Obtain sertain uniques by forging through fortress energy

[St_ranger_er]

Just like title says - make fixedarts reachabe in deterministic way, that not involve vaulting. That's it.

I realize that would have impact on vault system, but it can be balanced around 1-2 forgings per game and available much later on (like after defeat tannen tower, for example, or like shadow crypt reward (i never step there after doomed unlock)).

UPD: it's not necessary to be exactly fortress function, maybe some side quest, but it can fortress energy more viable. Or all at once.

[Number43]

Not sure if this is the best option, but there really should be some use for large amounts of fortress energy other than large amounts of farportals.

[Effigy]

I think it would be reasonable if:
1. The fortress energy cost increases exponentially based on artifact tier. Maybe something like (item tier)^2 * 5 + 10
2. Include a gold cost based on the item's value. There could be some multiplier to the standard vendor price (either higher or lower), but I think it should cost some amount of gold since fortress energy is "free" as you transmute stuff. This would also prevent low-tier, high-power artifacts like Spellhunt Remnants from being too easy to get.
3. Possibly increase the cost each time you buy an artifact this way, so you can't easily buy all the items you want. Maybe increase cost by +50% for each item after the first. So the third item would be twice the cost, fourth would be 2.5x the cost, and so on.

I think it's a good idea though. Having some way to enable builds that rely on a certain item is nice. Item vault is always an option, but this would be less like "cheating" because it costs in-game resources to get the items.

[bpat]

Probably just double the energy per item, so there would effectively be a soft cap per game. Not sure if this is something that should be included at all but it beats having to go without certain key artifacts like Elemental Fury on Raze Wyrmics and Spellhunt Remains on any Antimagic character.

[astralInferno]

I would really like this, but I'm unsure darkgod would go for it. An addon could do it fine.

[St_ranger_er]

I have a question for DarkGod/devs: Is addon with this functionality acceptable at all? Can i release it? Because it's somehow compete with vault addon (and therefore can have impact on donations) and I do not want to post it without permission.