Rings of power, baby

[Oboros]

So, unfortunately I don´t have Tolkien quotes to back me up here, and that is kind of the point. It is all very nondescript what powers can be imbued in crafted jewelry. The One Ring itself wasn´t very clear in this regard also; we never really got to see what Galadriel or Gandalf or even a lowly human could have done with it. But judging by their reactions on it being offered to them, a whole lot. For the purposes of this game, tho, I think it is fair to use jewelry as a smithing wildcard. Meaning every skill, stat, ability or misc power can go in it. It makes a lot of sense considering that we are currently limiting the enchantable properties based on what the base item is used for. Jewelry is used for nothing, and as such, is perfect as a recipient of any kind of power.
At first I was reluctant to include melee powers as well (vampiric, brands, slays, tunneling), but I thought about it and it still makes sense; the idea being that the ring´s power allows you to set your wielded weapon ablaze, etc. Or, in the case of tunneling, it grants you the power to collapse parts of the walls by just touching them. So cool! A little over the top, perhaps, but a lot more flavorful than digging with a shovel.
Regarding abilities, it may sound strange at first to put something like exchange places alongside song of silence on a ring or amulet, but! a song is a skill and not really a magic power, it is just the know-how on singing a song that has power, much like exchange places is the know-how on getting past an enemy. If one can be encoded into a piece of jewelry (amulets already can have songs on them) why not the other?

Regarding balance... I don´t think that it upsets it too much. It is just a smithing wildcard, to encourage variety and experimentation when artifacting. With a lot of smithing skill you can do some allpurpose god rings, of course. But with a lot of smithing skill you already are god, anyways. Or Aulë, at least

Before anyone says anything, I already coded this, and opened a pull request to the mpa-sil repo. If you want to play around with it, (and can compile) you can just download from the branch on my fork of the repo. But I wanted to put this rationale up here to explain myself simultaneously to the maintainers of mpa-sil and to the playerbase (and half and Scatha, if they are interested, of course). So, thoughts?

[taptap]

I am not smithing anyway, but I don't understand why you would want to do that. The rings in game are pretty powerful already - those you find, those you can make. With the amount of forges in game, I usually would be happy to make rings with only 1 forge-use instead of 3. It would also make all kind of weirdo stacking of weapon enchantments possible for no good reason, the spear of hot and cold sharpness (with some of the enchantments on the rings). I guess that is the main attraction.

If you don't want to dig in the dirt, try Song of Freedom w/ high song skill.

[debo]

IMO, you should also extend this to lights The first age was more about overpowered shinies than overpowered rings!!!

[Oboros]

Originally Posted by debo

IMO, you should also extend this to lights The first age was more about overpowered shinies than overpowered rings!!!

I thought about it, but since lights actually serve some purpose without enchantments it breaks down my logic somewhat.

[Oboros]

Originally Posted by taptap

I don't understand why you would want to do that. The rings in game are pretty powerful already - those you find, those you can make.

It's not necessarily about more power, but about versatility. One use case is the first forge, where you could have taken jewelry and artifice with a Fëanor, and then you can take any ability at all. Like flanking really early, or subtlety, or any skill bump or whatever (combined with the penalty stuff http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=7324, you can get REALLY creative). Another use case is when you don't scum for forges and want to get the most bang for your buck when artifacting in the late-game, by putting a potpourri of everything you wanted to bump on one thing. The case where it is actually more powerful is with the brands possibly, but only because you put them on the ring and then it can be applied to every weapon you own on the fly. Maybe it should be more difficult in that case.