New artifact Rift

[le_nerd]

http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a= ... 90f621a7d8

Committer's Note: Rift is a +8 demon trident of distortion with a range 3
reach that's smite targeted

demon trident "Rift"

A small wrinkle in the very fabric of reality, magically bound to a shaft by
some mad acolyte of Lugonu. Among other uses it can be sent forth to strike
with an unusually large reach.

Thanks to Olowin for this nice new artifact, discuss it here.

Just got it in Trunk. Its crazy strong+convenient. Doesn't feel like playing a distortion weapon at all! It might be too strong, but I suppose it fits into "new unrandard" powerlevel. I had it on an octopode and usually one can feel a dropoff in tabability with polearm octopodes vs ranged enemies. You are missing out on tentacle slap+constriction when you and polearm orc knight face off at with a tile distance between you. Rift doesn't feel as if it has this dropoff.

[byrel]

I ran it with a nightstalker DsWn^Trog. It was one tile short of full LOS range... very fun.

It does eliminate the idea of 'completely safe territory' though.

[Rast]

Reaching + cleaving scythe when?

[delarado]

I ran it with a nightstalker DsWn^Trog. It was one tile short of full LOS range... very fun.

It does eliminate the idea of 'completely safe territory' though.

How does that happen? sorry I don't understand the mechanic that increases its range?

[le_nerd]

Its got a hard-coded 3-tile range of smite-targeted attacks. Other polearms can miss when reaching with text like "your orc zombie prevented you from hitting the centaur", this one doesn't have that chance.

[delarado]

But LOS is more than 4 tiles, no? so 3 tile reach wouldnt mean 1 tile short of LOS?

[le_nerd]

Demonspawn can get "nightstalker" mutation. It reduces LOS, thats what happened.

[byrel]

Yeah, max level nightstalker mutation drops LOS to 4 tiles. It's very strong in general, and really good with Rift.