Random Items

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:

1) 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.

2) 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.

3) 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.

4) 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.

5) 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.

6) 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:

prefix meaning
deflective save vs spell
disease-scarred save vs malediction
diamond-white wisdom
dragonblood damroll
dragonwing hitroll
earthen hit points
emerald-green constitution
fire-scorched save vs afflictive
fractured none
meteroic afflictive break
onyx-black dexterity
psi-faded save vs mental
psionic mental break
ruby-red strength
sadistic malediction break
sapphire-blue intelligence
shimmering mana points
translucent movement points


7) Strong items have distinguishing suffixes. However, not all items with suffixes will be strong, just like higher level random items aren't necessarily any stronger than lower level ones. Random items of level 20 or higher have a chance of carrying a suffix, with higher items having higher chances of being bestowed with a suffix. We will not tell you what each suffix means, and a list of suffixes will not be provided.

When buying a random item from auctions, make sure you APPRAISE at the trader to get the identity first. Otherwise you might be buying a piece of junk.

A random item has a high chance of being one of a kind. There are literally millions of possible random items that can be generated, and items sharing the same name will almost certainly have different stats from each other. If you gamble for and win a random item that you particularly like, be sure to make a log of it for posterity so that you can share it with the rest of us!