ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Tried to search but information I found is inconclusive. Do shops restock only several times per game (some "after Master" and other) or do they restock when some time passes?

They restock twice: Once after you kill the Master, and again after you do the (optional late-game) "Doom of the World" quest.

(Don't worry. "Doom of the World" may be optional, but you'll know when it's available.)

Do anybody ever buy things from shops anyway? Usually, useful items are overpriced so you don't have the gold when you need them... and by the time you have enough gold to buy stuff, everything has become obsolete.

It's usually not to hard to afford a tier 3 weapon after you've finished the tier 1 dungeons. Also, checking the shops for good infusions and runes is important.

I usually wait until about level 20 to check the armor/clothing stores and when I do I usually find something I can upgrade my helmet, glove, belt, or boots slot. For melee characters I usually check for a weapon once I have around 100 gold if I haven't been lucky and found a good artifact. As has been said above getting a good infusion or shield rune early on can be a huge game changer.

Do they sell arrows somewhere?

the bow merchant has like 0-3 quivers but not really many

i think the weapon shops could use a rework as most only sell t1 stuff and dont get better, but i check shops alot too.

infusion and rune are obvious, especially in last hope and angolwen/zigur are the best ones

the armor shops can have nice purple ego items, such as stone wall wizard hat, warmaking gloves.. cloaks with high life/mana spellcrit, belt of unlife, purple chaos robes/armors with life and healmod + the scouting stuff wizard hat with arcane eye and gloves of the nighthunter (track)

items like that can change the game for you alot, and its often better to check for good stuff instead of wasting 150-600 gold on the ring of blood and beeing broke afterwards imo

Also, if you are AM/going to go AM early, you will need teleportation torq. If you don't find one before Sandworm Lair, you can check Zigur or Thaloren city for it. Or - check that shops right away at level one. And restart, if there is no teleportation torq. It is THAT important.

I thought that DG fixed it so that shops were automatically guaranteed the highest tier items that the city could generate, regardless of your level.

Xandor Tik'Roth wrote:I thought that DG fixed it so that shops were automatically guaranteed the highest tier items that the city could generate, regardless of your level.

might be but highest tier items a city can generate seems to be lowish for most of the cities. i think the maximum might be the city in the east t4? and last hope/angolwen/zigur t3 - the others mostly t1 and sometimes t2

i mean after u did the charred scar u will be lvl 40 mostly and have bunch of t4/t5 items, and purple weapons lower than t4 are just useless for a char. artifacts and randarts outclass them too much (just for weapons) so id propose to upgrade the last shop update a little for the weapon stores so maybe angolwen/last hope/zigur can have t4 and sunwall t5? there is just little use for the shops and i dont even check the stores at that point. and the t1 weapons are pretty useless from the beginning, since ull wear any t2/t3 weapon ull find and will never downgrade for money

I'm probably wrong on that account, actually.

Item teir isn't always as important as the level the item was created at.
Teir only have a direct impact on base item stats, ego modifiers include both teir and level.
Also, you will frequently not get great items by the time you need them, so it can be good to go buy a few choice items from the shops.

Xandor Tik'Roth wrote:I thought that DG fixed it so that shops were automatically guaranteed the highest tier items that the city could generate, regardless of your level.

Currently, the effective zone level used to generate the store's inventory is fixed, regardless of when you visit. Said level also increases when the stores restock.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

If my character is still using the starting 60-point regeneration infusion after the first dungeon, then I'll go shopping for a better one immediately. That's my first priority. The next infusion I'm likely to buy after that would be a movement infusion.

On characters that use runes, I'll go shopping for a shield rune, but rarely find one. A teleport rune would also be nice in those cases.

Occasionally I'll find a nice ring in the Angolwen jewelry store. Something that gives +5 to two relevant stats, for example.

Weapons are almost never worth buying. Armor can be -- usually not body armor, but things like belts, gloves and cloaks. You can often find a lovely purple (double greater-ego) item or two in Last Hope.