Scroll of Artifact Creation / Dungeon Markets

[paboperfecto]

This must also be a function of "luck" I would suspect. Didn't find any towns in the orc caves or old forest. Better luck in other dungeons I guess.

I believe it is all determined when you start a new game. That is to say, if you started a game, copied the save file and played until you died and then restored your savefile you would have dungeon levels at exactly the same places. If I remember right each level (in a dungeon that has possible dungeon towns) has a 1/10 chance of having a market; 1/50 if there is a market at a higher level.

[Ithulta]

Sorry if I'm hijacking this thread, but I just found a scroll of artifact creation as well (in the Bree black market). I promptly stole it, and now I'm wondering whether I should wait to use it, if so, how long (in case I wanna use it in a really deep dungeon with the robe of great luck, etc.), and what I should use as a base object. I'm playing a lvl 41 sorcerer, so I think I might use a mage staff, but I was wondering if something else would be better. Are there limits to what an artifact creation scroll can make, or does it just use the same code as anything generated in the dungeon.

[Yottle]

It uses the same code. A mage staff would almost certainly be a disappointment. Long ago there was a thread that suggested the best thing to start with would be a ring of lordly protection. A ring of speed would be a reasonable choice. An elven cloak might be good if you need some immunities.

[Ithulta]

Yeah, the maximum reachable pval is 5, which I already have with a mage staff of wizardry. And randart mage staffs don't seem to get a lot of other good stuff. Would using it on a speed ring reroll the pval?

[Yottle]

It is my understanding that the pval gets re-rolled. That is why starting with a ring of lordly resistance is good, because the pval range is much higher.

[Ithulta]

After steal-scumming a scribe shop for craftsmanship scrolls (Forochel with a pval of 5 is a pretty cool weapon), I accumulated 5 or so artifact creation scrolls. I'll have to test it more in wizard mode, but I don't think the pval is rerolled. All 3 RoS I artifacted kept their pval. Also, rings of lordly protection have a high bonus to ac not a high pval. There pvals are just...well...meh. The boatload of resists is cool, though.

[OrigamiGuy]

I believe the pval of the item gets re-rolled when the artifact creation scroll adds a flag that is affected by it; i.e. if you start with a Ring of Speed (+12) and the scroll just adds resists, then the pval should be unchanged. If it adds the STR flag or something, then it rerolls the pval based on what a ring of Strength would normally be.

If Speed is the last flag added, however, then the same rule applies, which is why we see extremely lucky people getting +15 to speed, STR, and blows on some randart rings. Unfair, if you ask me, but maybe I just think so because I've never been lucky enough to get one.

[AnonymousHero]

I think the general consensus is that ?oAC is wasted on rings/amulets. I'm not particularly sure of the exact reasoning .

[Derakon]

OrigamiGuy: I think you'll find that the people with overpowered ring/amulet randarts got them by stealing from jewelry stores. It's fairly straightforward to get such a high DEX that even an entirely untrained thief can steal light items 100% of the time, and every time you remove all the items from a store, the storekeeper generates new goods to sell. So you keep stealing everything the jewelry store has and destroying it, and eventually they'll bring out some randarts...

In other words, you can make your own luck if you're determined enough to break the game.

[kazak]

Arggh. A bit of a disappointment. I just found my first PDSM and read a Scroll of Artifact Creation on it.

The result: a standard PDSM, but with sustain INT and CHR. I was expecting something a bit more grand.