MAngband has always been a game where we've sort of kept the artifacts "holy" - they're supposed to be something really special and when the entire population on a server shares the artifacts among themselves everyone becomes aware that they are indeed special. Some artifacts are, to be honest rather dull but others are fantastic, (Try telling any Angband player that you got to level 50 without any artifacts and they will look at you as if you are crazy and probably think you are some weird masochistic roguelike freak. Then tell them that you did it in Realtime and they ... well, I don't know what they'll say, but they SHOULD say something pretty funny (for us, that is :) ).
But, I digress. The point of this thread - We currently have a few custom MAngband items that were made many many years ago. They've been tried and tested and most of them work quite well, others maybe not all that well.
Some of the items are definite artifact replacements such as Orcish shield of the Avari and Kolla of Lordly Resistance or maybe Elven gloves of the Istari.
Like I said, this time around I've focused mostly on weapons and body armor. Why?
Currently, 95% of the high level users (and any user really if they could chose) end up with either a Balance DSM or Power DSM (Or the artifact versions of these). This may be according to Angband design but I'm thinking it's more of an accident actually, at least for a multiplayer version where there should be some more options, if someone was to count the hours people have spent thinking about, searching for, experimenting with, shopping for, discussing and just generally everything that goes into the process of getting the right equipment I think they'd end up with a crazy number of hours. Thousands, during the last 10 years.
So, in order to provide the players with some more real options I've created some new items, I will present some of them briefly in this thread to get opinions or questions about them.
So far I've made 5 new base item types and 5 new ego types, some of them can be combined with anything, others, like for example the Armour of Menegroth can only be combined with a specific type of items such as light armor.Type Dam Wght Level Rarity Price
Black Mace H 6d6 60.0 95 10 22000
+1d2 to Strength, Constitution, Dexterity; Sustain Strength, Constitution, Dexterity;
Fire Brand; Resist Dark, Fire; Ignore Elements.
Rating To-Hit To-Dam To AC Lvl Rar Price
Melee Weapon of the Laiquendi +30 +1d5 +1d5 +10 80 40 +250000
+1d3 to Intelligence, Dexterity, Charisma; Sustain Intelligence, Dexterity, Charisma;
Slay Evil, Undead, Demon, Orc, Troll, Giant; Resist Fear, Light, Confusion;
Permanent Light; Free Action; See Invisible; Hold Life; Regeneration;
Ignore Elements.
To-Hit Base-AC Dam Wght Level Rarity Price
Ithildin Plate Mail 0 50 4d4 40.0 70 4 20000
+ 1d3 to Wisdom, Charisma; Sustain All Stats;
Permanent Light, Free Action, Hold Life, Regeneration;
Resist Light, Confusion; Ignore Elements.
Rating To-Hit To-Dam To AC Lvl Rar Price
Armour of Menegroth +30 +0 +0 +1d20 30 8 +120000
*** Applies only to light armor (14 lbs or less), filthy rags excluded! ***
+ 1d2 to Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Stealth;
Sustain Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma;
Permanent Light, Free Action, Hold Life, Regeneration;
Resist Light, Confusion, Poison; Ignore Elements.
Either way, I guess I might post all the spoilers for these items eventually.