ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

So a thing I've been thinking about after talking to some other people who play is light in the early sections of the game. Rad 2 light is kind of horrible in places and while you can get Summertide Phial or a bright ego lantern, these are far from sure finds. The other alternatives are, to the best of my knowledge, not an option (well, a real option) across all play combinations (namely, playing a Higher, getting Heightened Senses for spotting out of light radius (you could pray for multiple thief escorts I guess, but), getting bonus light radius from staves/mindstars, ect.)

Secondly, the only light which one is sure to find is the Eldritch Pearl, which needs both waterbreathing (or being undead) to get and not being an antimagic devotee to use. Or one could shell out the 4000 to the Last Hope randart merchant, but that raises its own issues, namely money being a finite resource and buying something to fix the gaping hole in your light slot means not buying something to fix some other gaping hole.

So, I had two ideas.

First: Simply increase the light radius on all non-artifact lights by 1. This has the happy effect of helping somewhat with the undead start as well as making Summertide Phial (hopefully) a bit less overcentralizing for one's earlygame light slot.

Second: Add buyable lights for Derth/Last Hope/Gates of Morning/possibly other locales. Stick them in infusion/rune shops or jewelers. Seems kind of odd that lights are the only thing you *can't* buy from a normal shop, and at the very least should give the player a shot at getting an alchemist lamp from Last Hope.

Thoughts?

I'm in favor of this, definitely. It's really noticeable when you go 4-5 chars without finding summertide phial, and wind up repeatedly doing sandworm and maze with only 2 light radius still.

My last 3 major characters have all found umbratide, with a +10 light radius that completely dwarfs a +4... And I've found either it OR summertide on every character to get past level 25 that I can recall. So by endgame, you almost always have a good light source. (Be it a bright, or a randart, or one of the above; especially since you tend to get things like Telo's Crystal, Burning star, and other +light radius equipment.)

I wholeheartedly endorse a lantern shop. It's sort of a lack. But Light radius is something you kind of have to deal with. Archmages almost invariably decide to pick up there +1 light radius artifact for the early bonus it can require. And some of the strongest artifact lights can have crappy light radius. (The ALMIGHTY Umbraphage being an obvious exception...) Only time I really feel threatened by light radius is when I find the Egg-Sac early, and have a light radius of less then 3 at that point... That tends to create the only real threat.

Granted, higher difficulties likely face a bigger challenge with light radius and being (one)hit from out of sight... So maybe we do need better lights? Or nerf enemies so that they don't always see a max radius?

My last 3 major characters have all found umbratide, with a +10 light radius that completely dwarfs a +4... And I've found either it OR summertide on every character to get past level 25 that I can recall. So by endgame, you almost always have a good light source.

I've definitely had characters fail to get a fixed artifact lamp until Eldritch Pearl(Which is 100% always there, but Arcane and fairly late). You're basically just lucky on that. (Just like how I've been lucky to have all my AM characters get Guidance or Umbraphage.)

I'm definitely for some nice lamp shops.

Yeah despite the lategame tangent this is mostly centered around early-to-late game (though I'll point out that my last three chars managed to not find Umbraphage, one of which was an AM Berserker which managed to not find Guidance either, oh well, luck of the draw). I do agree that light radius is pretty important and if only one idea gets picked I'd rather it be the light shop, but I figured it couldn't hurt to provide more than one suggestion.

Lamp and diggers shop?

Shop named Miner Outfitting (in the unused building in Derth? or maybe moving certain shops around, opening a Dwarven trade post somewhere in the mountains with this as well) selling Diggers and Lite's

Oh, hey, that's a great idea. I was trying to think of a connection between pickaxes and lamps...and that's it! A miner's outpost! Put one in Derth, one in the Iron Throne, maybe another in Last hope if there's room, and I can finally stop complaining about the mysterious lack of lanterns and picks for sale.