Well, that's ADoM for you - sometimes you just get the short straw. And sometimes a door falls on you and you die. But seriously, not all artifacts have to be "good". But I'd say all of them should be memorable in some way and hopefully usable somehow for someone. Things like Long Sting aren't really special or memorable, neither really good or bad. They are just there. And that's bad. If it got removed from the game, I'd most likely never notice. Which imho is very bad.

My suggestion would be to discuss which artifacts seem to be "unremarkable" and present the list to TB. So that he could decide whether to improve them somehow or get rid of them.

Also, when it comes to "bad" artifacts, we could consider how to make them situationally useful. For example, I'd suggest the Black Tome to teach spells to any character as if they had Literacy 100. So it would be still awful for wizards, but perhaps some barbarian with a stash of anti-corruption thingies might risk it. With in-game rationale being that the book forced the spell inside his head ;).

Sure. Which is why it makes sense to get rid of the ones where it's implausible that a legend would have arisen around them, especially when so many new artifacts are being added.

The silver key, a key that can open and lock any door. Do you really think that this would not have a legend associated with it? I'll be damned if it wouldn't be one of the most well-known artifacts in the whole realm, and every single thief would kill anyone to get their hands on it. In fact, everyone would want to have it.

The artifact missiles are really inconvenient in gameplay use, but that doesn't mean they are not 'believable' as artifacts. If one arrow was used in an assassination of a mighty king, for instance, I'll be damned if the arrow wouldn't become famous. If said 'mighty king' was not a very nice person (read, chaotic evil) then I can totally see the name 'True Aim' happening as well. For a real-world parrallel, bullet fragments of the JFK assassination are stored in the national archives in Kansas as well (along with the shooter's rifle and shards of the windshield). We might not have the tendency to give them silly names, but those fragments will always be known as fragments of the bullet that killed JFK. I imagine they would suck in ADOM.

Maybe, in a more realistic world in which it was more than a substitute for six regular keys. But in Ancardia, thieves in particular have no real use for the thing, since they can quickly acquire sufficient skill at picking locks that it's of no benefit at all for them.

They're not, though. An arrow that magically causes you to have to stop and reload after one shot would be regarded as cursed, not legendary.

Things that suck from a gameplay perspective should probably either be retooled or eliminated. But you have to ignore how much these items actually suck in actual use in order to make up these stories about them. That makes the stories unconvincing.

Just because the mechanisms of ADOM involve locked doors with a limited amount of keyhole shapes, doesn't mean this is the case of the continent Ancardia, of which the Dralakor Chain is just a small part. The PC is also not a very good example of the typical person, considering you're actually playing a hero and all. The average human thief would have attributes that would probably make you decide to reroll your character because you got shafted (the average attribute level for humans is 10 for every attribute). They don't gain experience levels quickly, because if they get in a fight they're pretty much screwed. Assorted keys and thieves picks might not be readily available to them.

Imagine your source of income would be dependent on your ability to break in somewhere and get back out without getting noticed. What would you rather use? A set of thieves picks which might break, which requires skill and time to use, and might fail, and only opens a door? Or a single key that guarantees your way in, bypasses all eventual traps (doubt that this would make a lot of difference since breaking and entering usually involves houses. Don't know if someone would trap their own front door if they weren't home alone), and locks the door(s) perfectly once you get out again, making it less likely to leave tracks?

Every thief would want the silver key for the convenience alone. Let alone people who do not actually have a lot of skill and simply do not have the courage to kill monsters/people/animals/anything, or have moral objections to doing so.


Auto-reload is a gameplay feature because not including this would greatly increase the tedium involved in using missile attacks. Necessary, but that doesn't mean it magically happens.

The situations ADOM puts you in are in no way representative of how things go down in the rest of Ancardia, because we simply do not know. If I was an archer and had to kill something from a distance and would only have one shot at it, I would use true aim. This situation never happens in ADOM. I imagine a lot of assassination attempts don't have the liberty of virtually unlimited timeframe in which to achieve said assassination.

I remain unconvinced that it is necessary to change these items significantly, or even at all. They're believable as artifacts to me and several others in this thread.

It's an artifact. It doesn't care if you think it sucks.

I agree with BenMathiesen and Bieks. In particular, the artifact missiles, silver key and Black Tome are among the most interesting artifacts from a narrative point of view. I can easily imagine tabletop RPG campaigns centered around those artifacts and their particularities. They are much more interesting that having yet another uberweapon with good dice and slaying abilities, even if the latter is more optimal for gameplay.

This is an RFE, not a bug, but I for one like the presence of these so-called "useless" artifacts and would be sad to see them gone.

In terms of lore, remember that Khelavaster could only make it down to about D16 before he was overcome. The dwarves of dwarftown never go elow the CoC graveyard, and it's been long enough since they've been below the animated forest that Thrundarr is interested to hear news from beyond. And we're talking a powerful sage and a whole town full of dwarves who live in monster-infested caverns. The vast majority of the residents of Ancardia couldn't make it anywhere near that deep. In this way it doesn't make a lot of sense to judge artifacts based on how effective they are on D50. Being powerful on D10 (as pretty much all artifacts can be) would be enough to become the stuff of legend.

It's also not that difficult to think up back-stories for any artifact you care to choose. For example, Long Sting could have been a weapon that was given to the chief bodyguard of an ancient king. It is said that its bearers held such pride in their post that they could notice any attempted assassinations and react quickly enough to stop them. Yeah, it's hardly Shakespeare, but it's enough ofa story to show how something like this could become a legendary item. (And besides, I just think that the idea of a jet black glaive is a cool one.)

In terms of game mechanics, while I'd hate to see any artifacts removed entirely, there are two changes that I personally think could be beneficial. One is to beef up the worst of the crowning gifts so that crowing at least always gives something halfway decent. I've RFEed this previously at http://www.adom.de/forums/project.php?issueid=1489 . The second idea would be to slightly weight the artifacts so that the less powerful ones tend to show up earlier than the truly spectacular ones. This needn't be a huge effect, but I think it would be cool if something like Nature's Friend was a little bit more likely to show up in the early game than it is now, and maybe a bit less likely to show up in the late game, where you'd be more likely to get something like Protector.

Quick reminder with respect to the Silver Key:

The "Pick Locks" and "Disarm Traps" skills are guaranteed acquirable, and thieves' picks are guaranteed available. Thieves' picks can not only unlock doors, but also lock them. There is nothing the Silver Key can do that any player is not guaranteed to be able to do by level 13 (with opportunity cost, of course, for lawful types).

Does that make the Silver Key useless? Technically no, since every artifact can be sold or sacrificed. But I would certainly be sad if I got the Silver Key instead of ANY other artifact, or any other item at all. On any character. At any level. Being useful at level 1 is no justification, since when do level 1 characters find artifacts lying around?

Nevertheless, I also vote 'no' on this RFE, mainly because of the lore aspect, but also because usefulness is so hard to judge in a game so varied. Different strokes for different folks. An artifact throwing spear that doesn't return? I wonder what Waldenbrook will give me for that crap.

Variety is the spice of life. And not everything being equally useful is part of the spice of the game. Sorry, not going to adjust this.

*phew* That's a relief. I like some of the artifacts that were named as "useless". In point of fact, a troll barbarian I'm playing had the great good fortune of hitting a surge of power on D:3 at the very beginning of the game and ended up with Long Sting. This was VERY useful and was my weapon of choice 'til I finally was able to get my hands on an eternium two-handed sword ten or so experience levels later.

I was looking at it from a ancardia-wide standpoint, regarding what thieves would rather use. Not what the PC playing in the game of ADOM needs to use. I was making a case for the overall desirability of this item in this world setting, which would be paramount.


aside from that, it's good to see this 'bug' won't get 'fixed'