FR: New artifact: Elven Ring Mail

[dowan]

Remember when racial armor was in the game? Most of it was weird and bad, but elven ring mail was special, in that it gave 0 spellcasting penalty, at least with a modicum of strength. It was pretty cool to find early on a spellcaster.

So to bring back that cool find, I propose a new artifact, Elven Ring Mail. It would be +5 ring mail, with +2 EV, Wiz, and MR.

The flavor text would be something along these lines: "A suit of legendary elven mithril rings. These were thought to be lost to the world ages ago. They were prized by mages for offering good protection without hampering spellcasting and mobility. Contrary to popular belief, one does not have to be of elven descent to gain these benefits"

It's pretty good, obviously, but I don't think it's really much better than a quicksilver dragon armor, so I don't think it's completely out of line. Still, if anyone thinks it should have a downside that fits the theme, or just less benefits, I am interested in hearing any suggestions.

[Sar]

  Code:

This elegant ring mail was made by Elves, or for Elves, or possibly from Elves. Anyway, it's in some way associated with those fey folk.

[duvessa]

old elven ring mail wasn't terribly different from old leather

that's why it was removed without compensation

[tasonir]

The difference then is smaller than it would be now, since ring mail was moved from 4ac to 5ac. Especially if this ring mail is a +5 ring mail, that's significant AC, with no spellcasting penalty*.

*exactly how wiz cancels out the actual penalty here I'm not sure, I'm just going by the intent. I would imagine if it was a full ring of wizardry effect you could have a net boost, as ring mail penalty is smaller

[plantaspoon]

Artifacts with only positive qualities are mostly uninteresting. It would be VERY rare for a character to find this item and not use it. There is no choice presented here. Even a -3 slaying would make it more interesting.

[Sar]

It's just a +5 ring mail with wizardry and MR. It's okay for some chars sure, but not amazing.

[Zwobot]

Artifacts with only positive qualities are mostly uninteresting. It would be VERY rare for a character to find this item and not use it. There is no choice presented here. Even a -3 slaying would make it more interesting.

... you mean like a ring mail of fire resistance? Or a quicksilver dragon armour? Or robe of Acrhmagi. Yes, surely there's no choice here.

I like it since Wiz on a body slot is a novelty. With the way Wizardry items don't stack well, I think it's hardly overpowered, though I can see myself using that all game. The MR+ may be a bit much though?

As a suggestion, why not make the artefact better for elves as a nod to times past? Maybe only give MR+ to Deep Elves (and HE I suppose for as long as they're still around).

[dowan]

I don't think it's a no-brainer for most characters to use this, but it is pretty good, obviously. It would be kind of funny to have a miniscule boost for elves, but I'd rather not get into that whole can of worms. The EV might be a bit much, maybe just +1 would work. Without the MR+ it's not that great, although it's still not bad. I wouldn't want it to only be any good if you find it before lair.

-slaying is a bit boring, but it would be cool to have some kind of effect that somehow fit the theme. Maybe it temporarily loses enchantment when you get hit in melee, because spellcasters shouldn't be in melee combat anyway. That would make it more of a niche item, although it might be a bit restrictive.

[Zwobot]

I don't think it's a no-brainer for most characters to use this, but it is pretty good, obviously. It would be kind of funny to have a miniscule boost for elves, but I'd rather not get into that whole can of worms. The EV might be a bit much, maybe just +1 would work. Without the MR+ it's not that great, although it's still not bad. I wouldn't want it to only be any good if you find it before lair.

-slaying is a bit boring, but it would be cool to have some kind of effect that somehow fit the theme. Maybe it temporarily loses enchantment when you get hit in melee, because spellcasters shouldn't be in melee combat anyway. That would make it more of a niche item, although it might be a bit restrictive.

Soooo essentially...

+ 5 elven ring mail {*Corrode, MR+, Wiz, EV+2}

[duvessa]

Artifacts with only positive qualities are mostly uninteresting.

This statement makes no sense whatsoever unless the character has no items that are better than wearing nothing. If you have +0 plate armour, every body armour artefact in the game has the negative property of -10 base AC. If you have a robe of the Archmagi, every body armour artefact in the game has the negative property of -1 enhancer for all spells. And so on. This unrandart is so boring and silly that I doubt the OP is even serious, but "it has no negative properties" is absolutely not the reason for that.

[KittenInMyCerealz]

Artifacts with only positive qualities are mostly uninteresting.

This statement makes no sense whatsoever unless the character has no items that are better than wearing nothing. If you have +0 plate armour, every body armour artefact in the game has the negative property of -10 base AC. If you have a robe of the Archmagi, every body armour artefact in the game has the negative property of -1 enhancer for all spells. And so on. This unrandart is so boring and silly that I doubt the OP is even serious, but "it has no negative properties" is absolutely not the reason for that.

I'd rather have a thousand "boring" unrands than 20 "interesting-choice" unrands that only a few characters would ever use, and you see them all when you do a few 15 runers.
Having unrands that fit all playstyles but aren't that great is far better than having all unrands be "if you are a deep elf necromancer worshipping a god with escape ability you should definitely use it, otherwise just leave it on the ground"

[plantaspoon]

What's the point of an unrand artifact then? There are mundane items that you will absolutely find in every game which are powerful enough to win the game. In my mind, an unrand serves the purpose of providing an added benefit at the expense of an added cost to what would normally be available on a mundane item. Maxwells patent armor, Sword of Jihad, new hat of alchemist, etc. These all offer the player a choice beyond what was available to them with a mundane item and are not just straight up power creep. These are the best kinds of unrands IMHO.

[Lasty]

How is it that steam dragon armour hasn't come up yet? Steam dragon armour does what you want elven ring mail to do. Randart steam dragon armour with MR+ does what you want your unrandart version to do.

[dowan]

SDA allows ozo's armor. Plus it doesn't contain a reference to the old racial armor, which was part of the appeal.

And the thing about temporarily losing enchantment when getting hit in melee is significantly different from *corrode, which triggers on any hit, causes more than -1ac, and also lowers attack enchantment. I realize *corrode already exists, where this temporary -enchant doesn't though.

Now that I've had more time to think about it, the +MR doesn't make much sense. The problem is that without it this is rather bad armor past the early game.

I don't know why anyone would say the proposal isn't serious, I admit it's a bit boring as is, but I don't see what's silly about it.

What it really needs is an interesting drawback, or better yet, something that could be bot h a drawback and an advantage. I've thought of a few, but they all seem kinda lame and/or fiddly. Such as: Distracts elves like gozag gold, +- archmage under various circumstances, +- apts to be more like elves (+dodge, -armor, +long blade, - axes, etc), similar effect to gloves of archery, reactive resistances(Like qaz), or reactive resistances based on spells cast, but none of those seem good enough, or seem too fiddly...

[Quazifuji]

SDA allows ozo's armor. Plus it doesn't contain a reference to the old racial armor, which was part of the appeal.

So it's a very slightly worse Steam Dragon armour with MR whose main redeeming quality is nostalgia?

What it really needs is an interesting drawback, or better yet, something that could be bot h a drawback and an advantage. I've thought of a few, but they all seem kinda lame and/or fiddly. Such as: Distracts elves like gozag gold, +- archmage under various circumstances, +- apts to be more like elves (+dodge, -armor, +long blade, - axes, etc), similar effect to gloves of archery, reactive resistances(Like qaz), or reactive resistances based on spells cast, but none of those seem good enough, or seem too fiddly...

If you're adding weird drawbacks, then the "reminds people of old elven ringmail" premise seems to be lost anyway, so why not restart from scratch? The original premise, make an armour that recreates the usefulness of the old elven ringmail seems fundamentally flawed, both because it's boring and because it's basically just steam dragon armour.

The premise of "caster-friendly medium-to-heavy armour" could still be used, but I feel like there might be a better place to start than Ring Mail, which isn't very heavy already. Something heavier that has some compensation for the weight to help casters might be more interesting to me, at least.

[dowan]

It's a fair point that the very genesis of this idea was flawed, as it was based at least somewhat on nostalgia over an old removed mechanic. If there were such a thing as "Early game artifacts" then it would make a lot more sense, but that's not a thing. This would be a great item to find early on, but it's fair to say that doesn't make it interesting.

Oh well, feel free to use this space to propose any other "Caster friendly medium-to-heavy armour" ideas, if there is any desire to have such a thing. Orange crystal plate armor already has the "Caster friendly ultra heavy armor" niche covered.

[njvack]

If there were such a thing as "Early game artifacts" then it would make a lot more sense, but that's not a thing.

It could be a thing, though, if there were more artefacts that had a decent chance to spawn on early-game uniques, like the Hat of Pondering and Gastronok.

[dowan]

That's true. Duvessa almost makes sense to spawn with it, but as she doesn't cast any spells, it's a bit of a mismatch. Plus duvessa with a lot of extra AC and MR might be a little ridiculous.

The unique, not the tavern poster, obviously. The tavern poster can be assumed to have much more AC and MR than can be represented in dungeon crawl.

[Zwobot]

Well, in that case dowan is the obvious choice. Having extra MR/AC could be alleviated by the debuff on melee hit we were discussing.

congratulations on your very own (bad) early artefact

[njvack]

Plus duvessa with a lot of extra AC and MR might be a little ridiculous.

I dunno, it's not like she's fast or anything. But why not Dowan?

[dowan]

I mean, it'd be fine I guess, I was just thinking that Duvessa actually usually wears ring mail, dowan usually wears a robe. Still, it does fit the theme I suppose, since he's a spellcaster. That would make it into a potential early game artifact, which is where it makes the most sense.

I don't know if the devs would be on board at all, even with the basic version of this armor in the first post (Since it doesn't require any weird new code or anything). Still, nobody's moved it into CYC yet, so I guess that's a good sign.

[Hurkyl]

Plus duvessa with a lot of extra AC and MR might be a little ridiculous.

I dunno, it's not like she's fast or anything. But why not Dowan?

She's fast when she berserks.