True — it'd be helpful for a lot of classes to carry even if they rarely used it.

In this case, I can confirm that it was quite helpful in knocking off Morgoth. :D

I was really lucky with artifacts with ESP this game. Ended up with three different randart helmets with it, along with some other nice characteristics. Spoiled for choice, really. Quite a contrast from some other recent games where I was scrambling for it.

once you get to DL90 ESP is pretty much on everything, if not on randarts, and for some reason you cannot free the head slot, cloaks of the magi have it, and so do lothloriens. cloaks are vastly more abundant, and i find that the randart cloak slot tends to have alltogether less bonuses than other slots.

Found in a vault just after killing Morgoth with a warrior (used MoD HA). Never seen +20 speed on a weapon before... Now I don't want to retire the character!

a) the Mace 'Eitharn' (8d4) (+7,+15) [+2] <+1, +4, +20>
Found lying on the floor in a vault at 5000 feet (level 100)

+1 wisdom.
+4 tunneling.
+20 speed.
Slays undead, demons, giants, orcs, evil creatures.
Branded with poison.
Provides immunity to Fire.
Provides resistance to Acid, Lightning, Cold.
Cannot be harmed by Acid, Fire.
Sustains dexterity.
Speeds regeneration. Grants the ability to see invisible things.


When activated, it breathes a cone of acid, lightning, fire,
frost, or poison gas with width 20 degrees, dealing 250 damage at
the source.
Takes 688 to 1008 turns to recharge at your current speed.
Your chance of success is 95.6%

Combat info:
6.0 blows/round.
Average damage/round: 790.2 vs undead, demons, giants, orcs, and
creatures not resistant to poison, 637.8 vs evil creatures, and
485.4 vs. others.

Thats a nice one. Now you can equip 2 damage rings!

Ended up at +51 speed and went back down to slaughter the remaining Uniques... Ancalagon, the two dogs and the Tarrasque.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=25614

Sounds like a bug to me... weapons should not have +20 speed.

Occasionally the game creates a weapon with a 4 digit pool worth of attributes.
This weapon has a low probability to be created. It is also likely to have a minimum depth of 100, which makes it extremely unlikely to show up before you kill Morgoth.
Then normally this weapon ends up being not the best weapon in the game; for example, it might be a whip 3d3 base and have a long list of defensive stats.

I have seen (as in, read in the file after the game, not found) many of these and I have never seen double speed. I cant remember having seen ~10 speed either, but I may just not remember it. I assume the chance for +20 speed, provided the game decides to put speed on the weapon and the property pool is high enough, is the the same as for a ring to get +20 speed.

So, sometimes there is an enourmos fish down in the depth. I dont know if thats a bug; but finding big fish is the main reason for me to play, so I wouldnt want them removed.

The log for concocting that particular artifact is attached. The target power was 862. It received a supercharged speed bonus of 18 (chance of 5/139 to get that in this case - boots are more likely to get). The base supercharged bonus is 4+1d6 speed. There's a 1/2 chance (not dependent on item type) the base bonus is boosted to 4+1d6+1d3. There's a 1/6 chance (not dependent on item type) that base bonus is boosted to 5+2d6. In this case both bonuses were applied (1/12 chance) for a bonus of 5+2d6+1d3 (1/8 chance of being +18, 1/16 chance of being +19, 1/48 chance of being +20). The speed bonus was later adjusted to +20. The final power of the artifact was 851 with 400 of that coming from the speed bonus. As Estie guessed, the artifact's minimum depth is 100.

Very interesting - but I dont think boots can get more than 10 speed, only rings.

4 + 1d6 would fit the boots range; if that is supercharged values, then what do not supercharged speed boots look like ?

Anything above 10 speed is either a ring or an artifact.

Hmm I looked at that log; half of the actions are calculating value for the artifact property of being immune to elements. And very particular values - immunity to acid is worth 3, to lightning 1. There is a value assigned for each element and that value is taken into account multiple times in the process of creating the artifact.

This seems not a very economic approach when all we want to achieve is to make artifacts indestructible - there is no need to assign a value to that property if every artifact gets it anyway.

So this is how those early artifacts with no actual properties get created, then.