Talk:Sunsword

Lone Wolf reference?

Is this a Lone Wolf reference? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.90.113.69 (talk • contribs) 3 February 2009

Lone Wolf was the Somersword. For the Sun Sword, smart money is on Thundarr the Barbarian.107.200.85.110 18:14, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Spellcasters

Why is "spellcasters become a much larger threat in SLASH'EM" in this article? Is it that it's particularly useful for lawfuls to have an artifact that deals double damage to the undead? Dual-wielding Grayswandir and Sunsword does seem like it'd be a nice trick against vampire mages.

Also it doesn't seem accurate to say that non-undead spellcasters will be peaceful to lawfuls; besides the old standbys like orc shamans etc. (of which only nalfehsnees are threats, I guess), there are ogre mages and gnoll shamans. Ogre mages don't seem like big threats but gnoll shamans seem pretty nasty. -- Slandor 12:48, June 10, 2010 (UTC)

I should go back and clarify that section probably, but ogre mages are not randomly generated, and gnoll shamans are trivial to avoid, since they hide unless provoked. As to why spellcasters are more dangerous in SLASH'EM, that's because they have more dangerous things to summon, and the added ones are actually considerably faster (compare a speed of 9 for a lich vs. 14 for a vampire mage, or 12 for a ghoul mage). I have had it happen multiple times where on a large, open level such as Moloch's Sanctum or Juiblex's Swamp, I have about 4-5 complete rings of summoned nasties around me. This is much more likely to happen in SLASH'EM because of 1) the deeper dungeon levels means higher base levels for spellcasters, which in turn lets them summon more spellcasters and 3) the addition of vampire mages, which, not being covetous, are very content to run a little bit away and continue to summon, instead of porting to the up staircase. Also, undead can summon ghoul mages right next to you via the summon undead spell, which while not generally able to summon nasties, can curse your items. All of these spellcasters are undead, with the mentioned exception of the nalfeshnee and nabassu, and I find Sunsword a very handy tool to take them down.

But mainly what makes Sunsword attractive for lawfuls in SLASH'EM is the ease of getting it. If you have already gotten 4-5 artifacts, and still no Grayswandir, you're probably not getting it, whereas Sunsword will probably be generated on some minion. Bullwhips aren't hard to find, either on demons or in the Guild of Disgruntled Adventurers. Grayswandir is preferable for a wish certainly, and as a sacrifice gift is probably better, but Sunsword is almost always going to be available to a lawful, so they might as well use it to cut some of SLASH'EM's spellcasters down to size.

Sorry if that was a bit of a rant... -Ion frigate 23:56, June 10, 2010 (UTC)

No problem about the rant. My question wasn't so much why casters are more dangerous as what that had to do with Sunsword. Maybe the right way to frame it is to say that undead are more dangerous, because there are more undead casters? That'd make the Sunsword connection clearer. -- Slandor 00:37, June 11, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah that sounds like a good idea. But I'll certainly keep the part about it being easier to get. -Ion frigate 01:26, June 11, 2010 (UTC)

A note on generation

I don't think the article should mention how to get Sunsword from sacrifice, wishing, etc as those are common to all artifacts (and should be covered there). I did add a note about it being generated on A's though. One thing about that, which I think is a common misconception, is that Sunsword is *not* guaranteed to be on the first or second Archon that is generated. This is because looking at makemon.c#line268, the code will always try to give one of Demonbane or Sunsword to an Archon, but it does not check if it has already been generated. Thus, provided neither artifact has already been generated, the first Archon will always have one of them, but the second has only a 50% chance to get the other (and so on for the third if the second one doesn't get it). The other 50% of the time it tries to give the Archon the already-generated artifact, which is then converted to a regular long sword. I figured this is a little too long-winded an explanation for the main article, but it's probably worth mentioning here. I'll go and change Archon to reflect this, though. -Ion frigate 19:21, September 28, 2010 (UTC)

Generation Bug?

I just got Sunsword off of a crocodile I killed at Dlvl 6. Has anyone else seen it generate in odd locations? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.214.44.98 (talk • contribs)

NetHack has little concept of normal location for item generation. Outside of prayer, wishing, etc, artifacts can appear anywhere in the dungeon with about equal probability. Sunsword is mostly found in the hands of an Archon or other angel, but any long sword can become sunsword if you're lucky. -- Qazmlpok (talk) 18:53, 12 September 2012 (UTC)