ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I found a Scroll of Artifact Creation in the Black Market for 600k and have about 900k. Is it worth buying and maybe saving? How does it work?

Also, I have yet to find a market level in the Old Forest. How do these market levels work? Is it a normally-sized level with a market in it, is it a perma-level? Randomly generated?

scrolls of artifact creation will make a normal, non-ego, item into an artifact (does not apply to all items). the artifact can be bad or good depending on the base chosen for it (it is randomly generated). generally they are ok... I think they are better deeper.

dungeons are randomly generated... there are 2 types... one with a set off portion and another with the shops scattered throughout the dungeon. they are permanent levels, and you will start on the same staircase (whether you go up or down... be wary of this, in case there are fewer than one staircase going in one direction). shops in them are chosen randomly, the better ones being the dragon shop and the ring of speed market.

When you enter a level with a dungeon town you'll get this message "You hear the sound of a market".

As far as I know if you don't get this message the first time you visit the level it will never appear. So if your character is powerful enough to safely do so, you should be able to very quickly find downstairs and check all the levels of places like the Old Forest or Orc Caves (but watch out for the special penultimate level of Orc Caves).

I've found it to be quite variable- I'll often find no shops in the old forest, but I've found as many as 3 different old forest towns.

This must also be a function of "luck" I would suspect. Didn't find any towns in the orc caves or old forest. Better luck in other dungeons I guess.

Finding a Market in any of several dungeons is just a matter of luck.

Once the market appears you can always go back to it, so make a note of where it is and what level.

Scrolls of Artifact Creation and Craftsmanship are good things... Steal them!

You can find a list of the dungeon towns you have already found in the "~" menu.

Thanks for the tips!

Is it ethical to steal from the stores? I thought I read that it is a function of your DEX. I have it maxed at 40, and what happens if I fail?

If you fail the store shuts its door for a long time...

The calculation for success is based on your DEX and the weight of the item.

So you are more likely to have success with low weight items than Polished Blue Dragon Scale Mail...

As for ethicality, I'd say that it's not ethical to steal if you have no chance of failure. Realistically chance to fail should depend on the value of the item in addition to its weight, but oh well...

Certainly it isn't ethical to steal out the entire inventory of a jewelry store, waiting for it to generate a randart ring of speed with extra attacks. Which people have done in the past.

Derakon wrote:As for ethicality, I'd say that it's not ethical to steal if you have no chance of failure. Realistically chance to fail should depend on the value of the item in addition to its weight, but oh well...

Certainly it isn't ethical to steal out the entire inventory of a jewelry store, waiting for it to generate a randart ring of speed with extra attacks. Which people have done in the past.

It is if you are a thief...

also stealing does not affect your in game piety at all....

in real life it is not ethical to steal... in game it is up to you.

I just went to link to Lord Dimwit's guide but most of it is gone.

http://wiki.t-o-m-e.net/Spoilers/Lord_D ... yer_Ethics

It is if you switch to Raw mode...

Is it ethical? Meh, probably not. But as long as your Dexterity is over 30 (I think), you don't have any chance of failure for stealing an item that weighs less than 0.5. Based off of my own experiments, I know that with maxed Dex, you can spam the ring market a few thousand times without getting in trouble.

madmonk wrote:It is if you switch to Raw mode...

Thanks!