Artifact blast

An artifact may blast you for damage each time you touch it. You will touch an artifact whenever you attempt to wish for, pick up, wield, wear, invoke, apply, or steal it, or when you polymorph. Gloves afford no protection.

Intelligent artifacts

Intelligent artifacts will blast you any time you do any of the above if:

• You are not of the artifact's special role (if any)
• You are of different alignment than the artifact
• You have negative alignment record
• You are in the form of something the artifact specially attacks. "Attacks" in this context means it deals double damage to a specific monster class or category, such as undead, demons, or werecreatures. It does not include artifacts that deal double damage based on other conditions (e.g., Fire Brand to non-fire-resistant monsters, Grayswandir to everything), or Vorpal Blade if you're a jabberwock.

If blasted by an intelligent artifact, you will take 4d10 damage (2d10 if you have magic resistance) and abuse your wisdom.

Additionally, if you are of the wrong role and fail one of the other conditions, the artifact will "evade your grasp", preventing you from using it. The primary effect of this is that you can only use another role's quest artifact if you are of the same alignment as the artifact.

Unintelligent artifacts

Unintelligent artifacts have a ¹⁄₄ chance of blasting you any time you do any of the above if:

• You are of different alignment than the artifact (if artifact is aligned)
• You have negative alignment record (if artifact is aligned)
• You are in the form of something the artifact specially attacks (as above).

Although they are aligned, Orcrist and Sting will never blast non-orcs.

This blast causes 4d4 damage (2d4 if you have magic resistance) and abuses your wisdom.

Unintelligent artifacts never evade your grasp. However, you cannot wield an artifact weapon that attacks your current form (this includes Orcrist and Sting for an orc in their natural form, or Werebane for a player with lycanthropy, regardless of whether they're in their were form). Trying to do so may provoke a blast, but if it doesn't, you take d10 damage, unaffected by magic resistance, and abuse constitution.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, the blast damage has been increased, making picking up artifacts even more dangerous. Intelligent artifacts do 8d10 damage (6d10 with magic resistance), and unintelligent artifacts do 8d6 damage (6d6 with magic resistance).

References

This page is based on a spoiler by Dylan O'Donnell. The original license is:

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