ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

You can find the addon here: https://te4.org/games/addons/tome/mex-startrebalance.

This addon completely removes drowning and start scumming (for the most part) from the game and offers a rebalancing alternative. I would like this, or a modified version of this, to be added to the main game. This thread is therefore also for discussion about what this is rebalancing. The changes are:

Added Dispersion (Last Hope), Track (Derth), Burrow (Shatur) and short staff (Angolwen) to shops,
Added the old man, in Last Hope next to the merchant, who will give you a random artifact (the same as a boss drop in Last Hope) in return for your sanity,

Insane players now:
- start at level 5 instead of 2,
- start with 500 gold instead of 250,
- are able to ask for 2 random tier 3 artifacts from the old man,

Madness players now:
- start at level 8 instead of 3,
- start with 750 gold instead of 500,
- are able to ask for 2 random tier 5 artifacts from the old man,

v2 - rebalanced artifacts granted by old man
v3 - added dispersion (last hope), track (derth), burrow (shatur) and short staff (angolwen) to shops
v4 - added steamsaw/guns to old man
planned v5 - remove all artifact generation from shops, figure out how to add phy/men wilds

welp there goes any chance of the embark idea getting in

Getting 1 tier 5 randart for free?
Grats on making a cheat addon meks
0/10 would never use

well to be fair a t5 works for madness, which is all mex cares about

There isn't really that much difference between tier 4s and tier 5s but if it would really make you happier it can be dropped to a tier 4.

The reason its 1 tier 5 is because on insane you can get 2 tier 4 randarts with scumming.

e: wait these are merchant randarts right. 1 t3 of those max since wtf mex

Did a few rolls and had forgotten that they were so op.

Will nerf them down - the idea is to get them to being similar to what you would get from drowning a last hope boss.

God bless you Mex. 1.6 drowning will have a good replacement now.

v2 - rebalanced the old man randart power/egos, now equivalent to what would usually drop from a boss on the relevant difficulties, insane players get 2 tier 3s, madness get 2 tier 5s

v3 [planned] - to change shops to generate less items but at least one of each ego, but no artifacts should generate from shops

You're doing God's work.

v3 - added dispersion (last hope), track (derth), burrow (shatur) and short staff (angolwen) to shops

planned v4 - remove all artifact generation from shops, figure out how to add phy/men wilds

I'm not too bothered with the changes in v4, other than this I'm happy with the rebalance changes made so far.

May I suggest a (T3) Torque of Mindblast. That would be useful even below insane.

Not adding mindblast - melee was buffed and you shouldn't really need it with the randarts.

v4 - added steamsaw/guns to old man

Psychoportation torque is another item I frequently look for when starting. On a character with no built-in teleports, I'll often reroll until I can get one from Zigur.

It was about time the drowning thing got a logical replacement, bless you Mex!