Randart plans

[Sky]

hmmm.. thats not how the secretary rule works. it's so irelevant here that i'm not sure how you imagined it would work as a comparison.
and the problem isn't clearing vaults after you have found too many weapons, it's when you haven't found any major endgame weapon - no hammer, no axe, no ringil, no trident .. and all the game can do for you, at DL95, is throw out an artefact which is immediately squelched.
the very choice of words, "endgame", is because a player would want to have endgame gear in the endgame, but as of now, this gear is too rare to ever show up, specifically, the aforementioned weapons plus fundin's, eowin, doomcaller, deathwreacker, cubragol, essentially all the artifacts over power 300 will rarely show up *even* if you reach the lowest levels and then GRIND.
just to be clear, i take practically every character to morgoth, regardless of how many times it dies - i just dont upload it to the board. these artifacts just never show, i've never found ringil or the one ring, once in maybe 100 games i got feanor's, never once bladeturner, eonwe twice.
now, consider instead a game where a couple of these show up, yet - unknown to you - a solid portion of the artifact pool is not in the game. maybe, you could be missing the arkenstone, which drops pretty much every game. you balance the extra endgame weapons by not having other useful artifacts and some extra danger from OODs. but, at least you get, as a player, to play with some cool gear in every game, instead of making it a once-a-year thing.

[jevansau]

Putting the data out to text files doesn't seem to have any negatives.
I quite like the idea of throwing in a few randart/standarts into the mix.
I do wonder if making artifacts a bit more common, but restricting their available depth more would lead to more of a progression.

[Grotug]

It's a logical idea, but the "you never know what you're gonna get" aspect of Angband is a large part of what brings me back again and again. For example, my latest @ found a RoS under a pile of rubble at 950' on a 3 feeling level. I personally think the unpredictability of what item will show up at what depth balanced with it not being completely random is what keeps Angband fresh.

[Pete Mack]

Your definition of 'endgame strong' is a bit stringent. I end up using a HA or +2 attacks bug dice weapon about half the time, not to mention occasional uses of Eorlingas and other good but not great weapons. Getting Ringil, Aule, Deathwreaker etc is supposed to be a big deal, not something you can rely on.

[PowerWyrm]

Originally Posted by Nick

Currently there are 137 artifacts. I plan to add a few more, maybe 13 to get it up to a nice round number.

But I am not planning to design 13 new artifacts. The plan is

• If you play with the standard artifact set, there will be 13 randomly generated artifacts as well;
• If you play with randarts, there will be a small random selection (maybe 13 again) of the standard artifacts which will appear.

Meh.

1) There are base items without artifacts. And there are base items with cursed/mixed/aggro artifacts. The result is this list:
- MHDSM (Razorback -- aggro)
- Iron Crown (Beruthiel -- mixed)
- Heavy Crossbow (Umbar -- aggro)
- Scythe of Slicing
- Mace of Disruption (Deathwreaker -- aggro)
- Lead-Filled Mace
- Whip (Gothmog -- aggro)
- Blade of Chaos (Doomcaller -- aggro)
- War Hammer
- Maul
- Awl-Pike
- Sling
- Shovel
- Pair of Leather Sandals
- Pair of Iron Shod Boots
- Pair of Ethereal Slippers
- Robe
- Studded Leather Armour
- Metal Scale Mail
- Bar Chain Mail
- Partial Plate Armour
- Metal Lamellar Armour
- Ribbed Plate Armour
- Fur Cloak
- Set of Mithril Gauntlets
- Set of Alchemist's Gloves
- all other DSMs except Power and Balance

If you want to add 13 more artifacts, just pick 13 of these base items and add an artifact for them. There are examples of already designed ones (check PWMAngband for example).

2) With randart game you don't want to see Paurs and Thancs. If you have more arts available, you just need to randomize them...

[fph]

I would appreciate seeing some early- and mid-game artifact jewelry. Currently artifact rings and amulets only arrive quite far in the game.

Nothing overpowered of course but it would add some variability to the early game.

[Derakon]

Artifact ring with rBase showing up in the ~500-1000' range. Artifact amulet with +1 all stats showing up slightly later. How's that?

[Antoine]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Artifact ring with rBase showing up in the ~500-1000' range. Artifact amulet with +1 all stats showing up slightly later. How's that?

Positively diabloesque
A.

[fph]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Artifact ring with rBase showing up in the ~500-1000' range. Artifact amulet with +1 all stats showing up slightly later. How's that?

I like the idea of the amulet. For the ring, rBase feels a bit meh, but I guess that's what needed the most at that depth.
Another stat I'd like to see on an early-game artifact is See Invisible.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by PowerWyrm

If you want to add 13 more artifacts, just pick 13 of these base items and add an artifact for them.

What I was actually looking at doing was giving the option for standarts vs randarts to be less of a binary choice; I may do this anyway independent of other considerations (via a settable constant).

I'm planing to repurpose this thread to ask questions as I do the randart update. Here are the first two:

• Are there some existing artifacts that should be removed (there certainly do seem to be a lot of Paur* gauntlets)?
• What do people think of "off-type" properties - slays, brands on non-melee-weapons, extra shots on non-bows, etc ?