The Tavern

There are a lot of artifacts that are good if you get them early game and weaker later in the game when you get enchant weapon scrolls and make a vanilla weapon.
These are fine to have in the game in general. Trident of the octopus king is a +8 Trident of Venom with 2 rPois rElec MR+. Often when this drops a polearm user would rather use a +9 Demon Trident of Elec or Pierce. 3 higher base damage and a better brand is a huge increase in dps.

This would be fine for most artifacts. However this artifact is designed to be a super late game artifact. It gets +2 slaying for each ring of the octopus king you are wearing. A small bonus but a cool design idea. Even if you are lucky enough to get one ring and this weapon it is almost always better to still use a +9 demon trident of elec. And usually by the time you have both octopus items you are able to make a good demon trident.

I am suggesting we change the Trident of the Octopus King into a demon trident +8 so it can compete with +9 demon trident of elec a bit better. Let people live the dream when it comes up and not lose DPS.

You can still find unrandart +11 demon trident of elec or pierce and it would be better than the octopus king unrandart in both slaying and brand (which is fine).

I think either this solution, of changing the base type, or making the rings give a much more substantial slaying bonus, such as +6 or more, would make the trident a lot more attractive.

Another solution would just make the Octopus King trident akin to Wyrmbane (i.e. low base damage type with a ton of slaying), maybe making it a +14 trident, or similar, will make players consider it over a demon trident.

It's a decent weapon for early - midgame, but the player is very unlikely to use it in the lategame considering the rarity of finding both the trident and a few octopus king rings as well, while also being a polearms user, which doesn't seem to be intended.

For example:
https://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/V ... 211434.txt - Found the trident, but I had a much better weapon and never used it. Never found the rings.

https://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/V ... 081505.txt - Heavily used the trident throughout the game, until I found a demon trident. Never found the rings.

https://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/V ... 085414.txt - Found an Octopus king ring, but I was a UC user so I wouldn't have used the trident anyway if I found it.

https://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/V ... 174809.txt - Again, found a ring, but I was a UC user and didn't find the trident.


Out of all my games, there's only been exactly one game where I have ever used the trident of the Octopus king in any substantial way, and I still couldn't make use of the ring-gimmick in that game.

There's also the problem that some octopus rings aren't worth wearing over randart rings. Even if you have the trident and (some) rings, you don't want to make use of the mechanic in the late game not only because the weapon is bad at that point, but also because some of the rings are bad, and the best rings like rF and MR are still not that amazing unless you just haven't found anything else yet. So maybe the rings should get a buff too. Maybe the rings should grow in power with each other ring and trident equipped. Maybe the growth bonus could get capped at 3 or 4 items, otherwise it would get out of control. But if you got 4 rings/trident you've probably been doing zigs already so maybe it doesn't matter.

I'd have to agree. Unrandarts are rare to begin with. Most games, particularly most 3-rune games, don't spawn more than a couple.
Now consider that a lot of the time, the ones that spawn aren't useful.

Some are basically useless because they're meant to be - e.g. the Robe of Misfortune.

Some are basically useless because they're just poorly designed - e.g. Finisher, scythes being a classic newbie-trap.

Some are basically useless because the player can't equip them - e.g. Scales of the Dragon King for your felid.

Some are basically useless because the character doesn't have the skill in question, and they're not good enough to be worth re-skilling - e.g. the Singing Sword for an executioner's axe-wielding berserker.

Some are basically useless because the character doesn't want to change their entire playstyle to fit around it - e.g. Wrath of Trog for a mage.

Some are basically useless because the player found them at the wrong point in the game - e.g. Snakebite being found in the late-game, where its curare doesn't make up for the lack of damage.


The Trident of the Octopus King and the Rings of the Octopus King tend to be great in early-game, but underpowered later on. Making them not only rare, not only not useful for most characters, but having an interaction that requires finding at least one ring, and the trident, in the same game, and being in a position where using them together would make sense. Unless the bonuses from using them together - or the items themselves - are buffed significantly, they're mostly just a novelty.