Ego demon items

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#1 Post by **Yottle** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 10:37 pm

Looking at e_info.txt, it appears that the following don't exist:

demonblades: of aman, of westernesse, blessed, defender, *defender*, of extra attacks, of the Thunderlords, of Gondolin, of Nothingness, of Fury.

Demonhorns: dwarven, water breathing.

Demonshields: of electricity.

So the possible weapons are severely limited. The other two aren't as bad.

rakanishu · #2 Post by **rakanishu** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 12:28 am

Very interesting, thanks for digging that up. Is a vampiric demonblade of life possible ? I think ive never seen that affix combo on any weapon yet, been wondering if it is mutually exclusive.

The best bet, if someone really wants to use a demonblade, is probably either to go with the trueart (-20 luck iirc), or get a randart by luck or scroll shop scumming.

Sir Crashalot · #3 Post by **Sir Crashalot** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 1:44 am

I have seen a vampiric weapon of life before so they do exist.

It had cancelled itself out so the life gain/loss was at 0%.

rakanishu · #4 Post by **rakanishu** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 3:46 am

It had cancelled itself out so the life gain/loss was at 0%.

Hmmm what happens if you read a scroll of craftsmanship on that,does it still cancel out ? I guess it will.

Sir Crashalot · #5 Post by **Sir Crashalot** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 6:25 am

I've never found one of those scrolls myself but I think it would depend.

If the vampiric mod gave - 20% life and the life mod gave +20% life then it would. However if one gave +/-40 while the other gave +/-20 then it would be different.

I piddled around with an alchemist a while back and made a Vampiric sword of the Westernesse that actually gave +40% life so anything is possible I guess.

rakanishu · #6 Post by **rakanishu** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 7:39 am

Well on second thought, I think reading a ?oCraftsmanship on a vampiric sword of life (+0) might make it (+20%).
Items in ToME are only allowed one pval; so if such a sword gets rolled, the game probably finds the pval by addition in the case of vampiric/life and by disregarding the negative value from vampiric in the case of vampiric/westernesse.
Anyway, I suspect that for your vampiric sword of life (+0%) the game has forgotten how that value was retrieved and just treats it as having pval 0. Which means that, given enough scrolls of craftsmanship, it should be possible to make a vampiric demonblade of life (+100%).

Beats Gothmog hands down

Nerdanel · #7 Post by **Nerdanel** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 8:12 am

"Vampiric" decreases hitpoints by a random percentage. "Of life" increases hitpoints by a random percentage. It is possible and indeed fairly common for these two factors (or vampiric and any positive flag) to exactly counter each other, resulting in a 0% bonus to hitpoints (with the rare and awesome vampiric flag).

A vampiric weapon is a great target for a scroll of craftsmanship. A vampiric weapon with +20% to hitpoints would be better than many artifact weapons. A vampiric weapon of life isn't nearly as awesome as a vampiric weapon of Westernesse or something like that though since the "of life" is essentially superfluous save for the increased pval.

#8 Post by **Yottle** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 11:55 am

My experience from playing alchemists:

As rakanishu says, there is only one pval per item. A normal vampiric weapon has a negative pval. A normal weapon of life, westernesse, etc has a positive pval. When the game rolls up a double ego item first one is applied, then the other. My impression is that the second one tends to override the first, but I am not sure about that. In any case, it isn't that hard to make a +60% vampiric weapon of westernesse and occasionally a +80%. That seems to be about the limit from alchemy. Maybe this is due to the pluses you can get from westernesse rather than anything having to do with vampirism.

I would not hold my breath waiting for one of these to turn up in a regular game.

rakanishu · #9 Post by **rakanishu** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 3:40 pm

A vampiric weapon is a great target for a scroll of craftsmanship.

Is that so ? I was assuming that reading craftsmanship on a vampiric sword (-20%) would turn it into (-40%) - that is, increasing the absolute value - but if it turns it into (+0%), thats great of course.

So then, my choice for best demonblade becomes vampiric of *slay evil* (+100%).

My guess at how the game picks pval is this:

A vampiric prefix is rolled. A suffix with pval is rolled. If the second pval applies to the same thing as the first (life), they get added. If not (westernesse, applying to str/dex/con) the second overrides.

overtrix · #10 Post by **overtrix** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 3:51 pm

There's loads of ways the alchemy-made stuff outstrips anything you find, and a few lucky princess quests can see you leave the Barrow Downs kitted out like a king. Normally you'd not choose a boomerang from her, it's rarely going to be something extra-groovy - the alchemist does - boomerang of power, therefore gloves of power + 8, 9, 10. She often dishes out elven armour, therefore shoes of elvenkind +10, 11, 12. Nobody actually wears dwarven armour do they but it provides the recipe for dwarven headgear, double it up with a suffix ego to +6, 7, 8. Eol, how we adore you - so that's lamps of the magi +4, 5, 6 with the best flags and cloaks beyond price. Mages have to wait a bit longer usually for staff recipes, but once that's done you're laughing.

One project for an alchemist would be to clear Mt Doom of all the clutter, and use it as a repository for wondrous items - a room for mages, one for swordmasters, and so forth ... summon extreme monsters into each completed room, dismiss those which pass or kill walls and stone-prison the entrance before aggravating them ... send the Mt Doom file out as a christmas present