1 lbs
Based on Celinath.

The part I don't understand is it being based on itself. I thought this was a bug that had been fixed. Aren't randarts supposed to be based on the standart set? Or are they iterating from a previous randart set?

Yeah this bug was not fixed. You get the correct description only the first time, unless you set "Use same set of randarts" to off.

In fact, a more general statement is true - there is more than one unfixed randart bug in 4.0. The randart code has been less fully restructured than most other bits, because its intricacies made it difficult to redo without seriously affecting how randarts work - in fact, there are a umber of hacks in there to try to maintain the 3.5 behaviour. This was mostly successful, but when I venture in there again it's likely to be with a flamethrower, and randarts won't look quite the same afterwards.

Awesome. :D

Simply insane...

Nice, but a hat of telepathy still takes priority. I keep that thing in the house till I get another source of ESP.

Quite ridiculous, aside from the "aggravates monsters" bit.
Edit: Actually, that reminds me that I should post the one that my first winner had:
Double elemental immunity, pConf, free action, hold life, hefty stat boosts, and a couple of nice niche resists?! Man, that was one hell of a ring :D

Certainly powerful, but again if it is between that one and a Speed +16 it may not be a clear choice.

IM_ACID swap. IM_COLD swap. IM_FIRE swap. Three reasons to use that as swap helmet. Makes single-element monsters much easier to handle.

Look at my rBlind swap... for my hobbit mage :(

the Flail 'Ivien' (7d6) (+13, +33) <+4>
Found lying on the floor at 1300 feet (level 26)

+4 wisdom
+4 dexterity
Slays undead (powerfully), demons.
Branded with weak lightning, weak cold.
Provides protection from blindness.
Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.

I would wait for an amulet of ESP and then start handling those, but yeah it qualifies as an excellent candidate for swapping.

Thats the main reason I dont like playing mages: if the weapon of the century turns up, he has little use for it.

I'm tempted to replay with this same randart set with a paladin or something just to use that flail, but I'd probably go the whole game without finding it. It triggered an 8 treasure feeling.

Look at the activation! Not a bug, just odd.
Fortunately only @ has access to deception. An Ancient Green Dragon suddenly breathing Lightning could lead to YASD.

For me it's a bug. Randarts should keep the activation from their base item if they have one.

Most standart dragon armors don't have default dragon armor activations either, so for that's consistent with that. So not a bug, but not necessarily wanted behavior either unless you can guarantee that this non-standard is better than standard.

The best find in my latest game was the helm below. The second best was not an artifact, but at L74 still a fantastic find that I kept all the way down.
I was playing Ironman so concerned about collecting enough healing for the final fight.
With early frost immunity from the helm it was not difficult, I probably ignored some 20-30 !Healing pots and *after* defeating Morgoth I still had a ridiculous amount left, 31 !Healing, 19 !*Healing*, 2 !Life.

(As you can see I had an off weapon slays animals)

a) the Great Axe of Turambal (4d4) (+8,+21) [+4] <+4>
Dropped by Shagrat, the Orc Captain at 1200 feet (level 24)

+4 wisdom.
+4 dexterity.
+4 stealth.
Slays dragons (powerfully), demons (powerfully), orcs, undead
(powerfully).
Branded with cold, fire.
Provides resistance to nether.
Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
Blessed by the gods. Prevents paralysis. Grants the ability to
see invisible things.

Combat info:
1.6 blows/round.
With +2 STR and +0 DEX you would get 2.0 blows
With +0 STR and +1 DEX you would get 2.0 blows
Average damage/round: 119.8 vs. creatures not resistant to cold,
119.8 vs. creatures not resistant to fire, 155.7 vs. dragons,
155.7 vs. demons, 119.8 vs. orcs, 155.7 vs. undead, and 83.9 vs.
others.

This one is noteworthy because it was the first artifact weapon I found and it upgraded my ht warriors trident of slay dragon which did 80 damage vs dragons. It is my first source of SI and stealth as well.
This generosity by the RN-God is not natural and will have to be paid for.

Double-branded, kill slays for big three, high base damage. That's near-endgame weapon. For endgame you want something with slay evil.

Got these two stinkers on my last character:

Nice crap for 4950ft drops...

How do you generate the spoiler file for a given save-game?

Using debug-mode. Warning, this renders char as cheater, and you get no score for that char.

ctrl-a " (" is the command to create spoilers).

Despite its name, it's quite nice for a spellcaster...

You can also generate spoilers from the death menu - I suspect that's how most people generate randart spoilers.

Been a while I've gotten a pair of cursed randart gloves... This is PWMAngband though, and those are clearly not suited for a spellcaster.

Not the best tohit/todam ever... but +2 ES on a heavy xbow is really nice.

How much AC can you get from a Crown?
 

I saw this artifact on the ground and got super excited. I thought it was sourced from a really deep art and had tons of value. Apparently, all the value was in the AC bonus.

I've had randart crowns in the past with nothing more than an AC boost. Or randart weapons with only tohit/todam boosts. Those are clearly marginally better than a "good" item, and clearly worse than any ego... No idea if randart generation will be rewritten someday, but it would be nice to ensure that artifacts get at least one extra ability besides tohit/todam/toac, even if it's something useless like feather falling.

Is that really horrible ? I find it amusing when I get one of those randarts. As long as there are bad randarts in the game, it doesnt matter in which way they are bad - they arent getting used anyway.

That crown by the op is perfectly fine, just not stellar. It has FA and pconf.

One of the big lessons we learned in the ego remix project that was part of v4 is that pluses are one of the better attributes weapons can get. Think about it: would you rather have a Mace (2d4) <+0, +0> with See Invisible, or a Mace (2d4) <+10, +10>? It's not remotely a straightforward choice (unless you're a mage). The fact is that in current Vanilla, ego items are always built "on top of" good items, so they get the pluses from the good item and then often get additional pluses on top of that. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but oftentimes the pluses overshadow the other abilities on the item.

Of course, for armor pluses are less relevant, because AC has less impressive effects.

Well combat pluses are always a huge deal on armor: even Gorlim is tempting to try, though I've never quite pulled it off.

I guess you mean you've always pulled it off :)

That's mostly because you have five slots for armor and one for weapon. If you would get all of your AC from just single item, then that AC would become pretty d*mn important.

You can sacrifice one piece of armor completely for other features if the rest still give you usable amount of AC. The way angband is made makes AC a side-effect of other armor features: when you have a good set of armor-related features, you also have good AC almost without exception.

Especially when you play a martial artist: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=16703

Nice! Gorlim AND Haradrim (and Vilya and Cambeleg too.)

I got a weapon with four out of five brands, along with *slay* demon and some others. It also activated for healing. Unfortunately it was only (2d6) (+10,+13). Putting on slays does not make that weapon more powerful. More powerful means it can do more than 220 damage per turn after the slays are applied.
Weapon power should be based on dice and max damage after slays; if it is only mediocre all the slays in the world don't make it more powerful.

The randart generator takes into account how much more powerful each brand makes the weapon, I believe including examining the monster list to say "okay, if this brand is added to this weapon, then it will do X bonus damage against Y additional enemies of respective power levels Z, that it didn't already do bonus damage to." In other words, the randart generator is perfectly aware that the marginal additional utility of an extra brand on a small-dice weapon is pretty small, so it doesn't assign much value to those brands when calculating the randart's power.

Which standart item it was based on? If that's not very powerful either, then that's perfectly OK, if it was something very powerful then not.

I never checked. But with heal as the activation, it could not be a minor artifact.

I like this (as a swap) because it is so simple:

Cloak of Maloki [1 +12]
Provides immunity to lightning, fire.

Sweet.

And this just seems wrong....

Long Bow of Tareth (x3) (+6 +15) (+1)

Slays dragons
Branded with poison
Immunity to acid

And it's activation is: makes you very hunger but restores strength and constitution.

The only fair thing about it is the lowish to hit/to dam.

That's a nice midlevel bow. Go kill Smaug and some Bile Wyrms.

OK, here's one.
a) the Rapier 'Farost' (5d6) (+16,+12) <+2>
Dropped by Akhorahil the Blind at 2550 feet (level 51)
+2 strength.
+2 speed.
+2 attack speed.
Slays trolls, giants, undead (powerfully), demons (powerfully),
evil creatures, orcs.
Branded with weak fire, weak poison, acid.
Provides resistance to lightning.
Cannot be harmed by acid.
Blessed by the gods. Prevents paralysis.

When activated, it restores your constitution.
Takes 155 to 190 turns to recharge at your current speed.
Your chance of success is 91.4%

Combat info:
7.5 blows/round.
With +0 STR and +2 DEX you would get 7.8 blows
This weapon may benefit from one or more off-weapon brands or
slays.
Average damage/round: 505 vs. creatures not resistant to fire, 505
vs. creatures not resistant to poison, 644.7 vs. creatures not
resistant to acid, 644.7 vs. trolls, 644.7 vs. giants, 924.8 vs.
undead, 924.8 vs. demons, 505 vs. evil creatures, 644.7 vs. orcs,
924.8 vs. undead, and 364.6 vs. others.

Bit of a step up from Halberd of Westernesse

That one is sweet; especially as found with a warrior who can get 6 base blows with it. Now enjoy the rest of your run :D
The activation can be useful too if you dont forget about it the way I usually do.

the Mattock 'Lingrin' (6d8) (+10,+40) [+34] <-10>
-------------------------------------------------
-10 strength.
-10 intelligence.
-10 wisdom.
-10 dexterity.
-10 constitution.
-10 stealth.
-10 infravision.
-10 tunneling.
-10 speed.
Slays orcs, demons (powerfully), giants, animals, dragons (powerfully), trolls,
evil creatures, undead (powerfully).
Branded with lightning, fire, acid, poison, cold.
Provides immunity to frost.
Provides resistance to acid, lightning, fire, light, sound, shards, chaos,
disenchantment.
Provides protection from blindness.
Blessed by the gods. Slows your metabolism. Speeds regeneration. Prevents
paralysis. Grants telepathy. Grants the ability to see invisible things.

When activated, it allows you to breathe the elements for 250 damage.
Takes 164 to 240 turns to recharge.
Your chance of success is 71.7%


Min Level 50, Max Level 127, Generation chance 5, Power 310, 20.2 lbs
Based on Dor-Lómin.

If I had Morgoth´s crown and a RoS +20, I´d probably use this.

Based on Dor-Lomin and gets positive power rating with that bad stat, speed etc. penalties?? Something is wrong with randart generator. That should be far in negative rating.

My arbitrary count of points / ability gives that around -400. -700 from speed and stats, +300 from resistances, immunity, slays/brands and big dice & damage.

That's the problem with the randart generator: it took the only negative modifier (-1 to stealth) to generate its pval, overcharged the negative value (since only positive values trigger power/inhibit checks), then overcompensated with a ton of positive stuff to reach the desired power.