Just picked up this awesome chest piece in a vault - activates to be a potion of life!

the Ribbed Plate Armour of Sulur (-3) [66,+11] <+4, +1>
Dropped by an Ancient multi-hued dragon at 4900 feet (level 98).

+4 wisdom, dexterity, constitution, tunneling.
Provides resistance to acid, lightning, fire, cold, poison, dark,
sound, nexus.
Provides protection from fear, blindness, confusion.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.
Speeds regeneration.

When activated, it heals 5000 hit points, restores experience and
stats, heals cut damage, and cures stunning, poison, blindness,
and confusion.
Takes 722 to 1058 turns to recharge at your current speed.
Your chance of success is 93.9%

Ah, but here's the thing about randarts - I never actually had it!
Yes, it's nominally pretty common, but I had been hanging around in the sixties for maybe 50 level generations and it didn't show up! Ironically, the reason that I spent so long around that depth was that I DIDN'T HAVE ANY SPEED!

Seriously, I was on normal speed with no potions or staves of speed so every unkilled unique was lethal. So I decided to hang around until I found boots or ring of speed, or both. I was wearing 2 RoDams and cycling through pairs of standard magic boots so the slots were going begging. But before I found either I recalled into a 'cavern' level in the middle of two packs of hounds (plasma and hell) and died pretty quickly (no scrolls of tele, both staves of tele incinerated immediately and my recall method was a ruddy charging randart, naturally).

My point is this (and there is one, I promise): Randarts are not broken just because my delicious cloak was a theoretical possibility. If I'd been playing standart I wouldn't have been in the situation I was in because I would probably have had Dal-i-Thallies or whatever. Equally, if I had found that cloak, I would probably have been stuck wielding a lead-filled mace (+2,+2) that activates to restore charisma (like that shield I posted on this thread a while back). If playing randart you have to accept that your game will be a lot more, well, random!

And I like it!

Oh sure, I'm not trying to claim that randarts are broken just because there exist broken randarts. There are standarts that are broken too. I mean really, +10 speed in a bow slot? We just think that's normal. :)

HaHa - Good point! :)

And I mean really, a pair of gauntlets with rfire, rdisen and FrAct - that's just waaaay overpowered...oh no...hang on a minute...

The value of large speed bonuses depends various factors. First off, lets assume we have an endgame kit and the artifact isnt the first one found - in the latter case the value becomes near infinite, but that is also true for a RoS - so assuming the "normal" setup is 2 big speed boosters, ring and boots, having +10 speed on a cloak possibly frees a ring slot. This is however not true if the speed bonus is on a weapon _unless_ its a godly weapon already without the speed (Ringil). I find weapons with big speed boosts fairly often, but hardly ever use them.

Assuming that cloak frees a ring slot, conceivably it would be used for a damage ring instead - lets say +10 damage (10 speed is on the low end for endgame rings), which means the cloak would be worth about the same as one with (+8, +13) and no speed.

As for the dex boost, the value of that depends very much on race/class played AND other artifacts in the kit. Lets see. The combat stats - str dex con - have about the same importance to get to the cap. A typical randart has maybe a +3 bonus, so lets call that 1 point. You want on average 2 boosts to max out, so the +10 dex would be worth 2 points - same as +6 dex in this estimation.

With con ring and damage ring both being used, they should have about the same value, so lets add another +15 damage (the maximum ring value, since +6 is also the maximum con boost on a ring), so our cloak would become (+8, +27) with lightning resistance :)

The reason why this looks so much more powerful than Gondricam is that there are 50 artifact weapons but only 5 cloaks. Imagine it being the other way round - 50 cloaks, but only 5 weapons - and also lets assume there are no ego items for the moment - now pick 5 random weapons from the standard set, and add 45 cloaks.

Under those conditions, chances are that Gondricam would end up in this thread while the cloak would be considered mediocre.

If you can survive dlvl 60 without any speed you can survive dlvl 90. Next time you should dive to native RoS depth ASAP in that case. RoS is native at dlvl 75. Many better objects deep in that depth. Trickery is native at 70.

Gondricam is just a spiced up version of Defender ego, and not even very good one at that. It doesn't matter how many artifacts there are if the comparison can be made to weak ego. This is like getting Ringil-equal weapon from Thorongil. +10 speed is endgame-quality, no matter which slot it appears (well, maybe ring slot RoS can beat it if speed is only thing in it)

When my mage found this, I knew I was doomed... That extra radius 1 light is completely OP.

the Lucerne Hammer 'Herenya' (3d5) (+13,+40) [+19] <+2, +1>
Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4500 feet (level 90).

+2 stealth, attack speed.
Slays evil creatures.
*Slays* demons, undead.
Provides immunity to acid.
Provides resistance to cold, dark.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.
Slows your metabolism. Speeds regeneration.

When activated it restores all your stats and your experience points.
Takes 569 to 766 turns to recharge at your current speed.

6.0 blows/round.
Average damage/round: 549.6 vs. evil creatures, 729 vs. demons, 729 vs undead, and 489.6 vs others.

Radius 1 light.

Yeah thats why I was asking to assume no egos. Those mess up evaluation.

Speed +10 is not endgame quality on weapons. Spear (+10,+10) <+10> speed and nothing else is junk as soon as you have 1 other speed item +10. And such weapons are fairly common, I see them like every 2nd game.

In other slots, it becomes immediate consideration for the endgame kit, but isnt necessarily superior. For example, consider a game where you find a +10 speed helm. If you get speed boots, speed ring, you are likely to prefer an ESP hat over it, or a crown of might for the stats/sustains.

Thats a nice one, particularly for a mage.