The Random Items Guide and official thread.

[theobserver]

The Random Items Guide

Items come in many forms here at the Abandoned Realms. In addition to common, rare, and unique items, you will also find random items available in certain shops as an alternative way of decking your character out. At their best, random items rival rares in power. Some examples include:

* +3 in any combination of hit/dam total with no penalties, higher hit/dam (up to +4 max in either hit or dam) with penalties;
* -8 svs, +1 (int or wis) with no penalties, higher svs with penalties;
* +1 in every stat with no penalties, higher with penalties;
* +4 in any single stat with no penalties;
* +35 hp with no penalties, higher with penalties;
* spellbreaking bonus when using either afflictive, maledictive, or mental spells.


Random items are gambled for when you purchase them from shops, and you can tell which items you can gamble with by the "??" listed under their "Qty" (quantity) column (use the LIST command in a room with a shopkeeper). Here are some guidelines for understanding random items:

Random items are not guaranteed to be good. Just like other forms of gambling, you will lose most of the time with random items and wind up with either lackluster or even downright harmful items. In order to achieve good results with random items, you must either hope that luck is on your side or be prepared to gamble multiple times.

Higher level items yield potentially better results. However, there is no guarantee that a higher level item will be any better than a lower level item. If you're just looking to outfit yourself, you can assemble a set of reasonably useful random items very inexpensively by gambling repeatedly on low level items. The new OUTFIT command at guild trainees will create an entire suit of equipment for you this way. However, if you're looking for the best random items to replace your rares, you should be prepare to spend a lot of money gambling on the highest level random items you can buy.

Random items are restricted in levels. A restricted flag on any item (random or not) means that your character cannot wear that item if it is of a higher level than your character's level. All random items carry the restricted flag to prevent higher level characters from gambling on the behalf of lower level characters.

Certain shopkeepers are more likely to create items with certain attributes than others. One particular shopkeeper might be biased toward giving hit and dam bonuses on their items, while another one might be more inclined toward giving hp and saves. If you don't like the randomized results you're getting with one shopkeeper, try your luck elsewhere. Despite their differing "personalities" toward randomization, however, all shopkeepers can and will make use of all possible types of bonuses. Thus, any possible set of bonuses can be generated by all shopkeepers.

Random items can and will have usually multiple bonuses. Items can have none, one, seven, or even more bonuses and penalties. Items with fewer numbers of bonuses will often have stronger ones, but this is a trend rather than a rule. Many of the better random items will have a large mix of useful bonuses with only one or two minor penalties, so it is important to weigh all of an item's bonuses and penalties carefully when considering which items to use.

Random items are generally named by a prefix based their strongest bonus. However, this is not an absolute rule, since often the bonus they're named after may be generated with a bonus smaller than its maximum possible value, or that bonus may be overridden altogether by a penalty linked to a different bonus. In general, item prefixes exist to give others a hint at which bonus your random item might have, without giving away the item's full stats entirely. Here is the list of prefixes:

[theobserver]

* Penalties for the following attributes have been decreased: svs, str, int, wis, dex, con, hp, and mana.

* Maximum bonuses have been increased by roughly 50% for the following attributes: save vs aff, save vs mal, save vs mental, affbreak, malbreak, mentalbreak

* Minor changes to the penalties for hit, dam, str, and dex to make them more internally consistent.

In case you're wondering why I've been making a lot of changes to this:

Our coders have built this entire randomized system from the ground up, and it's been far more versatile than I had thought it would be -- bonuses and penalties linked to different attributes, adjustable magnitudes and distributions, shopkeeper prioritizing and personalities, logical naming based on prefixes and stuffixes, and so on. That they successfully assembled this entire project on their own, without consulting me for design and logistical guidance, demonstrates very commendable initiative and competance on their part. Now I'm finishing up on my part, which was to come up with the item names and implement and balance the generated item output. I'll be continuing to fine-tune the output until I'm happy with the way it's balanced, and I've already managed to pull some pretty nice loot out of the shoppies. Tonight's changes eliminates funky possibilities like -4 dex penalties that you may have noticed popping up from time to time, so to my eyes the system is already pretty capable of generating items that are good complements or even replacements for rares.

If you're a high-level spellcaster, you'll want to start gambling for a good savebreak item or two. There's a huge difference between a bad savebreak item and a good one.

[theobserver]

Well, I made these just today while testing to see how last night's changes went:

Code:
Object 'dragonblood mesh boots' is type armor, material steel.
Extra flags: none.
Weight is 10, value is 800, level is 50.
Armor class is 5 pierce, 5 bash, 5 slash, and 3 vs. magic.
Affects damroll by 3.

Object 'dragonwing grand crown' is type armor, material steel.
Extra flags: none.
Weight is 10, value is 800, level is 50.
Armor class is 5 pierce, 5 bash, 5 slash, and 3 vs. magic.
Affects hitroll by 4.
Affects damroll by -1.
Affects strength by -1.
Affects mana by 12.

Object 'dragonblood mesh boots' is type armor, material steel.
Extra flags: none.
Weight is 10, value is 7200, level is 50.
Armor class is 5 pierce, 5 bash, 5 slash, and 3 vs. magic.
Affects damroll by 2.
Affects strength by 1.

Object 'emerald-green shadow plate' is type armor, material steel.
Extra flags: none.
Weight is 15, value is 3200, level is 50.
Armor class is 5 pierce, 5 bash, 5 slash, and 3 vs. magic.
Affects damroll by 2.
Affects save vs mental by 3.
Affects strength by -1.
Affects constitution by 3.

Object 'emerald-green war girdle' is type armor, material steel.
Extra flags: none.
Weight is 15, value is 3200, level is 50.
Armor class is 5 pierce, 5 bash, 5 slash, and 3 vs. magic.
Affects damroll by 2.
Affects save vs mental by 9.
Affects dexterity by -1.
Affects constitution by 3.
Affects move by -16.

Object 'onyx-black spiked gauntlets' is type armor, material steel.
Extra flags: none.
Weight is 10, value is 800, level is 50.
Armor class is 5 pierce, 5 bash, 5 slash, and 3 vs. magic.
Affects hitroll by -1.
Affects dexterity by 4.
Affects move by 15.
Affects ac by 5.

Object 'emerald-green spiked gauntlets' is type armor, material steel.
Extra flags: none.
Weight is 10, value is 800, level is 50.
Armor class is 5 pierce, 5 bash, 5 slash, and 3 vs. magic.
Affects move by -46.
Affects constitution by 4.
Affects dexterity by 1.
Affects save vs mental by 12.

Object 'emerald-green grand crown' is type armor, material steel.
Extra flags: none.
Weight is 10, value is 800, level is 50.
Armor class is 5 pierce, 5 bash, 5 slash, and 3 vs. magic.
Affects save vs mental by 6.
Affects strength by 1.
Affects wisdom by 1.
Affects constitution by 3.
Affects move by -4.

Object 'emerald-green war girdle' is type armor, material steel.
Extra flags: none.
Weight is 15, value is 800, level is 50.
Armor class is 5 pierce, 5 bash, 5 slash, and 3 vs. magic.
Affects damroll by 1.
Affects save vs mental by 9.
Affects dexterity by -1.
Affects constitution by 4.
Affects move by -38.

Object 'emerald-green ornate plate' is type armor, material steel.
Extra flags: none
Weight is 15, value is 1600, level is ==35==.
Armor class is 0 pierce, 0 bash, 0 slash, and 0 vs. magic.
Affects save vs mental by 3.
Affects constitution by 1.
Affects hp by 20.
Affects move by -5.

Object 'disease-scarred ornate plate' is type armor, material steel.
Extra flags: none.
Weight is 15, value is 0, level is ==35==.
Armor class is 5 pierce, 5 bash, 5 slash, and 3 vs. magic.
Affects damroll by 1.
Affects save vs maledictive by -4.


Some of them are pretty nice, some of them are just useful. They're all there for the making though.

[theobserver]

MAJOR changes to item gambling tonight.

1) Allocation of bonuses are now done at maximum efficiency. In the gambling algorithm's internal workings, if you had rolled high enough for a +2 dam but not enough for a +3 dam, the difference between what it took to "buy" the +2 dam and what you had actually rolled was originally discarded. Now, you are only "charged" for the minimum required for the +2 dam and the rest is added back to your total to be applied toward other bonuses. This means that within the internal item generation algorithm, rolling the same numbers as you used to will now reward you with more bonuses.

2) Rather than spamming you with items full of additional weak bonuses, however, the roll for how "strong" of bonuses you can hold is now non-linear and weighted high within the possible range (similar to how the distribution in character rolling is done). What this means is that the increased efficiency from the first change above will also increase your chances of having suffixed (i.e. potentially stronger) items instead of simply spamming you with weak bonuses, such as 3 mana or -2 aff.

3) Penalties from all attributes have been either lowered or removed altogether across the board. While the maximum bonuses (and hence maximum item power) are still unchanged, reducing the penalties means that your chances of making useless items are now much lower; I would estimate by at least a factor of 5 (!).

In short:

1) More gravy.
2) Better gravy.
3) Less crap.

Happy gambling.

[theobserver]

Sethronu wrote:
well what i meant was, are they going to replace rare items with randomized eq (that makes itself rare because of its high price) and eliminate all rares together, effectively getting rid of the hoarding problem? thus making blacksmiths the first stop for getting equipment, and reducing rares to only really unique ones held by the biggest mobs?


No, because of a) price, and b) availability. As in, rares are readily available for free most of the time (it's free to liberate rares from both mobs and less-skilled players alike). In my mind though, what's nice for randoms is the ability to complement your equipment with exactly what your character needs most. For example, while it's possible to generate standard, all-around useful rare-likes such as:

Code:
Object 'dragonwing crusader pavis' is type armor, material steel.
Extra flags: glow anti_evil anti_neutral.
Weight is 15, value is 800, level is 50.
Armor class is 5 pierce, 5 bash, 5 slash, and 3 vs. magic.
Affects hp by 19.
Affects hitroll by 2.


It's also possible to generate more specific items, such as this anti-mage special (wouldn't you like a full set of these?):

Code:
Object 'dragonblood chainmail surcoat' is type armor, material steel.
Extra flags: glow anti_evil anti_neutral.
Weight is 15, value is 7200, level is 50.
Armor class is 5 pierce, 5 bash, 5 slash, and 3 vs. magic.
Affects ac by 14.
Affects save vs maledictive by -7.
Affects damroll by 2.


Other example of what's currently possible, all with no penalties:

* +35 hp items on slots like arms and legs;
* -8 svs items stacked on multiple slots for uber saves;
* +4 con, +10 hp items for characters with a lot of deaths;

And so on, rare-quality items that you can pick and choose from to keep and wear to improve your character in ways that available rares can't. In other words, with random items, simply having a set of rares and uniques no longer guarantees that your equipment can be improved -- your equipment can always be better in some way by substituting some random items that directly adress your character's specific needs. You won't be able to create a random item that has more hit/dam than a stetson or has more svs than a spell-turning though, so rares and uniques will remain mainstays.

It's really more about complementing than replacing. Fighting over rares is an integral part of strengthening your character on AR, but it's no longer the only part.

Sethronu wrote:
but in all, making a use for the armor blacksmiths is one of the best ideas for AR recently. it adds to both the rp flavor and pk scene of AR.


Thank the coders, since it was their baby. I'm just draping skin and clothing over the bones, muscles, and sinews that they had created.

By the way, there are now randomized shoppies in Seringale, Darkhaven, Mount Saidan, and Enthema, covering almost every single non-weapon slot in the game. We'll continue to add more as the mood strikes us.

[_Clifton_]