obviously it is basically that the artifact items are from a more skilled person. I am sure it is a game balance issue. BW wouldn't want us to imbue everything up to +4/5/6. However, he might want to add certain items that are.
The Quickest way to a man's heart is thru his back.
as i've pretty much cheat by rerolling loot quite a few times i've come across a few +4 items so i doubt it's unique as a quick glance at one of my characters shows a +4 strongman's belt and +4 mithril studded leggings while i'm fairly sure that in another i've also had the +4 ranger lord's bracers
THat is an item that drops normally; I recall finding one of those once, but deciding that the gloves of the warlord were better for my character at the time (he wasn't really an archer as such).
Whilst you can imbue up to +3, you can definitely find stronger items in the game as loot.
Necromis wrote:Think I would stay with the bracers then. 2 points damage isn't a lot and adding +4 bow skill would give the fighter more range option.
Actually, the trade off is that you can have +2 damage with all weapons (including bows) vs. +2 to hit and damage only with bows. If you're mainly using melee weapons, then the constant +2 to damage beats the occasional +2 to hit when using bows.