ToME WikiNeilStevens: Light sources are weird in ToME. There are too many overlapping types and drops. To reform light sources I would do this:
- Remove Everburning Torches, Dwarven Lanterns, and Feanorian Lamps. They're way too rare, making their ego types effectively rarer than any artifact light source, at least in my play experience.
- Replace the Dwarven Lantern of the Magi quest reward in Gondolin with the Elven Blue Dragon Scale Mail reward granted in Lothlorien.
- Replace the Elven BDSM reward in Lothlorien with the Phial of Galadriel.
- Reduce the charge times of the artifact light source activations.
I'm actually open to replacing Lantern rewared with something else. I just did it this way because I wanted to keep a guaranteed permanent light source, and Galadriel becomes the first choice to serve that role. Thematically, that should be awarded at Lothlorien and not Gondolin, so I made the swap I suggest here.
I suppose the Potion of Augmentation could be swapped instead of the Elven BDSM.
TheFalcon: You know, I'm not sure I'd be very motivated to do the water quest just for the phial. The Elven BDSM tends to be very often useless for a character of that level, and to me the phial would be possibly more so. How about swapping the phial in instead of the augmentation potion, and putting the potion in Gondolin instead of the lantern. The phial only activates for light room though doesn't it? To be honest, I would prefer the Magic map power of the lantern any day...
NeilStevens: Swapping with the potion is probably better, yes. And of course magic mapping power is nice. That's no reason not to get rid of it, though.
TheFalcon: Yes, I was beginning to think along the lines of keeping the lantern instead of the Phial... I don't know whether an increase in the number of random artifact lights would be possible?? That would certainly make things more interesting.
NerdanelVampire: I think it might be nice to see occasionally random artifact lightsources that are actually useful other than in comparison to things like brass lanterns. I mean, every single successful character ends up wearing one of a very limited number of artifact lights.
RavenRed: I like Feanorian Lamps and Dwarven Lanterns... however, I'd possibly make them burn fuel, making permanent light sources purely the province of artefacts. The Phial of Galadriel FROM Galadriel makes perfect thematic sense too. Don't necessarily agree with further Art or Randart lights though. One thing I'd like (and will probably put in Pipedream) is that carrying a lightsource will affect stealth with varying degrees of severity. Dwarven Lanterns might become Dark Lanterns instead... er... sorry for semi-hijacking your thread... 
In short, I agree with almost everything you say...
StrayCat : First off, I hope this isn't incorrect posting, sorry if it is. First time I try contributing. I just remembered the "Hand of Glory", not from Tolkien's works, but rather relevant : it's supposed to give light only its wearer can perceive, even through the deepest darkness. Seems light/stealth interference rules would open a niche for this particular object, as an artefact maybe ? (along with some other powers and resists to make it worthwile)
NeilStevens: We could replace one of the Palantirs with that. I'd rather not add MORE artifact lights, though. It's really silly when I get the Undeath, Galadriel, Elendil, and Space-Time in the same vault.
ErintiAkairis: Feanorian lamps are canon to the Tolkienverse, so I hope some modules will be keeping them (nerfed or not) even if ToME doesn't; the descriptions make no mention of fuel, but perhaps their light radius could be reduced?
NeilStevens: It's not a matter of strength. Unless you make them common enough that you'll get one before Galadriel, there's just no point in having one, so they just clutter up the item list.
ErintiAkairis: In which case, I'd say nerf them a little, strike Everburning Torches and Dwarven Lanterns from the list, and make Feanorian lamps as common, or a little more so, as previously were the three combined. *shrug* Or not.
NeilStevens: The only way we could make them worth keeping in the game would be to rename Brass Lantern into Feanorian Lantern, basically. Is that worthwhile?
ZasVid: Well, I don't think Bree shopkeepers would have a Feanorian lamp on sale. This are, like, things of High Elves, aren't they? Now, I wouldn't get rid of all non-artifact light sources but the basic two. How about one of these
- Feanorian lamp, radius 2 light, no fuel
- Feanorian lamp, radius 4 light, uses fuel
and force them to be generated as ego items. This way, even if they rarely appear in the dungeon at all, you are guaranteed to get a good one. Come to think of, if you remove non-artifact no-fuel light sources, you can remove all light source ego-types, because except of the off chance someone finds an ego torch or lantern (never happened to me) before getting a guaranteed Phial or some other artifact, no-one will ever use an ego light source.
NeilStevens: I just don't see *room* for these between the Brass Lantern and the Phial (assuming the Phial is the Spider Quest reward as described above). Also note that you can't just create an "ego" item out of the blue. "Ego" items are special types applied to a base item. So we'd still have to have a base Feanorian Lantern type.
TheFalcon: Well, can't you create a base item, and (if you don't want any to appear) set it to be excessively rare, then in the ego items file, set the rarity of a specific ego to be less rare. The edit files imply this will work, but I may be wrong.
ZasVid: Oh, I didn't mean to remove a base type feanorian lamp, but have a script that instantly gives it an ego type on generation - working similar to INSTA_ART flag on e.g. artifact light sources. Now, I don't know how efficient it would be. On the other hand, what about renaming the Brass Lantern to just Lantern and creating a relatively common ego-type Feanorian with NO_FUEL flag? This way, we don't get cluttered item list, we still have our lovely in-theme name, as well as non-artifact constant light source, and keep a possibility of obtaining a light source just as good as Dwarven Lantern of the Magi in double-ego Feanorian Lantern of the Magi. Not that I've ever found any light source of the Magi outside the Eol's quest, but still... Maybe a quest for it in Khazad Dum?
Actius: The Fury module has a store (well hidden, but accessible) which sells Feanorian lanterns by the boat load. They're expensive, but other than that not too difficult to obtain -- maybe something like this could be introduced into the main game. More than that, I've played a number of characters who would have been unplayable if not for that dwarven lantern of the magi. Since then, I've mostly focussed on characters who have mindcrafting or knowledge realm, but pulling the lantern from the game would just make me less likely to want to play any other kind of character. (And, last I checked, the Phial of Galadriel doesn't give magic mapping.) Anyways, I thought the ego lamps added character to the game -- are they really that much of a problem for game efficiency?