• Developers Corner
• 3.0.0 Artifacts

In ToME3 I want a completly new artifacts list, with much less useless ones. Each artifact should be special in its own way, not always all powerfull but always provide something special over the other items(OR just be overly powerful compared to them).

For now there are only a few of them:

• the glowing phial of Galadriel: the good old phial ..

• the arkenstone of Thrain: both a powerful lightsource and an auto-charging gemstone that can power magic devices. When used as a gemstone it fires an exlposion of light when used
• the one ring: a sentient artifact that gains exp and powers
• the magestaff of absorption: absorbs monsters spell levels and stores them, allowing the player to later release them in one mighty spell cast
• the dagger of the taxidermist: useless melee damage, but forces corpse drop when used to kill a monster
• the dagger Narthanc: same old leveling dagger
• the dragon scale mail of Glaurung: mage armor, when a spell is cast wearing it(and it is properly socketed with a gemstone) it can sometimes drain the spell's mana from the gemstone instead of the player's mana, effectively providing a free spell
• the portable hole amulet: contains an extra storage space

We need more ideas, go on!

Elvis: (hope nobody minds me starting here, but there is no place to start and be seen down there) i want an artifact hammer that does do not much damage, but has a very high chance (every 3rd hit?) to throw an anemy a few meter away (perhaps into other enemys or a wall if not too far away), confuse the enemy, stun him a short time or ...

NeilStevens:

• the sword Ringil: Come on, we HAVE to have the sword that injured Morgoth!
• the shards of Narsil/Anduril: AND the one that defeated Sauron last time!
  • Thought: This one should be the levelling sword? Reasoning being that it has to regain its old power after being reforged.
• some mage staff of Saruman : the levelling one, acquired in some isengard-related quest
• Olorin's staff: the Ringil of mage staves, once we rewrite Ringil to be the best sword again
• Some famous dragon's eye, as an artifact gem (possibly also wearable as an amulet: replace Toris Mejistos?)

  • ZasVid: Silmarili would make wonderful artifact gems (also wearable as amulets).

    LordEstraven: I'm thinking Anduril should increase your charisma a lot, and give you the power to charm, stun, and/or frighten monsters. Also, should have automatic frightening effect on hit for any evil monster. And perhaps give some degree of resistance to Black Breath, ala hobbits...

    ElvishPillager: I'm thinking: Big plus to-hit, plus to-ac, big plus to CHR, plus to STR, fire brand, slay orc, slay troll, slay evil, and cause fear. And that's probably enough. (hmm... it seems that ";)" sometimes turns into an image and sometimes doesn't) I'm really going to need to pore through Tolkien for more though...

    LordEstraven: Fire brand isn't canon IIRC, "Flame of the West" was figurative. The slays sound right though.

    ElvishPillager: I also forgot to mention that it provides light (which it DEFINITELY does.) It's definitely a magic sword; how figurative can it be?

Orvin:

• IdeaArchive/Items/New Artifact: The Dwarven Pick of Thrain: not overly powerful, but quite different from current artifacts and somewhat thematic.

• homage to The Hobbit: an artifact that creates a special light that turns non-unique trolls into stone
• Bag End: an artifact home! like a normal home, plus it has an additional inventory list -- the pantry -- that restocks itself regularly with nutritious thematic food that acts like various curative, healing potions -- could be a quest reward
• Radagast's Brown Robe: 1) acts like Feathers Cloak as if Mimicry skill=50, 2) boosts Monster-lore to 50 when dealing with pets or companions that are birds, 3) activates for Summon Animal as if Nature=50, only summons birds, 4) gives you a Stealth ability level of 30 (maximum) when in terrain with vegetation
• Horn of Rohan: this is one of the prominent items in the books, and I think it should be improved and made more useful in ToME3 -- activate to stun monsters in a large radius? activate to summon friendly Rohirrim to fight your enemies?

  • ElvishPillager: Is this the Horn of Helm Hammerhand to which you refer? If so, I just duplicated it in my section, sorry...

    Orvin: I am suggesting an update of the current Spoilers/Artifacts/Horn of Rohan

RavenRed:

• Orcrist and Glamdring - Biter and Beater are absolute necessities, and should be orc-cleavers of the highest calibre. Possibly an orc-specific fear effect when they hit one?
• Sting - should be a relatively minor artifact, but still very handy. (and should be a daggerish weapon rather than a sword-ish one)
• Mithril Chainmail of Frodo - High protection, low weight and maybe regen. Gimli mentioned that it was worth a kingdom, and although some of that may be dwarvish hyperbole, it should still be exceedingly valueable.

  • ZasVid: Of Bilbo!

    • Keekooceeaou: Of Baggins!

• Elven Rings - More of a question, SHOULD these be artifacts? Vilya and Nenya are held by Elrond and Galadriel respectively and should most definitely not be randomly generated. We can play around with the plot so that you COULD get one as a quest reward... and for mine, they should be extremely powerful arts, giving big school bonuses (Fire for Narya, Air and Nature for Vilya, Time and Water for Nenya) and stat boosts (HP and SP multipliers, for example). Wearing one of these should change the game...

  • FedericoOdorizzi: Should they actually be wearable? If I remember well the three were hid when Sauron forged the One and were used again only after Isildur lost the Ring. Of course if nobody's wearing the One there is no problem... for the same reason I have a doubt about the Plot: if Gollum has it and he is being in Dol Guldur why the Necromancer/Sauron doesn't take it? (Maybe I understood something wrong from the plot?)

• Ent-Draught of Treebeard - Artifact potion giving a 4 pt perm boost to both STR and CON and a HP bonus (possibly with a smaller perm decrease in WIS and INT). IIRC, Merry and Pippin were permenantly changed by imbibing it.

  • ElvishPillager: Treebeard made many ent-draughts; they were a regular drink among the ents. IMHO, it should simply be a reasonably rare potion that increases both STR and CON, and possibly the not-so-meaningful height stat (they both became quite tall, for hobbits...)

    • LordEstraven: How about we replace stat potions with ent draughts? They could increase one or two random stats...

ElvishPillager:

• ANGRIST! The ultimate knife that Beren used to cut the Silmaril from Morgoth's crown, it can cut through iron like butter! Any rogue or knife-wielder should absolutely love to get this weapon!
• Saruman's Palantir! IIRC, four were lost, one was corrupted by Sauron, and one was wasted by Denethor, but the one Saruman kept is again usable after the end of LotR.
• The Horn in the Hills Ringing (I can't resist calling it that) - the horn Aragorn blows to call the Oathbreakers to war. It would auto-ressurect enemy corpses to serve you. Or maybe activate for control undead.
• The Horn of Helm Hammerhand - activates once in a while for trying to scare (and maybe stun a little) all nearby monsters, and causing heroism.
• The mace of the Nazgul leader - fills you with the black breath, but is an excellent powerful mace, maybe with vampirism or something.
• The shield of Fingolfin - "A blue shield set with crystals" - probably stereotypically gives cold immunity, plus other stuff
• The Gilded Dwarf-Mask of Turin - "and he put it on before battle, and his enemies fled before his face."
• The Golden Shield of Theoden - another one of those items that strikes fear in the Orcs

ZasVid:

• the some-kind-of-sword Gurthang - in place of the old Mormegil (maybe merged with old Gurthang), a sword for Unbelievers.
• the sword Anguirel - crafted from meteorite iron, the sword of Eol carries no silly curses, cutting through iron and stone instead. Fit the niche occupied before by Vorpal Blade - deadly blade, but nothing else.
• the spear Aeglos - Gil-Galad's spear - the Ringil of polearms.
• the whip of Gothmog - less cursed, more powerful. Useful blunt weapon.
• the black axe of Gothmog - as above. Axe. If you want, add Burning Halberd of Gothmog - and here you go, three useful (if slightly cursed, but remember - slightly!) weapons of non-sword categories.
• the sword Aranruth - Thingol's sword must be in too, come on.
• the gray cloak of Thingol - as his cloak. this probably should be the Ringil of cloaks.
• the dwarven necklace Nauglamir - with a silmaril or without, still should be made interesting.
• the golden crown of Gondor - carry it over from old version. Should work ok.
• the shield of Fingolfin - read the chapter about his fight with Morgy and tell me that it shouldn't be put in.
• the dagger 'Angrist' - give it some unique quality. Maybe the taxidermist one? Other ideas: it deals small damage, but always hits. Bypasses any armor effects. Deadly when thrown.
• the bow 'Belthronding' - bow of Beleg, a must-in for archers.
• the chain 'Angainor' - the chain that bound Morgoth twice, excellent for pummeling your opponents.
• the axe 'Dramborleg' - the favoured weapon of Tuor reinforces the weak number of axes in the game.
• sceptres of Annuminas and Numenor - tokens of power for Dunedain and Numenoreans, as tools or blunt weapons.
• the Elfstone Elessar - carry it over from old version.
• the ring of Thrór - the last of the Dwarven Rings of Power could take a place as excellent mixed blessing artifact.
• some of the Palantiri - should go in too, but maybe not cursed this time? Also could be more powerful - artifact worthy.
• Elendilmir and Star of Elendil - the royal gems of Arnor - another two excellent artifact gems.
• the pearl 'Nimphelos' - as a gem/light source.
• the Dragon Helm of Dor-Lomin - definitely must be in and much more powerful than before, as this was the helm of Turin and Azaghal and Maedhros and Fingon and Hador.

BitsySpider

• Aiglos, mostly because it's a well known spear (i.e. not-a-sword). For "uniqueness" maybe give it the ability to freeze enemies? (code as a copy-paste of a stun effect, but ineffective against frost resistant monsters).
• White Robe of Saruman gives bonus to divination
• Grey Robe of Mithrandir gives bonus to fire
• Black Robe of Sauron gives bonus to udun
• Brown Robe of Radagast gives bonus to nature
• Blue Robe of the Brothers gives bonus to magic (? I can't remember what the Blues were known for)
• Trident of Ulmo (again, a not-a-sword). For "uniqueness" it could grant breathe water, or maybe an ability to channel water into attacks (like Geomancers do). Either that or just give a bonus to the water school.
• Black Mace of the Witch-King (the one he uses at Pelennor) would be an extremely powerful mace (drain life, lots of slays, cold damage, the usual), but you would have to be wearing one of the nine or the one or be in wraith form to equip it (set it up so that if you attempt to attack it drops to the floor before attacks are "rolled" so people can leave it equipped if they're just casting wraithform when they want to fight)
• Black Arrow (of Bard) should have a chance to instantly slay a dragon (a la Touch of Death ability: xp is nerfed). Or maybe give it the chance to slay anything (other than p and P and undead), but if it does it disappears and can be found again as if it had never spawned.

• Glamdring and Orcrist should be in the game, if only for nostalgia. Make Glamdring give a bonus to the Weaponmastery skill such that if WM < 30, WM = 30 and make it a melee weapon for wizards who want to dabble in the old hack-slash hack-slash. Orcrist could, along with the usual slaying of goblinoids, also behave as a glyph of warding when dropped on the floor (i.e. the act of dropping Orcrist from inventory creates a glyph, picking it up destroys the glyph).

  • Atarlost: I found something niteresting in the original Lay of the Children of Hurin. Beleg is using magic to beef his sword before cutting Turin's bonds and mentions lots of weapons. No maces and for some reason no axes, and we don't need swords, but he mentions several polearms and a dagger as well.

• Ogbar's Spear (no description given)
• the Glaive of Gaurin (described as cutting through stone)
• the Dirk of Nargil ("the knife of the north in Nogrod smithied")
• Celeg Aithorn (described as both a Sickle and Falchion: "the sweeping sickle of the slashing tempest, the lambent lightning's leaping falchion even Celeg Aithorn that shall cleave the world")

The last in particular sounds like an endgame grade polearm.

• LordEstraven: Nice, not sure Gurthang should have antimagic though. It should be extremely damaging and have a huge minus to luck. And perhaps it should increase your chances of getting fates, bad ones in particular.

More later.

• NeilStevens: I disagree with Orcrist and Glamdring, because we can only have so many artifact swords, and those are relatively weak if they're orc killers. Even in the new monster list, orcs are going to be earlier in the game than trolls, dragons, balrogs, etc.

  • RavenRed: True, but they'll still be tougher, and more dangerous for longer during the game. And they're "core" artifact swords, directly mentioned in the books... which swords would you put above them, apart from Anduril and Ringil?

    NeilStevens: OK I just checked, and I can see having Glamdring in, but not as some mere orc cleaver. Gandalf says it was worn by the King of Gondolin, so if it's good enough for Turgon, it's good enough for me.

    • ZasVid: They don't necessarily must be 'mere' orc cleavers. They may (and really should) have other interesting powers. Make Glamdring have more of them and Orcrist have more orc-killer aspect, like maybe some *KILL*_ORC qualities. Maybe some levelling, giving him an 'orc-only genocide' power later on? Damaging orcs in a radius on hitting? That would be at least unique and quite nice in later stages of the game as a way to get rid of those pesky little orcs standing in the way.

      ElvishPillager: Glamdring is a must - It lights up the place, kills orcs, fights Balrogs, and it was even worn by Turgon? Quite impressive. It should be worthy of the name "Foe-hammer". Orcrist on the other hand is weaker and more silly - I remember one of the dwarves talking about Thorin "swinging here and there and everywhere with Orcrist", and later it goes on to be stuck in the ground over Thorin's grave, and glowing whenever there was a threat to the kingdom (a reasonable excuse to leave it out, too.)

    Neil: That raises questions though: How many artifacts of each weapon type do we want, remembering that while swords are easy to find, coming up with good artifacts of other types may be harder?

    • ZasVid: True, but I think we can allow *a bit* more swords than other weapons, because only warriors care about weapon category - the rest of the classes just take the better weapon. So a few swords here and there won't hurt the non-sword-weapon-masters that much, especially if we provide them worthy weapons.

      NeilStevens: We already tried that in ToME 2, and people hated it. Also don't forget that in 3, Rogues, not warriors, will be the knife specialists. And if we give someone the old bladed weapon penalty, they'll care too. So no, no, no weapon inequality. The game mechanics have to come first. As far as I'm concerned, some people will just have to give up their favorite in-theme swords, because there are just too many period.

      ZasVid: Enh, people hated it because artifact non-swords (all balled together) barely outnumbered artifact swords(by 5 - FIVE - exactly) I'm not talking this kind of ratio. I think that a situation with swords being the most numerous category is bearable if there's at most 3:2 ratio with the thinniest category. This way it doesn't disrupt the balance noticeably and it doesn't cause outcry from theme-oriented players (me! me!). Besides there's only 11 in-theme swords (more if you count different reforgings of them). I think that we can make enough other weapons to not make this a problem?

      • NerdanelVampire: As I have said before, the rarity setting is made for that kind of thing! In Zothiqband I replaced the quasit (rarity 2) with six variant demons. To keep the approximate balance intact, I had four of the demons be rarity 4 and two of them rarity 5. This adds up to an overall rarity 2 for the bunch, as rarity x means a frequency of 1/2^x. So if there is a rarity 3 polearm and two rarity 4 swords, both the polearm and a sword (either one of the two) are equally likely to be generated. (The situation with artifact weapons is somewhat more complex than with monsters, as both the rarity of the base type and the specific artifact need to be taken into account, but the principle is the same.)

        NeilStevens: Not quite. Given how the item generation system works, a bias in the item list will still cause the items we're biased in favor of to have more opportunities to be generated. All a rarity change does is make it harder for them to pass the check; it doesn't make them get checked less. Let's just take no chances and treat all weapon types equally. I've already rewritten the base weapon type list; there's no excuse not to proceed with this.

        NerdanelVampire: Correct me if I'm wrong, but if item group A is checked for generation twice as often as item group B, but A passes the generation check only half as often as B, don't A and B end up getting generated just as often? What's wrong with this picture?

        NeilStevens: Sometimes item generation will bypass those checks, such as in the case of rewards, I'm pretty sure. It's just safer and easier on everyone to keep them equal.

    Neil: One thing though: Being good for "longer" isn't good enough for an artifact, I say. I believe ANY artifact should be good enough to be beaten only by another artifact, so it should be endgame worthy.

    ShrikeDeCil: If 'ANY artifact is end-game worthy', that directly causes some specific things. If Bilbo had picked up an 'End Game Worthy (EGW)' dagger-sword in Sting, then it would have changed the darn books. The very _least_ way in which it would affect the flow would be Gandalf giving a half-hour spiel on artifacts. Leveling 'fixes' that, but this is sort of heading towards 'Ok, so... everything levels?' _or_ 'Ok, so you found your second artifact on level 98'. And for non-weapons, there isn't 'leveling', right? So artifact armor is EGW _immediately_? In a world set up like this, what might I do when Sauron sends the Nazgul after Bilbo/Frodo? How many artifacts is 'The Fellowship of the Ring' carrying around with them anyway? They sure see a lot on the trip, yet no one is saying/intimating/or even looking longingly at, say, Elessar. "Gosh, could we _borrow_ that? It would make a serious impact on our parties's strength, and you're leaving anyway..." I don't remember anywhere where the party detoured to find any specific object. Which they may well do in a world where there's a fair number of known artifacts, and those same items have EGW powers. It makes a lot more sense (to me) that an artifacts full EGW powers are _not_ available at first. No one asked about Elessar because part of the magic is the tie between the item and the wielder. Sure maybe Galdalf could use it... after 1000 years of practice it might even work as well for him. A second elven ring - same issue. So any artifact that the party 'borrowed' would be 'good-to-excellent', but far from EGW. They'd still be doomed to hiding and sneaking their way southeast.

    • NeilStevens: ToME is a game, not a re-enactment of the Lord of the Rings. ZasVid: May I point out that characters from LotR didn't have the 'Middle-Earth artifact spoiler' at hand when they were travelling, so they wouldn't knew what items could be useful without *identifying* them - and they didn't have any scrolls? Also, why wouldn't Sting be end-game worthy? It was enough for Frodo and Sam to beat Sauron. Besides, end-game worthy doesn't necessarily mean 'allowing genocide of millions of dragons and demons'.

    ElvishPillager: shrike, you have to remember that none of the members of the Fellowship is a level 50 character, either, who can beat Morgoth in a duel. There are some things that we simply can't carry over from LotR or anywhere. Speaking of EGW artifacts, there's the phial, the mithril chainmail, Anduril, and the One Ring, and probably some others I've missed. Meanwhile, the Elessar doesn't do much of anything in the books (we're practically making up all its powers) and gandalf's staff is mainly just a staff.

    That said, I agree with your actual suggestions. (Also, I don't think Sting should be an artifact... it's just an ego-item "Elven Short Sword" )

  As for the Elven Rings, I want them in there very badly. The sheer number of bonuses and powers they give NOW is pretty game changing I think, starting with immunity. I think we ought to make sure other rings don't compete, which means Flare should not be ported over directly, though. As for Sting: I wonder if we should drop Narthanc and make IT the levelling knife in the game.

  • RavenRed: Count me on the Sting bandwagon, certainly. With the elven rings, would you see them as set rewards or random-find artefacts?

    NeilStevens: Either way would work for me. As quest rewards we can make them tough to get, but on the other hand that makes them guaranteed, and takes away some of the thrill.

    ZasVid: Yeah, Sting is better for being 'the' dagger than Narthanc (mainly because Sting was in the books, and *Thancs not exactly). As for Elven Rings, being a quest reward is taking away a lot of thrill from an artifact - so:

    • have a class of weaker (though by no means weak) artifacts as quest rewards - Orcrist or Glamdring fine, Ringil and Anduril bad (this way, the 'weaker' ones are endgame material, because you always get them and you may not randomly get the better ones.
    • randomize quest rewards! : you do a quest for an Elven ring, you get one, but randomly chosen from the Three. This can be coupled with the above one too (quest that gives you either Glamdring or Orcrist, depending on the whim of RNG).

      • NeilStevens: No offense, but I absoltuely despise the idea of having deliberately weakened artifacts. WE already have a class of items below artifact. Make ego items the rewards for your quests if that's what you want. Think of the Eol and Spider quest rewards, for example.

        ZasVid: Well, yeah, you make much more sense. So, artifacts fixed as quest rewards = bad (please no more Maedhros, no more Maedhros). Though the randomized reward idea may work. Is it worth to put it in the ideas section?

DarkGod: AHAHAH I love the artifact house one, funny IMO an artifact doesnt need to be all powerful and superior to anything else, but it needs to be either very unique OR overly powerful. Like the portable hole amulet, it is not something people will wear forever, bu they will keep it with them forever because it brings a power nothing else can bring.

Also we should make sure to not fall in the nethack-syndrome of endgame-kit, that is by making only one or two great artifact of each type we are bound to see most lvl 50 characters wearing them for the last sauron battle.

• ZasVid: Exactly. It's worse to have one useful artifact than to have two useful and 1000 useless ones. Though the best is to aim for quite a lot of useful ones, heh.

  NeilStevens: Of course, but ANY artifact should be endgame worthy, I say. I think it'd be absurd if we went to all this trouble and ended up with garbage artifacts all over again, ones that people find and discard.

  KhymChanur: But if any artifact is endgame worthy, wouldn't that make artifacts too powerful to be found early in the game? Hmmm, there could be artifacts sets that are endgame worthy, but the individual pieces of each set aren't endgame worthy and can be found early in the game; if you're lucky, you can find all the pieces to a set while still in the early phase of the game and get a big boost.

  NeilStevens: Yes, it would make artifacts too powerful to be found early in the game. The way I see it, early in the game an ego item should be an exciting find, and mid game an artifact should be an exciting find. When you're scooping up artifacts by the bucketful in the Orc Cave, ToME loses some excitement it could have. As for sets, I think it's a nifty idea, but it runs the risk of creating a fixed "winner's kit" that DG wants to avoid.

  ReenenLaurie: (I know I'm not a developer, but as an idea) How about synergies between artifacts... not *sets* per se, but just, every other artifact you have, gives each of the other's a possible bonus. So any combination of 5 or 6 artifacts would basically cover all your bases, and then you could play around with the different combinations. This could be randomly generated at the start of each game (removes ultimate set vibe) or hard-coded to make it less uber.

  NeilStevens: That would drive players mad as they had to try every possible combination of equipment in order to see what combination is best. They'd have to TRY them because it would no longer be possible to look and see what gives you what. So I think it's an impractical idea.

ZasVid: And now for a completely different issue: couldn't we have some nice names for things like the dagger of the taxidermist and mage staff of absorption? Such generic, 'function' names are a bit less interesting than Weapon of Whoever or Weapon 'Quenyaname'. My ideas include: Mage Staff of Ithryn Luin, Dagger of Beleg (he was a hunter after all).

• Anonymous: Ah, should I say, I don't like the taxidermist idea itself. Of course I do love unique items to be unique, but I'm sure the dagger surely will even more fixate your way of playing, especially as posessors. It's just too unique in its unique way, and all the others will be 'useless'. 1. Search desperately for the daggar and find it 2. Kill a desired unique monster 3. And then you are a terrible and powerful monster literally, and it's almost guaranteed 4. And then kill Morgoth. That's it. And no more point onto 'Corpse Preservation' too!

  DarkGod: Mhh good point actually ...

  NeilStevens: You make it sound like 'Kill a desired unique monster' is such an easy task, when it's not. You still have to get yourself to that point, and you still have to get the weapon first. Both tasks will require incremental improvmeents to skills and possessed bodies. But yes, the big reason to have it is so that people don't lose their one (or two) shots at a particular unique because of bad luck. The weapon I Think fills a role of adding fun to the game that way. If you're lucky enough to get it: you get to have any body you want from that point on.

  Orvin: I like the idea of taxidermy, but wonder whether it might be more fun implemented in a non-weapon-based way as follows: in the game, there is a shopkeeper somewhere called the taxidermist, who, for a fee, will accompany you on your adventures. 1) If he dies, he never returns (the shop closes). 2) If he is in LOS of a kill, he offers, for a fee depending on the monster level, to do his thing and preserve the corpse for you. So, if you manage to bring him to your battle with the desired unique, keep him alive, and have enough money, you can get that corpse. However, if he dies, you will never have this opportunity again.

KeithStevens: On the Rings of Power(3 Elven, 7 for the Dwarves, 9 for Human, One Ring), for whatever rings finally make it to the end, someone should only be able to wear one of them at a time. I haven't seen or recalled any instance of anyone wearing or using more than 1 at a time. I understand for game play, this may make some race classes that wear only rings in some modules harder to play, but personally I think this gives the player a little to think about as to what to wear. Of course the player could change rings, if they can take the old ring off...

ElvishPillager: Frodo offered the One Ring to Galadriel. If she'd accepted it she'd have been wearing two rings of power, so ha. :P

On leveling weapons

NeilStevens: My thought is to have one leveling weapon for each type (knives, swords, hafteds, axes, polearms) that is made available through a quest. So maybe there'd be a side dungeon in Barad-Dur, for example, where the shards of Narsil would be acquired (hey, we don't follow Tolkien 100% in plot, so why not?)

• LordEstraven: Hmm. I tend to think Gurthang/Anglachel would be more appropriate as a leveling weapon, being clearly sentient in the Silmarillion. Shouldn't have any stat pluses or such though, just gain killing power. For polearms, maybe Aeglos? Or a revamped Spear of Melkor, perhaps. Axes... Tuor's axe Dramborleg should work, if Wikipedia is to be believed. Hafted I'm not so sure about; maces and the like don't get a great many mentions in the Silm, apparently. There is Grond, but that's not randomly generated (and I personally don't think it should be leveling).

  Orvin: What about a quest reward that turns a non-artifact weapon of the player's choice into a leveling weapon?

ShrikeDeCil This isn't 'leveling' precisely, but there are several fundamental reasons why so many of the current artifacts end up in the junk shop. In the mid & endgame, the current Artifacts 'pluses' tend to be swamped by what you can get out of non-artifacts. Yet you can't 'fix' the artifact's lowly +5 without massive effort...

• NeilStevens: Well that's why we're not going to have weak artifacts like that, and why egos will be designed to be below artifacts.

and even so it will be excruciating to pass, say, +11. Boosting 'Enchant', '*Enchant*', adding another layer, or reducing the _extra_ difficulty of enchanting artifacts would all help. Another facet could be a different _type_ of 'leveling' for artifacts. Call it 'attunement'. You pick the sword up, you know it rocks, you wield it. After 50,000 turns "Your understanding of your weapon grows" -> +2,+2, [+2] or whatever. Or, heck, 'your weapon is now a frost brand in addition to the other powers'. Unlike 2.3's 'leveling', the 'attunement' could be marching down a pre-set path. The One Ring _immediately_ grants invisibility. And quickly grants 'detect ringwraith'. And somewhere in here "grants" detected-from-Mordor. But... it should _eventually_ grant 'control Ringwraith'. Just not immediately. So Greater Identify would say 'You can become invisible with this ring, this ring can be used to detect ringwraiths, this ring can be detected by Sauron, this ring can control Ringwraiths'. Note that the only part that's _active_ is the first part - you can become invisible. A third way could be to have the craftsmen in towns able to boost or enhance artifacts. The current limits on craftsmen make them (still cool but) less than useful - as I almost always m wearing equipment better than the craftsmen can make for me, even for a pile o treasure.

• DragonAtma Why not add an Artifact Lore skill? Investing points in it will increase the power of artifacts, be necessary to unlock their various powers, and also (in the spirit of Pseudo-ID) make powers reveal themselves quicker. That'll solve both the "My spear of Westernesse blows away this artifact!" problem and the "One glance at this artifact lets me use ALL of its powers!" problem!

ElvishPillager: Quite nice idea there. I could see it being useful for the One Ring, and the Palantir, and the staff of Mithrandir (which IMHO should be totally ineffectual at first - it's not like you can pick up a staff that just happened to have been used by a Wizard, and get more powerful right away) but on the other hand, I don't get how that works on, for example, a sword.

KitaKita: Reminds me of my Belivers class idea...

On power and rarity

NeilStevens: Here are highlights of an IRC discussion on the matter:

• DarkGod: We should maybe throw a few earlier on, that are better than the egos of that level, to give people the thrill of "WOH AN ARTIFACT!"

  NeilStevens: You don't think the new ego items will be that interesting?

  DarkGod: I have no worries about egos. It's the you know, feeling of finding something very rare, which is why the game and especially the early game should clearly not be littered with them, but have maybe one or 2 here and there.

  NeilStevens: if you're going to put in a few mid-range artifacts for the thrill I suggest making NONE of them guaranteed since that cancels out the whole effect

  NeilStevens: hey wait didn't you want to put in a few oddball artifacts like the portable hole? Maybe THOSE should be the midrange ones

  DarkGod: Actually all this is invalid for the "specially unique" artifacts, like the portable hole and such; since they do not actually replace other items but give something else they could be found earlier (well some)

  DarkGod: ahah great minds think alike

  NeilStevens: yeah this'll work if we both thought of it

  DarkGod: Speaking of arts, we pondered how to get the elven rings of power, I was thiking maybe galadriel could hand over Vilya when the one rnig is destroyed, to help player on his last battle.

  NeilStevens: ooh then maybe a quest from gandalf to earn narya. Well, not 'then', actually 'before'. That can be the guaranteed fire immunity for Mount Doom.

And from there the discussion turned to plot.

Endgame Worth, Startgame Worth

Why not give the Artifacts a % bonus on attack, attributes ...? this way weapons can be helpfull in the beginning of the game and the last few minutes also when you have everything maxed out.

ShrikeDeCil I was thinking about the dramatic reduction in the number and frequency of Artifacts (and elimination of randarts), and figured out what bothered me about it. It isn't really the damage or resists that are the best part, it is that Artifacts can have exceptionally cool activations. But (as an unneeded side-effect) since it is "An Artifact", it is _also_ immune to normal damage, resistant to theft and disenchantment, resistant to _en_chantment, and unique.

What if the the bulk of these items did _not_ have the full set of Artifact invulnerabilities & etc? That is, the code generates normal items, good items, great items, and special items - but turn "special items" from "just Artifacts" into "miscellaneous items _and_ the occasional Artifact." The items that are real true Artifacts would need to have extra (currently non-existant) FLAGS, like 'UNSTEALABLE' or 'HARD_TO_ENCHANT' or whatever.

But this means that the code that currently generates artifacts could be used to generate interesting things that are _not_ end game worthy... but also aren't invulnerable, and could be quite interesting. There are a lot of ideas around, many listed on this page, that are interesting items. But a fair number don't seem like they should be "Artifacts". That word implies the whole indestructible thing. The Magestaff of Absorption is sort of what I mean. Cool idea, sounds interesting. But it isn't named... so would it truly be unique? This is something Sauron, Morgoth, or one of the other major powers made with the extra effort to make it nigh-invunerable? There was a suggestion about perhaps Dragon's Eye's being gems. Well, that's cool - but if we want to add interesting powers to them, they currently need the added flexibility of being 'special items' where arbitrary LUA can be added, yes? And just because a Dragon's Eye is rare or cool doesn't mean that it is going to be nearly completely invulnerable -> not-an-artifact without near-divine intervention.

This would lead to having as limited a set of "True Artifacts" as could possibly be desired. Tough-to-find resistances and immunities could still be severely curtailed. But the non-critical parts could migrate down into items that are _not_ EGW. Sting could be an excellent sword with leveling... and not be an end game artifact. "Special Items" could also include even single-use items, or other items that aren't overpowering for the character in the first 30 levels. Having the "Portable Hole" as a non-artifact would certainly temper its power. "Woops, it caught fire and disappeared, hope you don't need anything you sent inside..."

NeilStevens: We call those midrange things 'ego items.'