I am only wondering because it was generated in a random book shop on D:5 of my newest DE Archer game. 60000 gold he wants for it. :-| too expensive right now.
Nice shop too, 6x6 squares. Teleportation and Frost Bolt books.
I am only wondering because it was generated in a random book shop on D:5 of my newest DE Archer game. 60000 gold he wants for it. :-| too expensive right now.
Nice shop too, 6x6 squares. Teleportation and Frost Bolt books.
Last edited by magictrolloc; 07-28-2009 at 06:39 AM.
I assume it is the "black tome of Alsophocus" which if I remember correctly teaches knowledge in a random spell when read, but also corrupts and contains the essence of chaos, meaning merely carrying it also corrupts you. I could be wrong about the random spell part, its been awhile since I've found one.
brim has it right. It teaches a random spell when read. Carrying it corrupts you. Reading it severely corrupts you. 60k for it is a scam: The shopkeeper should be paying you to take the thing.
Hoping to win with every class, doomed. Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastfighter, Druid, Elementalist, Farmer, Fighter, Monk, and ULE Priest down.
The Black Tome can be handy in the early game, and it makes for a fun story element if you're into that kind of thing. It's the quintessential chaos artifact: power for corruption, but somewhat under your control.
I had one character who found it early in the PC vault, a human wizard who hadn't been finding many spellbooks and was running out of castings on her Fire Bolt. I read it a few times, and got (IIRC) Invisibility, Magic Missile, Know Alignment, Frost Bolt, Magic Lock, and one of the Ball Spells. I also got three corruptions, luckily none of which were debilitating.
The problem is that you can't interrupt yourself when reading a spell. If you put yourself in a safe place, then read, you might roll one of the "big spells" such as Death Ray, Acid Ball, ID, Earthquake... and then you can easily pick up 2 or 3 corruptions all at once. So for the Black Tome, it's best to read it in an unsafe place where monsters are likely to interrupt you from time to time.
It's a great ratling gift too, if you need one. This is the only reason I would ever buy the thing.
Ben
Yes, the problem with the black tome are the big spells. You'll gain a lot of corruption for nothing useful.
I was doing an avatar of balance ending once and brought the tome to D50 to gain corruptions before entering the gate. The problem is - I was quite corrupted already when I begun to read a really hard spell and got like 3-4 corruptions before I was interrupted (I think it was due to hunger). I already thought that I had lost the character, but only 99% of my soul belonged to chaos...
At this point I'm just going to try and win the game as a lawful DE archer, not do any self endangering RP things with that book. Certainly no ultra either, I haven't made it to the earth vault yet in the game, my last attempt was foiled by over-confidence against the Cat Lord.
Thanks by the way