GruntHack

GruntHack is a variant of NetHack; a compilation of many third-party patches and some of the author's own best work. and extends the game in multiple ways. Much of it is adding behavior to existing things, rather than adding new things. For example, objects of the same object type can be made from different materials and monsters can have different races. Monsters can now use more tactics when fighting other monsters; pets can become full and stop eating.

Some of the changes are similar to those in SLASH'EM or in NetHack brass, but GruntHack takes a different direction from either.

As of February 7 2012, Grunt has stopped active development of GruntHack.

Third-party patches

• Astral Escape, by Chi (substantially modified) - Allow players to escape the Astral Plane without ascending.
• Color Alchemy, by Nephi - Dipping potions into each other creates new ones depending on their colors.
• Dark Room, by Clive Crous - Tell apart unexplored and previously-explored dark tiles.
• Dump Character, by Jukka Lahtinen - Dump extended character info to a file when the game ends.
• hpmon, by Ralph Churchill (substanially expanded) - Color HP depending on how much has been lost.
• Grudge, by Nephi - Various monsters attack each other without prior provocation.
• Menucolors, by Pasi Kallinen - Allow menu lines to be colored according to user-configured patterns.
• Sortloot, by Jukka Lahtinen - Items can be sorted alphabetically by description when viewing piles of items.
• use_darkgray, by Michael Deustchmann - Allow black items to be colored dark gray instead of blue on supporting terminals.
• While Helpless, by Pasi Kallinen - Improve "while helpless" death reasons with actual cause, e.g. "while disrobing".

Simple mail support for dgamelaunch is also available.

Additional changes from NetHack 3.4.3

Changes include, but aren't limited to the following:

Interface

• Most areas of the status line acquire colours when an important change happens, e.g. your attributes turn green if they've just increased or red if they've decreased.
• In the tty windowing system, areas of the map not in your current line of sight now take on a darker colour.
• Hallucination causes the entire map to take on strange colours (in tty GruntHack) and also distorts your perception of items. Fortunately as it times out its effects are gradually reduced.

Dungeon

• Gehennom has been remodelled - instead of a series of mazes, it is now a series of caverns complete with rivers of lava and hordes of demons.
• The Gnomish Mines contain pools of water and the occasional river.
• The Elemental Planes appear in random order in the end game.

Player

• Optionally, players can play as a kobold, ogre, or giant, each of which brings unique problems due to their respective sizes.
• The arbitrary alignment restriction on elves has been removed; they can now play any alignment (and can play a few new roles as well).
• You can cast monster spells while polymorphed into a spell-casting form.
• Low dexterity causes fumbling on an intermittent basis. Gauntlets of fumbling and fumble boots set dexterity to 6 as a consequence.
• Wearing greased gauntlets grants "slippery fingers" extrinsically.
• Attempting to abuse the astral call bug causes the gods to take notice.
• Death messages while immobile now reflect the reason for immobility.
• Death messages while stuck in creature form now reflect the method of death as opposed to plain "stuck in creature form".

Monsters

• Some classes of monster can have a race, much as the player does. Some monsters have been merged as a result. showrace now additionally shows the race of monsters as well as yourself.
• Shopkeepers that hate your race will charge extra.
• Monsters that polymorph will revert to original form if killed; their polymorph can also time out.
• Monsters can now use ranged weapons against other monsters, including polearms and monster spells.
• Monsters can use scrolls of remove curse.
• Intelligent pets will actively seek out better equipment to make use of.
• Monsters can use additional types of equipment that grant magical effects just as the player can. * Monsters actively target your pets as well as you.
• The behaviour of covetous monsters has been improved. Most notably those not capable of teleporting can no longer teleport. If they manage to acquire their desired target they will attempt to flee effectively.
• Monster displacement is implemented. Shimmering dragons are re-enabled as a consequence.
• In addition to the shimmering dragons, the vampire mage and vorpal jabberwock are enabled.
• Kings are now guaranteed to appear in throne rooms.
• Pets will not eat if they are not hungry. Unintelligent pets can choke if you overfeed them; intelligent pets can keep food with them.
• Gelatinous cubes and water elementals now have an engulfing attack, making them much more fearsome opponents.
• Puddings have their maximum HP halved when they divide.
• Puddings are now split with edged weapons as opposed to any iron object.
• Messages for monsters missing you are more verbose, explaining what piece of armour stopped the blow.

Objects

• Non-artifact objects can have additional properties (e.g. ___ of fire resistance).
• Object material is now determined on a per-object basis.
• Foobanes deal additional damaging effects to their targets.
• Hitting monsters with a wielded scroll or wand causes some of the object's magic to be released. Throwing scrolls has a similar effect.
• Hitting a water elemental with a potion of acid causes the potion to explode.
• Potions of gain ability and wands now interact plausibly.
• Unidentified fake Amulets of Yendor cannot be put in containers.

Getting GruntHack

Unlike many NetHack variants, GruntHack is distributed as a patch (over seven hundred kilobytes).

http://bilious.alt.org/?261

The patch should be applied against vanilla NetHack 3.4.3.