"powerd by x" "infused by y"

[thebigJ_A]

Hey.

I got the game a couple of days ago, and haven't stopped playing in my free time since! It's great.

However, I'm a little unsure of something (well, a lot of things, but I'll start with one). I've found all different sorts of gear, and many of them say things like "crafted by", "infused by" and "powered by". It's then followed by colored terms like "nature" or "psionic forces".

So I've got an axe "infused by arcane disrupting forces", and another "powered by arcane forces".

Clearly these have meaning, but for the life of me I can't figure it out. I tried Google, but I just got hundreds and hundreds of pages of ToME player-characters and their gear! The ToME wiki didn't have anything, either.

So, what's the difference between "powered by", "infused by" and "crafted by" (and any others I may not have found yet)? What do the various other terms signify? I've got a Dwarf Bulwark as a character, but he seems happy enough using an "arcane" weapon, an "arcane disrupting" or "psionic" pair of boots or whatever, or anything else.

Could somebdy explain, or at least point me to an explanation?

[SageAcrin]

Nature, crafted by a master, Psionic Forces and unknown forces are, currently, almost never relevant to gameplay and are there for thematic reasons. One specific Solipsist skill gains power if you have Nature or Psionic Forces equipment on, but otherwise they have no impact.

Antimagic Forces means that a piece of equipment can disrupt your magical spells and rune usage. (If you look at a skill's description, it will say it is "is spell". It is any of these.) It has a chance equal to the tier(you'll see somewhere in the information what tier the equip is, it is referring to the material. For example, Steel is a tier 2 material for many equips)*10 chance, in percent, of preventing those spells and wasting your turn.

Antimagic forces will also disrupt sustained spells with a chance each turn. I forget if it's the same odds.

Arcane forces are fine normally. However, it is possible to become a follower of the ways of Antimagic, at which point, you will never be able to use these equips, ever again.

[HousePet]

"powered by" and "infused with" stuff is just flavour.
The important parts are the "arcane", "psionic" and "arcane disrupting"

[Sophitia]

[spoiler]
When you arrive to Zigur, an antimagic town, you will have the opportunity to side with them and fight against magic forces.

Doing this will prevent you to use any arcane powers item.
[/spoiler]

[thebigJ_A]

So there's no problem with my bulwark having both arcane and arcane disrupting gear on at the same time?

[Mewtarthio]

Nope. The arcane disruption only kicks in when you're actually casting (or sustaining) spells. Note, however, that runes do count as spells for these purposes.

[NEHZ]

Arcane disrupting powers also seems to lower your spellpower, so your spellpower powered passives will decrease as well. (though I can only think of one that exists anyway)

[Mewtarthio]

Right. Your spellpower is divided by one plus the number of arcane-disrupting items you have equipped. Basically, if you are an arcanist, arcane-disrupting items are very, very bad. A bulwark should be fine, though, unless you've had some escorts teach you spells.

[LNQ]

Also if you get antimagic, you are told that you are able to unlock hidden powers in some antimagic items. What this means in practice is that some antimagic items become better when you equip them, than what they look like when they are in your inventory.

It's still a bit unclear to me how many items get improved like this, but at least one endgame item doubled from +6 Wil / Cun to +12 Wil / Cun when I equipped it.

[HousePet]

Only arcane disrupting artifacts get bonusses.

[thebigJ_A]

What exactly constitutes an "artifact"? I found an apprentice wizard who wants an arcane artifact, but none of my stuff seems to count.

[lukep]

yellow or orange (not salmon coloured, those are rares) items are artifacts.

[thebigJ_A]

Ah. I only had salmon at the time. Thanks.

[LNQ]

Salmon is delicous though.

Can orange items also get bonuses when they are arcane disrupting? Or only yellows

[Mewtarthio]

Antimagic bonuses have to be explicitly defined in the code for each artifact. Orange artifacts are randomly generated, so they don't have those bonuses.