Difference between revisions of "Hack'EM"

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=== Gnomish Mines ===
 
=== Gnomish Mines ===
  
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Different types of gnomes, dwarves, and thieves have been added to the mines. Dwarf and gnome thieves are now found in most town and Minetown variants, adding intrigue to these locations.
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Different types of gnomes, dwarves, and thieves have been added to the mines. Dwarf and gnome thieves are now found in most town and Minetown variants. The presence of undead in the mines is no longer tied to alignment (as in SLASH'EM) but depends on the dungeon depth. The deeper you go, the higher the chance of encountering undead versions of the regular denizens, making the later stages more challenging.
  
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The presence of undead monsters in the game is no longer tied to alignment (as in SLASH'EM) but depends on the dungeon depth. The deeper you go, the higher the chance of encountering undead creatures, making the later stages more challenging.
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Hack'EM has integrated Minetown variants from SlashTHEM and SpliceHack, along with Mine's End levels from SlashTHEM. Additionally, the Gnome King's ending from SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM is available. One Minetown variant features a drawbridge. However, players should be cautious, as destroying the drawbridge in the presence of guards will anger them. The mine rivers that are present in GruntHack and EvilHack are still in the mines - but they will be found only deeper than Minetown and not before.
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The game has integrated Minetown variants from SlashTHEM and SpliceHack, along with Mine's End levels from SlashTHEM. Additionally, the Gnome King's ending from SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM is now available for players to pursue.
 
−
 
 
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A notable addition is a unique Minetown variant featuring a drawbridge. However, players should be cautious when interacting with it, as destroying the drawbridge in the presence of guards will anger them.
 
−
 
 
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The mine rivers that are present in GruntHack and EvilHack are still in the mines - but they will be found only deeper than Minetown and not before.
 
  
 
=== Sokoban ===
 
=== Sokoban ===

Revision as of 16:34, 15 October 2023

Contents


   O                                             ,  /\  .  
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,--8--,  _    _            _    ______ __  __  (| -=||=- |)
  |:|   | |  | |          | |  |  ____|  \/  |  \\,-||-.// 
  |˙|   | |__| | __ _  ___| | _| |__  | \  / |   `  ||  '  
  |˙|   |  __  |/ _` |/ __| |/ /  __| | |\/| |      ||
  | |   | |  | | (_| | (__|   <| |____| |  | |      ||
  | |   |_|  |_|\__,_|\___|_|\_\______|_|  |_|      ||
  \ /                                               ()
   .

Hack'EM is a project started by User:Hackemslashem with the goal of becoming the next successor to SLASH'EM. Simply put, Hack'EM is "Hack, Extended Mechanics."

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (Hack'EM 1.2.1). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.

Many features and mechanics listed have been updated from 1.2.0 to 1.2.1

Main Menu

Template:HackEMMonsters
Click on a glyph to go to that monster's page.

Info on new content and changes to existing content:

Script generated pages:

About

Welcome to Hack'EM!

When hackemslashem first started this project, it was an attempt to modernize SLASH'EM and bring it to a modern post-NetHack 3.4.3 environment. He started with EvilHack as a base because he was intrigued by the challenging reputation of EvilHack and the comprehensive feature set it contained. However, as the project proceeded he found many other interesting mechanics and ideas to refine and mix in from other forks. The result was a game where the skeleton is SLASH'EM, but the innards are composed of EvilHack, SpliceHack, SlashTHEM, xNetHack, UnNetHack, and almost every other fork. In particular, the content of SpliceHack and SlashTHEM were of importance - because these forks have a goldmine of content but their development has largely stalled, resulting in a backlog of bugs. Now players can find many of the features from those forks in Hack'EM, with less bugs and refined mechanics.

The main design philosophies still stand:

  • If something doesn't work, is buggy, or is easily abusable, attempt to improve it or remove it.
  • If something is bland or feels unfinished - attempt to flesh it out.
  • Add all the quality-of-life features that are available in the variant market.

But a couple of new ideas have also evolved:

  • Make the game accessible to both NetHack newbies and veterans. This was mostly accomplished by updating the object lookup to show more information on objects, monsters, and artifacts. A player doesn't have to run to the wiki (or wonder if the wiki is up-to-date).
  • Make the game challenging for NetHack veterans, even if completely spoiled. We want to keep people coming back for more, and we want to encourage different tactics as the texture of the game reveals itself.
  • Make the game difficult - but fair. Many new challenges have been introduced, but the player shouldn't feel that a situation is completely out of their control unless the RNG is really bad that day. For each new challenge, a counter-balance should usually be achieved. The opposite is also true, for any powerful effect in the player's favor, a counter-effect is usually balanced. The end-goal is to present the player with interesting situations.
  • Nudge players to make more creative decisions. If a mechanic, item, or feature makes for a completely decisionless strategy, this is usually viewed as a sign that something needs to be adjusted.


Quality-of-life features

Object lookup has been fleshed out:

  • If you are new to Hack'EM, the object lookup will be your new best friend!
  • There are a few ways to access the lookup info:
   - Open your inventory (i), and then press the inventory letter associated with your item.
   - Farlook: Press ; then : on a monster or item.
   - Type / and ?, and manually type in the item/monster to query (e.g. "potion of acid")
  • Object lookup shows a lot of useful information for items, including object properties and special effects from materials.
  • Object lookup for corpses now shows intrinsics conferred, and other info about eating them (like if they are poisonous or acidic).
  • Weapons show bonus damage and effects resulting from materials.
  • Artifacts can also be looked up to reveal all the special effects they confer or attacks they inflict.
  • Special item manipulation tricks will also be displayed if they pertain to the item:
    • fermentation recipes with fruit juice (Lookup "fruit juice" for full listing)
    • gem alchemy (Lookup "acid" for full listing)
    • forging recipes
    • tinker/upgrade paths

Auto-identification

  • All roles start out having these basic items pre-identified:
    • potions of water
    • blank scrolls
    • scrolls of identify
  • Many items are auto-identified on wear, first use, or when their effects should logically be reveals (ie: water walking boots are identified when you walk over water)
  • Almost all wands are identified when seeing their engraving effects or zap usage.
  • If a wand shares an engrave message with others, it can be auto-identified by process of elimination if it's counterparts are already identified.
  • Auto-ID rings dropped into a sink when message is shown (Un)
  • Auto-ID amulets dropped into toilets, if possible (slex)
  • Auto-ID flintstones when rubbed on iron weapons (evil)
  • Rustproof/erodeproof/fixed status is known by default for all items (DynaHack)
  • After a while of using a wielded weapon, you will identify it and its enchantment (evil)
  • Throne insight now recursively identifies all items in your possession and in your containers (fiq)
  • Blessed stethoscopes can identify eggs (on the floor)
  • Projectile un-identification has been left out (this prevents merging of previously known projectiles in 3.7)

Other QoL

Many effects are explicitly displayed for the player's benefit:

  • The player's magic cancellation (MC) is shown in the status bar (evil)
  • Phasing status is also shown in the status bar. (from EvilHack)
  • Realtime display option is now available (from EvilHack)
  • Show prayer stats in Attributes menu [^X screen] (from UnNetHack, originally from dNetHack)
  • Firearms that have different modes of operation display their modes in the player's inventory.

New options are available for the player's convenience:

  • Config option for auto-stair travel (autostairtravel)
  • Config option for kicking shortcuts (ctrlkick)
  • Config option to play without the bloody tile coloring (bloodless)
  • Paranoid swim and paranoid trap options can be set.
  • showdmg option (from SLASH'EM): This shows damage vs the player in (parentheses) and damage vs monsters in [brackets]. It also toggles the flanking bonus display on and off.

Effortless dungeon navigation features

  • > < to auto-travel to stairs (from Unnethack
  • Control+Direction now kicks in that direction
  • The Astral Plane is always lit (xnh)
  • Removed all random secret corridors (xnh)
  • Don't hide magic portals (from xNetHack)
  • Removed the Quest turn limit (Un)
  • Removed the mysterious force
  • Deliberate level teleporter activation ignores magic resistance (3.7)
  • Switching between your main and alternative weapon does not take any turns (from dnh)
  • Prevent stopping on graves and engravings when running.
  • The passtune range has been extended by 1 so you can now play one step farther away from the drawbridge (xnh)

Better inventory management

  • When identified, scrolls of enchant armor ask what armor to enchant.
  • When identified, scrolls of transmogrify ask what item to target.
  • Remove "Auto-select every item" when putting into containers (Un)
  • Default shopkeeper sell prompt to N (xnh)
  • Magical Explosions: Players cannot put known wands of cancellation or magical bags into bags of holding anymore (dnh). This also applies when #tipping into your bag of holding, you will flick away explosive items if you have the item and the BoH identified.
  • Magicbane is safe for any Bag of Holding, it does not cause BoH explosions.
  • If a player charges a depleted Bag of Tricks/Rats with contents - it will now explode and scatter the contents instead of deleting them.
  • You can tip into containers on the ground, as well as empty bags of tricks/rats.

Misc other features:

  • Regeneration only causes additional hunger when injured (Un)
  • Having hunger prevents choking on food (3.7)
  • 1-damage hits still train weapon/unarmed skills (from DynaHack)
  • Chargeable rings may get charged when hit with electricity (3.7)
  • Useless +0 rings are generate very rarely (xnh)
  • Monsters are prevented from picking up gold in shops (Un)
  • Monsters don't blame the player for falling down holes the player dug. Pit traps still count.
  • Potions have been made more useful from a small collection of patches (see the Alchemy Mechanics section)
  • Extrinsic resistances protect items from elemental damage. For example, wearing a ring of fire resistance will protect your scrolls and potions from fire damage.
  • Wielding/wearing item giving stoning res will cure stoning (EvilHack).
  • Phasing allows escape from being engulfed. (EvilHack)
  • All roles (except Caveman) get their special spell granted when they reach level 12 (SpliceHack)
  • Pets will not use rings of teleportation.
  • Players can use gaze attacks in melee range when poly'd into a form with one.
  • Greased/oilskin objects have a chance to resist being stolen. (from EvilHack)
  • Merged scimitar and saber skills.

New options and commands

  • #force can also be used on doors while wielding a weapon (SLASH'EM)
  • #naming glitches have been nerfed - Players can no longer #name items for identification clues. On attempting to name a regular object with a related artifact name (e.g. naming a candle "The Candle of Eternal Flame"), your hand will always slip.
  • Monks can break boulders and statues using martial arts skill at skilled level or higher (shift + f and then a movement key).
  • Rogues can steal from monsters by using 'thievery', (must be bare-handed to use, press shift + f and then a movement key).
  • Convicts can #chat with rats to pacify or tame them.
  • Necromancers can #chat with zombies to pacify or tame them.
  • Changed #forge to #craft.
  • #tech accesses your role's available techniques.
  • #loot can be used at your pet to both give and take away items from its inventory.
  • Add #genocided command to view what species have already been eliminated

Wizard mode updates

  • #wizclear (^z), clears all monsters on level (splice)
  • Can wish for monsters with ^w (Un)


New conducts

  • Added celibate conduct (SLASH'EM)
  • Added conduct for performing (or refusing to perform) techniques.
  • Added a conduct for buying or selling from shopkeepers.

Wishing shortcuts

Note: Capitalization does not matter when using these.

Item Shortcut
Amulet of ESP AoESP
Amulet of Life Saving AoLS
Bag of Holding BoH
Cloak of Displacement CoD
Cloak of Invisibility CoL
Cloak of Magic Resistance CoMR
Gauntlets of Dexterity GoD
Gauntlets of Power GoP
Helm of Brilliance HoB
Helm of Opposite Alignment HoOA
Helm of Telepathy HoT
Levitation Boots BoL
Magic Lamp ML
Magic Marker MM
Potion of Extra Healing PoEH
Potion of Gain Level PoGL
Potion of Monster Detection PmD
Potion of Water PoW
Ring of Conflict RoC
Ring of Polymorph Control RoPC
Ring of Teleport Control RoTC
Scroll of Identify SoI
Scroll of Remove Curse SoRC
Scroll of Charging SoC
Scroll of Enchant Armor SoEA
Scroll of Enchant Weapon SoEW
Shield of Reflection SoR
Speed Boots BoS
Unicorn Horn UH
Wand of Create Monster WoCM
Wand of Teleportation WoT
Wand of Undead Turning WoUT
Water Walking Boots BoWW
Kiku-ichimonji kiku

Major Changes

These are changes you should definitely know about first, especially coming from other variants.

Credit Cloning and Pet stealing

  • Pets cannot pick up items in shops anymore and you cannot give an unpaid item to a pet by using #loot. You will have to pay for items or outright steal them in Hack'EM. Fortunately, the special levels usually contain much gold and resources to use at shops.

Wishing mechanics

  • Using wishes in Hack'EM has long term consequences.
  • "When all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed." - Marilyn Manson
  • Wishing can impact your luck, the game's monster spawning rate, and the monster spawn difficulty levels.
  • After the 1st wish (which is always free of consequences), the player gets -1 for each prime wish they make. So 2 wishes = -1 luck, 3 wishes = -2, and so on.
  • If the player makes 13 or more wishes - luck is locked out at -13.
# of wishes base Luck spawn rate
1 0 1x
2 -1 2x
3 -2 3x
4 -2 4x
5 -3 5x
6 -3 6x
7 -4 8x
8 -4 8x
9 -4 8x
10 -4 8x
11 -5 8x
12 -5 8x
13 -13 8x

Other wishing notes:

  • Note: Magic lamps are more rare, but always guaranteed to grant wishes. You can bank on the Sunless Sea to have a magic lamp with a wish.
  • Monsters can no longer use wands of wishing to get wishes - if they get a wish from a smoky potion they will still attempt to get something powerful.

Wishing for artifacts:

  • Instead of being based off of how many artifacts exist in the game total (vanilla NetHack method), success is based off of how many artifacts the player has wished for (successful or not).
  • The first two artiwishes are guaranteed.

Astral Rain

  • Taming is much more difficult on the Astral Plane.
  • When attempting to use a scroll of taming, a magic harp, the charm monster spell, or any other source of taming - there is only a 10% chance of success.
  • Figurines still function as normal.

Polymorphing mechanics

Bones mechanics

  • When bones files are left, there's a significant chance of items being polymorphed or shuddering away. This makes bones file peeking and bones stuffing a bit less reliable.

Elbereth

Initially, players must discover Elbereth within the game, either through rumors or by reading about it, with exceptions made for elves and hobbits, who innately possess this knowledge. When conflict is in effect, the protective power of Elbereth is nullified. Orcs, regardless of their form, are incapable of learning this incantation. In a significant development, when a lawful character is crowned as the Hand of Elbereth, they gain knowledge of Elbereth if they didn't possess it before. Notably, there are some creatures that show no reverence for Elbereth's protection, and information about them can be found in the monster Pokedex. Additionally, the alignment penalty for attacking while invoking Elbereth has been reduced to a modest -1.

Scare monster

Numerous creatures in the game exhibit immunity to both Elbereth and Scare Monster, further challenging players. This immunity encompasses a wide array of adversaries, including all unique monsters such as the formidable Wizard of Yendor, quest nemeses, and the enigmatic Riders. Angelic beings, denoted by the symbol 'A,' as well as humans represented by the symbol '@,' along with mplayer monsters, are also impervious to these tactics. Additionally, any monsters under the influence of conflict or those in a berserk state also share this immunity, creating additional complexities for adventurers in their encounters.

Mechanics changes

Combat

  • Major change from SLASH'EM - Artifact weapons do not deal flat +x damage - they deal damage based on their dice rolls.
  • All edged weapons can be poisoned (ex: daggers, swords)
  • When a player attempts to strike a monster using a weapon they are either restricted or unskilled in, or any non-weapon item, their likelihood of successfully landing a hit will never exceed 75%. Notably, bare-handed combat remains an exception to this rule.

Launchers now contribute to damage

  • The enchantment of a launcher applies to missiles shot from it. However, the enchantment on a launcher and missiles does not stack. This means you only need to enchant the launcher and can save scrolls of enchant weapon for other uses.
    • Example #1: You have a +7 bow and +0 arrows. The arrows will act as if +7.
    • Example #2: You have a +0 bow and +7 arrows. The arrows will act as if +7.
    • Example #3: You have a +7 bow and +7 arrows. The arrows will act as if +7.
    • Example #4: You have a +3 bow and +2 arrows. The arrows will act as if +3.

Strength bonus for two-handed weaponry is x1.5 (EvilHack)

    • The standard damage bonus for strength is multiplied 1.5 times when wielding a weapon using two hands, or if you're a giant one-handing a two-handed weapon (they're heavy)

Gloves' enchantment is now added to unarmed damage.

    • Example: Fighting bare-handed with +3 gloves adds +3 damage to hits.
  • Stoning – monsters being stoned is a slow-stoning process, just as it is for the player.

Shield skill

A new trainable skill from EvilHack - using shields.

Shield skill gives the player a new avenue of defense (and even offense) to train up. Roles that can highly train shields will benefit from much higher AC and gain some nice offensive bonuses.

AC bonuses:

  • Being unskilled/restricted in shield skill, there is no extra AC bonus for wearing one.
  • To get these bonuses, you must be wearing a shield and have the required skill.
    • BASIC skill: +1AC
    • SKILLED skill: +3AC
    • EXPERT skill: +5AC
    • MASTER skill: +8AC

If your role allows for it, you can train up your shield skill while wearing a shield. If you block an attack outright with your shield, that automatically trains shield skill. Otherwise, there's a 33% chance of training shield skill while wearing one and a regular miss event occurs.

Shield Bashing:

If shield skill is basic or higher, and a shield is being worn, there's a chance the player will receive an extra 'shield bash' attack along with their regular attack. The greater the shield skill, the greater the chance of the extra shield bash attack occurring.

  • Small shields do 2-4 damage, Tower shields do 2-13 damage.
  • All other shields do 3-8 damage (not counting material hatred, which is factored in).
  • Expert skill or higher gets an extra small damage bonus
  • Expert/master skill in shields gives a chance to stun your target with a shield bash.

Misc:

  • If expert skill or higher in shields, your shield will be prevented from being taken away via dwarvish bearded axe attack.

The roles that can train in shields are:

Role Shield Skill
Archaeologist BASIC
Barbarian SKILLED
Caveperson BASIC
Convict BASIC
Knight EXPERT
Necromancer SKILLED
Priest SKILLED
Rogue BASIC
Ranger SKILLED
Tourist BASIC
Undead Slayer SKILLED
Valkyrie MASTER
Yeoman BASIC
  • Knights and Valkyries start at basic skill.

Mold and fungus resurrection

  • This content has been imported from xnh, which, in turn, had borrowed it from SLASH'EM.
  • Corpses have a chance over time to grow moldy and produce a random F monster.
  • The corpses of petrifying monsters (ie: cockatrices) will only grow green molds.
  • The resurrection rates have been tapered back a bit, so it's not as pervasive as in Slash'EM - but there are now more molds that can spawn (including moldiers at deeper levels).
  • Moldy corpses can be used with different potions (see the brewing patch details)

Conflict

A significant change has been introduced in the way conflict is triggered in the game. Now, when inciting conflict, the player's charisma score plays a crucial role in the process.

The formula behind this calculation is: (CHA - monster level + player level).

If this result exceeds 19, it is capped at 19. Subsequently, there is a percentage-based chance, determined by a random roll of the dice (rnd(20)), to determine whether the conflict actually takes effect or not. Even with maximum charisma and experience level, there's still a 5% chance of conflict failing to activate. Another crucial aspect is that the monsters must have visual contact with the player for conflict to activate.

Dexterity based AC

  • Dexterity can directly affect the player's AC, for better or worse. See the chart below for details.
    • Being encumbered negates AC bonuses from dexterity
    • Wearing any kind of heavy metallic body armor (not mithril) or other rigid material (bone, stone, wood) will also negate dexterity bonuses.
Dexterity AC change
<= 6 +3
7-9 +1
10-14 none
15-16 -1
17-18 -2
19-20 -3
21-23 -4
24-25 -5

Amnesia

  • Can make you lose Elbereth knowledge if you had it.
  • Can make you forget forget about shambling horrors.
  • Can make you lose intrinsic telepathy.
  • Can make you lose "eaten knowledge", which doppelgangers use to poly into different forms.
  • Psychic Resistance protects from amnesia forgetting. Sources include rings of psychic resistance and being an illithid.
  • Potions of amnesia can also inflict this effect. Potions of amnesia always have the "sparkling" appearance. Keep in mind that monsters can throw these potions at you.

Religion, prayer, altars

  • If an unaligned altar generates with a priest of Moloch, that priest will be hostile to all roles except infidels.
  • This means the VoTD priest is always hostile and unable to give donations (unless, of course, you are an infidel.)
  • Sacrifice offerings can sometimes bless random objects (From SLASH'EM)

Minions

  • SLASH'EM had a mechanic for getting aligned minions as gifts from your god when you sacrifice or pray with low health. This has been ported over but with some restrictions.
  • Minions will not be granted when:
    • You are praying.
    • You have negative luck.
    • You have been crowned
    • You have completed the quest
    • You have been expelled from the quest
    • You have any pets on the current level (prevents overcrowding)

As the number of altar gifts increases, the odds of getting a minion decrease.

  • The minions granted are a little bit different from SLASH'EM but generally follow the same pattern.
  • Minion pets are not subject to the same tameness expiration as normal pets - they should remain tame forever unless abused or their tameness is reduced in some other fashion.

Dungeon growth patch

Another feature ported over from Slash'EM. This enables trees to slowly branch out in the dungeon and occasionally drop ripe fruits/leaves, offering potential resources to the player.

This encourages the growth of various herbs that are left on the ground or placed in water. Herbs left unattended will periodically sprout more of the same type in the surrounding tiles. These herbs comprise garlic, wolfsbane, catnip, carrots, mushrooms, pineapples, and kelp fronds. While some of these may not be technically herbs, they still exhibit prolific growth.

One intriguing strategy is to leave these items on the ground early in the game and return after a significant number of turns to see what has been "farmed."

Levels containing trees have a chance of yielding an extra axe, which can be helpful for managing potential overgrowth caused by the spreading trees.

Oily Corpses patch

  • There is a 20% chance upon starting to eat a corpse of certain slippery monsters (e.g. most slithy, non-snakelike monsters and most blobby monsters) that your fingers get slippery. Tins of them are not slippery unless caused by the tin preparation.

Intrinsics and resistances

Partial resistances

  • Intrinsic resistances are no longer binary, but are percentages instead. The spread is 5% to 50% resistance gained from eating per corpse. Damage reduction from various attacks is determined by how much partial resistance the player has to it.

Partial reflection

  • Reflection is not 100%; it can lessen the effects of an attack it reflects, but will never negate it.

Partial magic resistance

  • The "shower of missiles" monster attack is not completely negated by magic resistance.

The Afraid and Fearless conditions

  • The player can sometimes become too afraid to control their actions and will run away in fear.
  • This is similar to the effects of being stunned or confused.
  • You won't be able to control your movement or attacks, but you can still use items as normal.

Causes of fear:

  • Hearing or seeing Dragon roars
  • Being caught in the blast of an ethereal light
  • Hearing the screech from a monstrous spider
  • Seeing the gaze of a bodak
  • Seeing the gaze of an eye of fear and flame
  • Hearing the scream of a banshee
  • Breaking a wand of fear
  • Being zapped by a wand of fear
  • Applying a cursed Nighthorn
  • Magic trap effect (1 in 21 chance)

-* If you get caught in an explosion type that you are vulnerable to, it can cause a brief panic attack. This only occurs 1 in 3 times and if the damage exceeds a 3d6 roll.

Curing fear:

  • If the monster you are afraid of dies, your fear will subside as well.
  • Quaff a potion of booze. Quaffing booze actually gives you intrinsic fearlessness for 8d4 (more) turns, even after the confusion wears off.
  • Quaff a potion of amnesia
  • Let it time out
  • Applying a non-cursed Nighthorn
  • Invoking the Staff of Aesculapius
  • Using the calm steed technique as a centaur

Preventing fear:

  • Wear a tinfoil hat
  • Wield a weapon with the "rage" property
  • Wear the large shield Pridwen
  • Wield Dragonbane to protect from dragon roars
  • Knights are also specifically immune to dragon roars
  • Play as a Necromancer, they start with intrinsic fearlessness

Note: Wearing or wielding extrinsic sources of fearlessness that prevent fear don't actually cure fear, but wearing them does nullify the effects. If you remove the item, the fear will still be active until it times out or is actually cured.

Extreme Stability

  • Some monsters have a new clobber attack which can knock you senseless.
  • You are vulnerable to this attack if you are smaller than a huge monster and are solid.
  • A successful clobber attack occurs 1 in 6 times and will send you flying back 1 to 2 squares.
  • Furthermore, after being hurtled back, there is a 1 in 4 chance of being stunned for 2-3 turns.
  • The stable property protects you(or monsters) from clobber attacks, it won't reduce the damage, but it will keep you from moving and being stunned.

Be very wary of your surroundings in encounters with monsters that clobber. You don't want to be next to lava or water tiles because you could easily be hurtled back to your death.

Sonic damage and sonic resistance

  • Ported from SpliceHack

Sonic damage comes in two main forms: rays and monster attacks. The sources of sonic rays are primarily wands of noise, violet dragons, and the sonic boom spell. These rays can be reflected (with a source of reflection) or resisted with sonic resistance. Sonic rays are quite destructive however and will easily shatter anything made of glass in a monsters inventory, your inventory, or even on the floor. Glass objects could be potions, rings, wands, tools, armor, or weapons. It is possible to shatterproof your items by wielding one and reading a scroll of enchant weapon while confused. Sonic rays can also destroy iron bars, toilets, sinks, boulders, and statues.

There are a handful of monsters which possess potent sonic or "scream" attacks. The common theme is that they are all ranged and can be launched from about 12 squares from the hero. They can also be used in melee range.

  • Concussive spheres: A one-time explosive sonic blast (similar to flaming spheres)
  • Violet dragons: Sonic breath attack, and passive sonic damage.
  • Screamer: Similar to a shrieker, but deals a sonic scream
  • Nazgul: Scream which stuns
  • Monstrous spider: Scream which inflicts fear
  • Mobat: Piercing scream
  • Banshee: Scream which inflicts fear
  • Harpy: Song which paralyzes.
  • Gibberling: Possesses a plethora of attacks, each inflicting a unique but twisted effect (similar to a cursed unicorn horn)

All of the scream attacks can also shatter glass objects. The gibberlings and harpies don't scream, but are quite dangerous anyway.

Also - there are sonic bombs, and spellcasting monsters can make you vulnerable to sonic damage.

As you can see, in Hack'EM the player must have a game-plan for dealing with sonic damage going into the late game. How can you protect against it or at least mitigate the damage? There is no intrinsic sonic resistance, unless you polymorph into a monster that innately has it. All sources are extrinsic but once obtained will also protect your items from shattering.

Sources of sonic resistance:

  • violet dragon scales
  • violet dragon scaled armor
  • resonant shield
  • ring of sonic resistance
  • Wielding or wearing an item with the sonic resistance property.
  • Wielding Thunderstruck

The tortle race also starts with a toque, which doesn't grant explicit sonic resistance - but it will protect the player from sonic damage and nullify the effects of sonic attacks. Unfortunately, it will not protect your glass items from destruction. Becoming deaf also accomplishes the same thing.

One other obscure source of sonic resistance is simply being underwater. This automatically dispel any sonic damage and grant you (and monsters) sonic resistance while submerged.

Using sonic damage for offense:

  • It may look daunting at all the threats facing the player - but keep in mind that if you are able to obtain Thunderstruck, or a decent weapon that has the scream property (which does sonic damage), you now wield a weapon that the majority of monsters in Hack'EM do not resist. Only about 5% of monsters are sonic resistant. There are almost double the amount of acid resistant monsters at ~10%, which shows how niche this attack vector is.

Psychic damage and resistance

  • (from Splice and EvilHack)

Like sonic damage, psychic damage also comes in a few forms. The form most players will be familiar with is the mind flayers psychic blast, which can target you from a wide range. A few new monster now also have a melee based psychic attack: the gnomish psyker and the dream thief. Ethereal lights also are fast and will explode on contact, inflicting psychic damage as well as fear on the player.

Psychic resistance:

  • Illithids start with psychic resistance.
  • The only source of extrinsic psychic resistance is the tinfoil hat.
  • Protects you from forgetting skills, spells, and other things from potions and scrolls of amnesia, as well as mind flayer and zombie brain eating attack.
  • Protects you from an illithids psionic wave and tentacle attacks.

Larva carrier property

  • Some monsters can infect you with dangerous eggs! If their larva are allowed to hatch, they emerge from your body dealing a significant amount of damage in the process. Plus, you have to deal with a new set of monsters in front of you. The only way to defend against this attack, other than canceling the injector, is to be polymorphed into a monster with thick skin.

Luckily, you can cure this condition using a few different methods:

  • quaffing potions of sickness (this kills the larva from inside)
  • drink from a toilet (poisonous water)
  • receiving a disease attack from a monster
  • eating a pill
  • invoking the Staff of Aesculapius
  • invoking the Healing Hands technique
  • being zapped by a cure sickness spell

There are only three monsters that can infect you with larva, remember them well: giant ichneumon, gibberlings, and spibrawulfs.

Regeneration

  • The player is unable to regenerate hit points while in the Valley of the Dead – healing via other methods (potions, healing spells) is still possible.
  • Regeneration only causes additional hunger when injured.
  • Restful sleep regenerates HP (we can get restful sleep property from the Amulet of Restful Sleep or a Ring of Sleeping)

Item Manipulation

Item Generation

  • 1/80 of random non-artifact weapons will be generated erodeproof (xnh)
  • 1/80 of random non-artifact items will be generated as pre-eroded (xnh)
  • Grease will generate on an erodible object every once in a great while - 1 in 1000 chance (xnh/3.7)

The following effects of items with certain randomized appearances are adapted from dNetHack:

  • Combat boots grant +1 AC and +1 to-hit when attacking.
  • Mud boots make you more resistant to wrap attacks.
  • Hiking boots grant +100 to carrying capacity while you are grounded (e.g., not levitating or riding a steed).
  • Jungle boots prevent many types of leg injury.
  • Padded gloves grant +1 AC.
  • Old gloves can't be eroded.
  • Fencing gloves grant +2 to-hit with a one-handed weapon and no shield

Object materials

  • Many objects and items can spawn made from something other than its base material.
  • Object materials have not been altered since being inherited from EvilHack. For details see EvilHack § Object materials
  • Any item or object that is susceptible to being rusted, corroded, rotted, burned, or fractured can be completely destroyed via those methods unless fixed.
  • Any item or object can be fixed (wielding the object and reading a scroll of enchant weapon while confused) if its material allows for it.
  • The dragonhide AC bonus has been reduced from 8AC to 5AC.
  • Shirts can only be cloth.
  • Mummy wrappings can be leather or dragonhide.
  • Gold objects are notable because they are the frequent targets of leprechaun theft.
  • Glass objects should be handled with care because they are very vulnerable to shattering from sonic attacks.

Keep in mind that if the material of an object is not working for you, it may be possible to fix with a scroll of transmogrify.

Object properties

The object properties patch exists in a handful variants – the code used for Hack'EM was taken from EvilHack, which in turn was taken from GruntHack and then modified significantly.

An object property is a magical attribute associated with an item – in other variants that have object properties, the number of magical properties and the number and types of items they can be applied to is rather broad, and finding such properties on these items is not uncommon. In Hack'EM, there are many object properties, they can be applied to weapons, armor, and rings, but the chances of finding such items at random is quite rare and you cannot wish for object properties. However, new alternate methods have been created to both discover and manipulate object properties since they will be a powerful resource to the player.

Eligible items for object properties are: weapons, armor, and rings (with some restrictions).

Restricted items: non-weapons (ie: cockatrice corpses), artifacts, dragon scales, and unique items.

  • A players' starting inventory will never spawn with an object property (with the exception of the Undead Slayer-Vampire who starts with a jacket of fire resistance)
  • Changing a regular item with object properties into an artifact (e.g., dipping for Excalibur) will strip that item of its object properties.
  • Extrinsic properties that are applied to weapons or armor are active only when those objects are wielded/worn. With weapons, extrinsic properties also work in the offhand whilst twoweaponing.

Generation odds

Random item generation:

  • Odds of an eligible item having a magical property: 1 in 150
  • Odds improve deeper into the dungeon
  • The chances of an item having 2 properties on creation is 1 in 100000.

Player monsters:

  • Odds of their weapon having a magical property: 1 in 20 if high level or encountered on the Astral Plane

Angel-class monsters:

  • 1 in 10 chance of their long sword having a magical property

Two properties: 1 in 100,000 chance of an eligible item randomly spawning with two properties.

Identifying Object Properties

  • Observing the effects of most properties in action should auto-identify the property.
  • In other cases, use your own judgment and logic to narrow down the property.
  • Some properties will auto-id upon wielding or wearing, like the stealth, slow, oilskin, and rage properties.
    • Trying to sell stench items, the shopkeepers will refuse - identifying them.
    • Items with the excellence, vigilance, or prowess properties usually auto-identify because they modify stats like charisma or wisdom.
    • If an item of sustainability or toughness resists draining or destruction, the property is revealed.
    • Using items with the swimming or surfing property on water auto-identifies them.
    • The pirate's first gift, The Marauder's Map, has a useful #invoke ability that reveals artifacts and items with properties.
  • Wizards have an innate ability to 'sense' if an item is magical (much like a Priest being able to know the beatitude of all items).
  • Dipping weapons with offensive properties into fountains or toilets can reveal what property it has. The weapon properties that interact with water are: fire, frost, shock, decay, scream, sizzle, rage, venom, filth, and sleep.
  • Wielding or wearing an item with the insight property will grant you the ability to sense magical properties.
  • Reading scrolls of magic detection reveals properties.
  • Zapping wands of probing at items reveals their properties.
  • If playing as a Jedi, you start with a droid pet. This pet is capable of walking over items and revealing their properties.

Manipulating object properties

Shopkeeper's Add Property service:

  • Base price of 2000: The shopkeeper can add a random property to an item of your choosing. The item type depends on the shop type, so a ring shop can add properties to rings, and so on.
  • After adding a property, the weapon is also fully identified.
  • If a weapon already has a property, the shopkeeper will offer to remove it for a base price of 200. There is a 1 in 4 chance of successful removal.

Upgrade/tinker and property transfers:

  • Upgrading/tinkering objects will not remove or change any properties on the item.

Forging and property transfers:

  • Properties will never spontaneously appear from forging results, the property has to come from the first or second ingredient.
  • Forging will take the secondary object property over the primary. If you have formally identified the object property of one of the recipe objects, you'll know the object property of the newly forged object.

Polypiling and Property transfers:

  • Polymorphing items that are cursed always wipes the properties from an obj.
  • An uncursed object has a luck dependent chance of retaining it's properties.
   LUCK:     <0      0     +2     +5     +8    +11
   SUCCESS: 0.5%  20.0%  39.5%  59.0%  78.5%  98.0%

The Scroll of Transmogrify:

  • Confused readings can be used to altar the properties of objects.
  • A cursed scroll will remove any properties on an item.
  • An uncursed scroll will change an existing property on an item (depending on luck)
  • A blessed scroll reading will add a random property to the item (depending on luck)
  • (The luck factor matches the odds for polymorphing objects with properties)
   LUCK:     <0      0     +2     +5     +8    +11
   SUCCESS: 0.5%  20.0%  39.5%  59.0%  78.5%  98.0%
  • When changing or adding properties, any property is valid - even those with negative effects.


Table of object properties

The table below lists all available magical properties, what items they can be applied to, and what their function is.

Object property Armor/ring attributes Weapon attributes
Fire fire resistance +(1d5+3) fire damage
Frost cold resistance +(1d5+3) cold damage
Shock shock resistance +(1d5+3) shock damage
Venom poison resistance permanently poisoned(*)
Sizzle acid resistance +(1d5+3) acid damage
Scream sonic resistance +(1d5+3) sonic damage
Decay drain resistance drain life attack
Sleep "alertness"
sleep resistance		 sleep attack
Vs Stone petrification resistance petrification resistance
(only for launchers)
Filth "health"
sickness resistance		 disease attack
Toughness disintegration resistance
makes item erodeproof
makes item indestructible
cannot be used in forging		 disintegration resistance
makes item erodeproof
makes item indestructible
cannot be used in forging
Oilskin n/a permanently greased
only valid on cloth
ESP telepathy telepathy
Searching searching searching
Stealth stealth stealth
Vigilance wisdom adjustment
warning
flanking evasion		 wisdom adjustment
warning
flanking evasion
Excellence charisma adjustment
luckstone effect when worn		 charisma adjustment
luckstone effect when wielded
Insight see invisible
magical detection		 see invisible
magical detection
Prowess n/a dexterity bonus
You gain double the usual skill points when using weapons and spells.
It also doubles the rate your tech cooldowns expire.
Surfing water walking
speed bonus on water/lava		 water walking
speed bonus on water/lava
Rage n/a fearlessness
bloodthirsty (the rage weapon will attack mercilessly like Stormbringer)
max damage rolls on the weapon with rage.
Fumbling fumbling fumbling
Hunger hunger hunger
Stench aggravate monster
prevents digestion
unedible item		 aggravate monster,
prevents digestion,
inedible item
Teleportation teleportitis teleportitis
Lethargy slow slow
Sustainability fixed abilities
item cannot be enchanted(*)
item is immune to disenchantment and draining
item never shudders from polymorph		 fixed abilities
item cannot be enchanted(*)
item is immune to disenchantment and draining
item never shudders from polymorph
Danger infravision
increased difficulty		 infravision
increased difficulty
Burden stability
item weighs 4x		 stability
item weighs 4x

Notes:

  • All sources of resistances or statuses are considered extrinsic
  • If a property affects a stat (like charisma), the adjustment is based on BUC status (25/18/6 – blessed/uncursed/cursed)

(*) Venom inflicts the normal 1d6 extra poison damage with a 10% chance of instakill by poison, plus an additional 1d2 poison damage.


Malcolm Ryan's Brewing Patch

Enables the player to dip mold corpses in potions of fruit juice to start a fermentation timer that will eventually turn the potion into something else dependent on the mold.

  • Dipping brown mold into fruit juice produces blood
  • Dipping green mold into fruit juice produces acid.
  • Dipping yellow mold into fruit juice produces confusion.
  • Dipping red mold into fruit juice produces booze.
  • Dipping violet fungus into fruit juice produces hallucination.
  • Dipping gray fungus into fruit juice produces amnesia.
  • Dipping orange mold into fruit juice produces sleeping.
  • Dipping black mold into fruit juice produces sickness.
  • lichens, shriekers, and non-F corpses do not ferment.
  • Dipping cursed molds into fruit juice produces sickness.

Note: This also makes the shopkeeper charge you for shop-owned fruit juice that you begin fermenting. This allows you to buy the new, possibly more expensive potion at the cost of the fruit juice.

Pouring potions into sinks

  • (from xnh)
  • Allows for safer identification of potions by dumping them down the drain, leaving the hero to suffer only vapor effects.
  • This is done by selecting a potion to #dip while standing on top of a sink. If a potion of polymorph is poured down a sink, it polymorphs it.

Gem alchemy

  • Acid is no longer a useless endgame potion!
  • Gems dissolve in acid to produce new potions.
  • If the acid is cursed, there is a guaranteed alchemical explosion, otherwise there is always a 1 in 30 chance of an explosion.
  • Use the object lookup (on a gem) to see what potion is created from a particular gem.
  • Note: Smoky potions cannot be produced with this method.

Upgrading and tinkering

Hack'EM features an upgrading mechanic facilitated by potions of gain level or the tinkering technique, a feature adapted from SLASH'EM.

In the interest of fairness and balance, an exploit involving flintstones transforming into healthstones has been rectified, ensuring that flintstones now upgrade only one at a time. The upgrade process itself has seen some improvements, offering an accessible object lookup system to display upgrade information for each item. Each item now maintains a one-to-one relationship, directly mapping to the specific item it upgrades into. This transition also brings about changes in the power of magical item upgrades, as their properties are retained in their new forms, resulting in a reduction in the potency of many magical item upgrades to maintain game equilibrium.

New Upgrade Table:

  • "->" Indicates a one-way transformation path
  • "<->" indicates the two items upgrade back-and-forth.
item 1 to item 2
orcish arrow -> arrow
arrow -> elven arrow
elven arrow -> orcish arrow
ya <-> light arrow
boomerang <-> chakram
orcish spear -> spear
spear -> elven spear
elven spear -> dwarvish spear
dwarvish spear -> orcish spear
orcish dagger -> dagger
dagger -> elven dagger
elven dagger -> stake
stake -> great dagger
great dagger -> orcish dagger
knife <-> stiletto
axe <-> throwing axe
dwarvish bearded axe <-> battle axe
pick axe <-> dwarvish mattock
orcish short sword -> short sword
short sword -> elven short sword
elven short sword -> dwarvish short sword
dwarvish short sword -> orcish short sword
orcish scimitar <-> scimitar
saber <-> rapier
broadsword <-> elven broadsword
orcish long sword -> long sword
long sword -> elven long sword
elven long sword -> orcish long sword
mace <-> heavy mace
morning star <-> orcish morning star
war hammer <-> heavy war hammer
club <-> aklys
orcish bow -> bow
bow -> elven bow
elven bow -> orcish bow
quarterstaff <-> silver capped staff
staff of escape <-> staff of matter
staff of war <-> staff of divination
staff of necromancy <-> staff of healing
cornuthaum <-> dunce cap
fedora <-> elven helm
orcish helm <-> dwarvish helm
helm of madness <-> helm of brilliance
helm of telepathy <-> tinfoil hat
dwarvish chain mail <-> elven chain mail
chain mail <-> orcish chain mail
splint mail <-> large splint mail
ring mail <-> orcish ring mail
light armor <-> jacket
robe <-> large robe
robe of weakness -> robe of power
robe of power -> robe of protection
robe of protection -> robe of weakness
striped shirt <-> t-shirt
mummy wrapping <-> plain cloak
orcish cloak -> dwarvish cloak
dwarvish cloak -> elven cloak
elven cloak -> orcish cloak
poisonous cloak <-> alchemy smock
orcish shield <-> dwarvish roundshield
large shield <-> tower shield
small shield <-> elven shield
gauntlets of fumbling <-> gauntlets of dexterity
low boots <-> high boots
fumble boots <-> elven boots
levitation boots <-> water walking boots
sack <-> oilskin sack
bag of tricks <-> bag of holding
skeleton key <-> lock pick
mirror <-> expensive camera
eight ball <-> crystal ball
lenses <-> goggles
towel <-> blindfold
leash <-> saddle
tin opener <-> tinning kit
pea whistle <-> magic whistle
flute <-> magic flute
tooled horn <-> horn of plenty
fire horn <-> frost horn
harp <-> magic harp
leather drum <-> drum of earthquake
whetstone <-> luckstone
loadstone <-> healthstone

Techniques

Changes to techniques

  • Removed limit breaking from techniques. This was the primary attribute of techniques that was broken in SLASH'EM. One could simply lower their HP and gain unlimited access to some of the techs for some fairly unbalanced advantages.
  • Maintaining your techniques requires eliminating harmful conditions from your play. While suffering from most harmful ailments, your tech cooldowns will expire much slower. This includes most major physical and mental ailments, as well as being too hungry or satiated. If you are wielding a weapon with the prowess property, the normal timeout will always apply.


  • Double damage (from DeathVision or Staff of Rot) is handled properly for techs.

Techniques in Hack'EM

Technique Notes Origin
air dash
  • Monk blitz tech
  • Cannot air dash while trapped or underwater.
  • Using the air dash tech while confused, stunned, or fumbling goes in a random direction.
 SLASH'EM
berserk SLASH'EM
blessing
  • Priest
 SLASH'EM
blink
  • Hobbits
 SLASH'EM
blood magic
  • Adapted the Blood Magic skill from SpliceHack into a technique for necromancers.
 Hack'EM/Splice
booze
  • For the deferred Drunk role from SlashTHEM.
 SLEX
break rock
  • Adapted the monk's boulder breaking ability from EvilHack into a technique.
  • It it still available by using force attack (F) on boulders or statues.
 Hack'EM/Evil
calm steed
  • Yeoman
  • Cures fear when used in centaur form/race.
 SLASH'EM
chained blitz
  • Monk blitz tech
  • Chain blitz tech now shows how many blitz moves you have available and input feedback as you type the blitz commands.
  • Chain blitz shows helpful feedback for incorrect inputs.
  • Chain blitz only costs energy if a successful command sequence is input; invalid commands also don't use up the tech.
  • Chain blitz commands can also be terminated with ; or :
  • Updated blitz commands to be shorter and more intuitive;
  • commands with 2 versions are always mirrored.
  • Instead of wasting a move when making a mistake in chain blitz, it just cancels the tech and let's the player try again.
 SLASH'EM
charge saber
  • Jedi
 SlashTHEM
chi strike
  • Monk blitz tech
 SLASH'EM
chi healing
  • Monk blitz tech
 SLASH'EM
critical strike
  • Rogue
 SLASH'EM
cutthroat
  • Rogue
 SLASH'EM
dazzle
  • Vampirics
 SLASH'EM
disarm
  • Any role can get this tech by advancing a non-ranged weapon skill to Skilled.
  • In SLASH'EM, you could get this tech by advancing any weapon skill except whips.
  • In Hack'EM, we have instead excluded ranged weapons, since it's awkward to explain how you would disarm somebody with a dart or arrow. We have also allowed the whip since they can actually be applied to disarm enemies already.
 SLASH'EM
draw blood
  • All vampirics now start with a medical kit so they can use this technique.
  • Removed the cooldown.
 SLASH'EM
draw energy
  • General spellcaster tech
  • Draw energy tech now uses grass, puddles, sewage, and dead trees in its calculation.
  • Necromancers get a bonus for using draw energy near graves.
 SLASH'EM
elemental fist
  • Monk blitz tech
  • Elemental fist can inflict sonic damage.
  • Added some rare critical-hits for elemental fist (inspired by SpliceHack skills)
 SLASH'EM
eviscerate
  • Tech for the deferred Lycanthrope/Lunatic
 SLASH'EM
force push
  • Jedi
  • Jedi gain a force-push technique at level 14.
  • Using the force push tech while engulfed breaks you out.
 Hack'EM
ground slam
  • Monk blitz tech
 SLASH'EM
healing hands
  • Knight and Priest tech.
  • Also cures larval infection now.
 SLASH'EM
ice armor
  • Ice mage tech
  • As you gain levels, your armor protection will grow more powerful.
  • Calculation is: ACBONUS = -((YOURLEVEL / 2) + 2)
  • Like SLASH'EM, this bonus caps at -11
  • Ice mages also get a passive ice attack that scales with their ice armor strength and level. The chance of triggering this passive improves as you gain levels.
Level 1 2-3 4-5 6-7 8-9 10-11 12-13 14-15 16-17 18-19 20-21
AC Bonus -2 -3 -4 -5 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11
SLASH'EM
jedi jump
  • Jedi
 SlashTHEM
kiii
  • Kii technique timeout gets extended on successful hits.
  • Samurai
 SLASH'EM
liquid leap
  • Doppelganger
  • Liquid leap affects all squares the same as being zapped with acid.
  • Paranoid confirm for liquid leaping into water or lava.
 SLASH'EM
missile flurry
  • Ranger
 SLASH'EM
pickpocket
  • The rogue's thievery ability from EvilHack is now available on the technique menu.
  • It it still available by using force attack (F).
 EvilHack
power shield
  • Previously known as the 'shield block' tech in SlashTHEM.
  • General tech for melee roles.
  • Shield block doesn't work if confused, stunned, fumbling, swallowed, sleeping, blind, or Weak/Fainting.
  • Similar to disarm, any role that reaches Skilled proficiency in Shields will automatically gain access to this technique. As a result, no roles gain this tech by reaching X level anymore, and we have given priests the ability to reach skilled in shields now.
  • Added bonus counter attacks while power shielding.
  • Double the time power shield is usually active.
 SlashTHEM
power surge
  • Powerful technique for spellcasters.
 SLASH'EM
primal roar
  • Caveman
  • Primal roar tech now levels up pets permanently.
  • The duration of their double damage has been extended.
 SLASH'EM
pummel
  • Monk blitz tech
 SLASH'EM
raise zombies
  • Necromancer
 SLASH'EM
revivification
  • Removed revive tech from healers; necromancers get it at level 14.
  • Priests can also get this tech at level 30.
 SLASH'EM
souleater
  • Enabled soul eater tech for dark knight
  • Souleater tech will buff any weapon that drains life (instead of just originally Soulthief)
  • This tech originally required the Soulthief artifact. This artifact has been left out.
  • Necromancer gets souleater tech at level 6.
 SlashTHEM
spirit bomb
  • Monk blitz tech
  • Buffed spirit bomb technique damage.
 SLASH'EM
rage eruption SLASH'EM
reinforce memory
  • General tech for spellcasters that lets them refresh their memory of a spell that is getting low in retention.
 SLASH'EM
research
  • Archaeologist
 SLASH'EM
spirit tempest
  • Necromancer
  • Created for necromancers - it works as a self centered spirit bomb.
  • Spirit tempest tech gets a multi explosion bonus at level 21.
 Hack'EM
sunder
  • Adapted the Sunder skill from SpliceHack into a technique.
  • Pirates get it at level 5.
 Hack'EM/Splice
surgery
  • Healer
  • Also cures fear and larval infection.
 SLASH'EM
telekinesis
  • Jedi
  • Can disarm/trigger traps and remotely pickup objects.
  • Rearranged the telekinesis logic into a loop, so player doesn't waste MP on invalid targets.
  • Added new traps that can be disarmed.
 SlashTHEM
tinker
  • Gnomes
 SLASH'EM
tumble
  • Adapted the Tumble skill from SpliceHack into a technique.
  • Pirates get it from level 1.
  • Cannot be used underwater or while levitating.
  • The tumble technique can confuse monsters after tumbling past them. The chance depends on if they are innate flankers, since outflankers would be better at anticipating your actions. Displacing a monster into a trap always confuses them.
 Hack'EM/Splice
turn undead
  • As in SLASH'EM, #turn is now a technique.
  • Knights, priests, and undead slayers get this technique.
 SLASH'EM
uppercut
  • New blitz tech for monks.
  • It's a powerful alternate to ground slam which creates a pit.
  • Does double damage to targets with heads.
  • Influenced by stunning fist skill from Splice.
 Hack'EM
vanish
  • Gnomes
 SLASH'EM
weapon practice
  • General tech for some melee roles to let them train up skills without fighting.
 SLASH'EM
whistle undead
  • Necromancer
  • Acts as a magic whistle effect for undead.
 Hack'EM

Techniques left out from SLASH'EM

The Monk retains their standard resistances, rendering the following warding techs unnecessary: Ward against flame, Ward against ice, and Ward against lightning

All the sigil techniques were removed, as some of these sigils have been rendered obsolete by skilled/expert spellcasting: Sigil of control, Sigil of tempest, and Sigil of discharge.

The Quest

Quest Variety: Various changes have been made to each role's Quest to make the experience more varied and interesting for the player.

Lowered Level Requirement: The minimum experience level needed to be accepted for the quest has been lowered to 10 (from the default 14).

Dealing with an Angry Quest Leader: If you've made your quest leader angry for whatever reason, this no longer makes the game unwinnable. You can engage them in battle, and if you kill your quest leader, this unlocks the quest. You can then complete your quest as you normally would. However, quest leaders are not weak, and your deity may not be pleased with you killing them.

Alignment Impact: Your alignment record can still be positive, but abusing your alignment can have a direct effect on how your quest ends. Alignment abuse is tracked throughout the game. Any negative alignment adjustment counts as one abuse point, and this can be checked at any time via #conduct. Compared to the standard game, you'll receive more feedback when abusing alignment.

Permanent Abuse Record: Unlike your alignment record, which can be adjusted back into positive standing, your alignment abuse record is permanent.

Quest Artifact Forfeiture: Quest leaders might ask you to forfeit the quest artifact if you have abused your alignment.

Options for Forfeiture: You have two options at this point – either hand over the quest artifact peacefully or decline. Declining will anger your quest leader, and they will attack. Handing over the quest artifact peacefully will flag the quest as complete.

Incomplete Quest Consequences: Declining to turn over the quest artifact does not complete the quest. At some point, your quest leader will need to be defeated before the quest is flagged as complete. Attempting to evade your quest leader will not help in the long run, as the Bell of Opening has been 'cursed'. The only way to lift the curse is to complete the quest. The Bell will not function for the invocation until this is done.

Luck boon: If you complete the quest with under 13 alignment abuse, you will receive a luck boon (+1 to permanent luck).

Alternative Scenarios: The game considers alternative scenarios. For instance, if you angered your quest leader before starting the quest and you killed them, you simply need to defeat your quest nemesis to flag the quest as complete. Conversely, if you've killed the quest nemesis and return but somehow anger your quest leader before you speak to them, killing them also flags the quest as complete.

Dungeon features

Trap mechanics

Several new trap features have been added to the game:

Ice Traps: These traps are only generated after level 8. They shoot a freezing jet of icy air, which can freeze and slow down the player upon activation.

Magic Beam Traps: Magic beam traps are now part of the game, but they cannot generate above level 16. Notably, these traps now produce a random type of magical beam upon activation, offering more variety compared to their previous static beam type.

Rust Trap Changes: Players now have the ability to untrap rust traps using the #untrap command, which transforms them into fountains. However, disarming rust traps from a distance, whether through telekinesis or zapping with acid, will not yield a fountain.

Fire Trap Untrapping: Fire traps can be deactivated using #untrap, but it requires water to do so.

Spear Trap Yield: When disarming a spear trap, there is a chance of obtaining a spear or stake.

Web Destruction: Players can now force-fight webs with a bladed weapon to destroy them.

Castle Drawbridge: It's worth noting that the Castle drawbridge doesn't always close with the passtune as it did before.

Temporary Invisibility: Invisibility gained from magic traps is temporary and not permanent.

Polymorph Traps: The mechanics of polytraps have been adjusted, with a 1/27 chance that the polymorph trap disappears after polymorphing a monster. This mechanic was adapted from SpliceHack, where it had a 1 in 7 chance of disappearing.

Breaking wands creates related traps

Breaking wands will usually create related traps (Un)

Wand Trap created
wand of cold ice trap
wand of opening trap door
wand of fire fire trap
wand of magic missile magic trap
wand of teleportation teleport trap
wand of polymorph poly trap
wand of sleep sleeping gas trap
wand of cancellation anti-magic trap
wand of deluge rust trap
wand of shock magic beam trap
wand of poison gas magic beam trap
wand of corrosion magic beam trap
wand of noise magic beam trap

wand of detection: When broken this does not create a trap, however it will now detect traps and portals.

Grass

  • Pulled from SpliceHack/xNetHack, we now have lush grass in the dungeon!
  • Grass appears sparsely in the early levels, peaks around level 15, and then tapers off after level 22.
  • Although grass is mostly ornamental, keep in mind that some monsters can use it as clever method of concealment. In deeper levels, it's possible a dangerous asphynx or even giant centipede could be hidden in the thickets...

If you want to clear out grass from levels, there are a couple methods. Rays of fire, acid, and death will quickly kill and remove the offending grass squares.

Bloody tiles

  • Ported from SpliceHack
  • When monsters are killed, they have a chance to spray blood in a random direction and color a tile red. No real effect on gameplay, purely aesthetic.
  • The amount of blood depends on monster size.
  • Spraying bloody tiles with a ray of water (e.g. from a wand of deluge) will clear the tile of its blood.
  • When bloody tile is walked over, there is a 1 in 20 chance it will erode away.
  • Orc blood is black.
  • There is also a bloodless game option to play without the tile coloring.

Vents

  • Ported from SpliceHack, vents appear as a bright cyan (#) tile.
  • Vents appear after level 3. They will never appear in rooms with stairs. After level 8, some vents will emit poison gas instead of harmless mist.
  • Vents have a 3/5 chance of being destroyed when bombs are dropped or thrown into them, releasing a small earthquake in the process.
  • Polymorphed sinks can turn into vents

Vents act as occasional monster generators:

  • Spiders, snakes, and rats can randomly pop out of vents.
  • Monsters can use vents to conceal themselves. Since they can also be covered by the vent fog or poison clouds, exercise a little more vigilance when by a vent.


Toilets

Toilets may seem a bit whimsical, but in the game, they've received enhancements to make them more engaging and practical. These improvements were inspired by their inclusion in SLASH'EM. Notably, toilets can now appear on their own, separate from sinks, whereas in SLASH'EM, they only came in pairs with sinks. The addition of fishing in toilets introduces a quirky element to the game.

  • Enabled fishing in toilets
  • Dropping a ring of poly into a sink can poly into a toilet.
  • Toilet prayer can now stop the vomiting process
  • If giants sit on toilets, they break.

Toilet kicking:

  • Like sinks, toilets now have a couple different effects from kicking them, including a few YAFM.
  • Kicking now only breaks the toilet 1/7 chance (was 1/4 in SLASH'EM)
  • Kicking can generate cockroaches and sewage from kicking (1 in 17 chance)
  • Kicking can generate brown puddings (only once per toilet)
  • Kicking can generate a random tool. Normally this tool will weigh under 15aum, but sometimes you'll get a large tool that bonks against the piping. If a large tool bonks 3x - you'll get that tool no matter now big it is and the toilet is destroyed in the process.

Amulet identification in toilets (slex)

  • Amulets can be dropped down toilets and possibly identified.
  • Amulets of Flying are always regurgitated from toilets.
  • Amulets of Change will polymorph the toilet into a sink

Sinks

  • Random sink effect: noxious gas cloud (from 3.7)

Forges

  • Inherited from EvilHack
  • Forges have the same appearance as fountains but are orange in color.
  • Just like fountains, dipping things into them can have desirable or adverse affects.
  • They can be used to dispose of anything that is flammable
  • They can also be used to repair corrosion/rust damage to any metallic object (if your luck is greater than 0).
  • There is a rare chance that a lava demon can be summoned via dipping, which will be hostile most times, but can sometimes spawn tame (same odds as getting a wish from a water demon/fountain).
  • Having negative luck can cause a forge to explode when used, which can cause considerable fire damage.
  • Players can also use a forge to remove an attached ball & chain.
  • Forges can be blown up by rays of water.

Forging and #craft

  • Using the #craft command, you can also combine two objects to forge something new.


  • When forging, if either item has erodeproofing, the resulting item will be erodeproof.

Dungeon changes

  • Adjust secret passage frequency and exclude them from DL 1-4 (xnh)
  • Random doors are secret less of the time (xnh)
  • Kicking a "wall" that is actually a secret of some sort will never injure the player and will always produce an unambiguous message that there's something there. This makes it a valid strategy to kick every wall suspected of hiding something, because a single kick will give a yes/no on whether it's a regular wall or not. It's still not a great strategy, because the real walls will still hurt and wound legs like normal (xnh)
  • Main dungeon length is capped at 35-40 levels.
  • The fountains in Delphi can sometimes cause hallucination (Splice)
  • The Rogue level has been removed
  • Additional variants of the Castle, Fort Ludios, Sokoban, Mine Town and Mines End have been added.

The SLASH'EM levels

  • The main dungeon layout has been adjusted to more closely follow SLASH'EM.
Appears Level
2-4: The Gnomish Mines
5-9: The Oracle
6-10: Sokoban
7-11: Town branch
10-39: Fort Ludios
10-11: Rat level (50%)
11-12: Kobold level (50%)
12-13: Grund's Stronghold
15-19: The Quest
15-19: Lawful Quest
15-19: Neutral Quest
15-19: Chaotic Quest
20-21: The Wyrm Caves
22-23: One-eyed Sam's Market
21-24: The Lost Tomb
26-29: The Spider Caves
28-31: The Sunless Sea
32-35: The Temple of Moloch
32-35 The Giant Caverns
8-24: Aphrodite's level (45%)
10-29: The Big room
19-26: The Storage Room
25-34: Ozymandias' Tomb (45%)

Gnomish Mines

Different types of gnomes, dwarves, and thieves have been added to the mines. Dwarf and gnome thieves are now found in most town and Minetown variants. The presence of undead in the mines is no longer tied to alignment (as in SLASH'EM) but depends on the dungeon depth. The deeper you go, the higher the chance of encountering undead versions of the regular denizens, making the later stages more challenging.

Hack'EM has integrated Minetown variants from SlashTHEM and SpliceHack, along with Mine's End levels from SlashTHEM. Additionally, the Gnome King's ending from SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM is available. One Minetown variant features a drawbridge. However, players should be cautious, as destroying the drawbridge in the presence of guards will anger them. The mine rivers that are present in GruntHack and EvilHack are still in the mines - but they will be found only deeper than Minetown and not before.

Sokoban

  • The last room of Sokoban has more prize variety, with a catch.
  • Imported levels from SLASH'EM, SlashTHEM, and NetHack Fourk.
  • Following in the footsteps of NetHack Fourk, all levels have been given names to make them easier to reference.
  • The map numbers in the listing below follow the format in the sokobon.des file (1-* is the top level and 4-* is the bottom level).
Map # Map Name Solution
4-1 "Kick It On Over" Sokoban Level 1b
4-2 "Setting That Aside" Sokoban Level 1a
4-3 "Mirror Hall" Sokoban Level 1c
4-4 "We See You" Sokoban Level 1d
4-5 "False Flag" Sokoban Level 1e
4-6 "One Wrong Step" Sokoban Level 1f
4-7 "Open the Door" Sokoban Level 1i
4-8 "Mini Me" Mini Me
4-9 "One More Time" One More Time
4-10 "Boomerang Boulders" Boomerang Boulders
4-11 "Easy Peasey" Easy Peasey
4-12 "First Things First" First Things First
4-13 "Picking out the Seeds" Picking out the Seeds
4-14 "Three-Room Monte" Three-Room Monte
4-15 "Column B" Column B
4-16 "One Weird Trick" One Weird Trick
4-17 "To the Top" To the Top
4-18 "A Hug and a Kiss" A Hug and a Kiss
3-1 "Squared Off" Sokoban Level 2b
3-2 "Old Reliable" Sokoban Level 2a
3-3 "Old Man of the Mountain" Sokoban Level 1k
3-4 "Roundabout" Sokoban Level 1l
3-5 "Room to Breathe" Sokoban Level 1m
3-6 "The Gauntlet" Sokoban Level 1n
3-7 "Thinking Rabbit" Sokoban Level 2c
3-8 "A Secret to Everybody" Sokoban Level 1j
3-9 "Escape Goat" Sokoban Level 3j
3-10 "Christmas Chimney" Sokoban Level 3k
3-11 "Fly on the Wall" Fly on the Wall
3-12 "Boulder Halls of Zim" Boulder Halls of Zim
3-13 "Two-Phase" Two-Phase
3-14 "The Snake" The Snake
3-15 "Count Carefully" Count Carefully
3-16 "You Only Need Six" You Only Need Six
3-17 "Four Wings" Four Wings
2-1 "Squeeze Me In" Sokoban Level 3b
2-2 "Nooks and Cubbyholes" Sokoban Level 3a
2-3 "The Pergola" Sokoban Level 3e
2-4 "Back Alley Cliche" Sokoban Level 3g
2-5 "Snaggletooth" Sokoban Level 3h
2-6 "Diligent Escape Plan" Sokoban Level 3i
2-7 "Corner Pocket" Sokoban Level 3c
2-8 "No Way Out" Sokoban Level 3d
2-9 "Reading Rooms" Sokoban Level 3f
2-10 "Shave and a Haircut" Sokoban Level 1g
2-11 "Bring 'em on Down" Bring 'em On Down
2-12 "Slot Machine" Slot Machine
2-13 "Through the Cracks" Through the Cracks
2-14 "Either Way, It's All Good" Either Way, It's All Good
2-15 "Sneak Preview" Sneak Preview
2-16 "Daedalus Delicatessen" Daedalus Delicatessen
2-17 "Stacked Dozen" Stacked Dozen (alternate solution)
1-1 "Left Holding the Bag" Sokoban Level 4a
1-2 "Reflectoban" Sokoban Level 4b
1-3 "Just Keep Pushing" Sokoban Level 4c
1-4 "Work For It" Sokoban Level 4d
1-5 "Dudley's Torment" Sokoban Level 4e
1-6 "Plinketto" Sokoban Level 4f
1-7 "Ringing Endorsement" Ringing Endorsement
1-8 "Open at the Top" Open at the Top
1-9 "Collecting Marbles" Collecting Marbles
1-10 "Running Rings Around" Running Rings Around
1-11 "Back At Ya" Back At Ya
1-12 "The Dragon of Bactria" The Dragon of Bactria

Town branch

  • From SlashTHEM/UnNethack
  • Appears 2-3 levels below the Oracle.
  • Created a "Raided Angband" level that is been ransacked by bandits and thieves.
  • You can always find the Master Sword guarded by a gang of bandits in the village.

Rat level

A single randomized level picked from:

  • The Rat Level (Slash'EM)
  • The Rat Level (SlashTHEM)

Alignment Quests

  • Appears on DL 15-19, from SLASH'EM
  • As in SLASH'EM, two of the three alignment keys are needed for Vlad's Tower
  • Some elements of the quests have been changed:
  • Instead of the randomized Chaotic quest that SLASH'EM had, we have replaced it with Vecna's Manse from SlashTHEM.
  • The difficulty of Vecna has been reduced to be closer to the SLASH'EM version, but he still gets the extra clerical spell attack from Evil.

Big Room

  • Imported a bunch of new big room variations from UnNethack, SpliceHack, and SLASHTHEM.

Grund's Stronghold

  • Added more traps and the moat is double wide now, the stronghold wall is also phaseproof.
  • Grund's Stronghold now has a large cache of ammunition in one of the storage rooms.

Fort Ludios

  • Ludios appears on the first eligible level with a vault.
  • Fort Ludios can also appear below Medusa's.
  • An extra dungeon prison has been added below Fort Ludios. This is a leftover from the Lethe branch and it seemed to fit here!

Wyrm Caves branch

  • Created an entrance level (from dNetHack's Erebor quest)
  • At the bottom is a dangerous dragon nest which guards a massive treasure horde (from UnNetHack)

Black Market

  • Now has an extra layout ported from UnNetHack which features many different shops with black marketeers, with One-Eyed Sam still standing guard.
  • Reduced Black Market prices a bit.
  • Black Market Layout 1 is now a little thinner.
  • Now undiggable and phase-proof.
  • When attempting to tame monsters in the Black Market, you won't anger everybody, the taming will simply have no effect.
  • Scrolls of earth can be used, but beware that One-Eyed Sam can break through boulders like butter.

The Storage Room

  • Added 4 variations from dnh

Gehennom

  • No longer a series of mazes, but are mines-style levels with lava.
  • Areas such as the Sanctum and the entrance to the Wizard's Tower have also been adjusted.
  • Cerberus now guards the entrance to Gehennom.
  • Vlad the Impaler's tower is the SLASH'EM version
  • Vibrating square: messages when player is near

Elemental Planes

  • The first four Planes levels are randomized and appear in a different order every game.
  • Updated monsters on the plane of water with deepest ones, things from below, and mermaids.

New special rooms

  • Fungus Farm (SLASH'EM)
  • Migo Hive (SLASH'EM)
  • Dragon Lair (SLASH'EM)
  • Real Zoo (SLASH'EM)
  • Bad Food Shop (SLASH'EM)
  • Giant Court (SLASH'EM)
  • Lemure Pit
  • Mini Guild (Hack'EM)
    • These replace the Guild of Disgruntled Adventurers in SLASH'EM.
  • Clinic room (SlashTHEM)
  • Terror hall (SlashTHEM)

Themed rooms

  • EvilHack already had most of the themed rooms but more have been added.
  • Added any missing flipped versions of rooms (from UnNetHack) for completeness
  • Added minimum levels to all themed Rooms
    • The dungeon is pretty clean of themed rooms until level 8.
    • At levels 8, 11, and 17 we introduce more variety.

Shops

  • Shopkeepers can be a variety of different races; your race versus theirs directly affects pricing.
  • Removed the racial shopkeeper price adjustments.
  • Imported shopkeeper hollering (from SlashTHEM)

Shopkeeper services

  • Instead of every store offering a general Identify service - every shop offers premier identify services based on their shop type or the race of the shopkeeper.
  • Streamlined the service menu interface. Previously navigating the services was tedious. Now when you press 'p', you are immediately presented with a full menu of all the available services - no submenus within menus.
  • Removed shopkeepers stealing all your money when you charge a wand of wishing.
  • Only Black Market can have the "identify any" service
  • The service charge "smoothing" rewards higher charisma.
  • All shop identify services are basic (and half price).
   - Shopkeeper services can be accessed by #chatting with the shopkeeper 
   - The black market has a chance to offer any service.
   - Adjust odds for general store services.
   - Shopkeeper tinkering costs a lot more.

Firearms training service

  • In addition to the weapon practice technique, this is a shopkeeper service for making firearms more accessible.
  • Gun shops always offer this up to Expert skill.
  • Weapon shops, armor shops offer 20% of the time, up to max Skilled.
  • General stores offer it 10% of the time, up to max Basic.
    • $500 for Basic skill
    • $1000 for Skilled
    • $2000 for expert

Tinker service

  • Only gnomes offer this service
  • Allows you to upgrade an object to a similar or related form, works the same as dipping an item into a potion of gain level or using the tinker technique.
  • Here the service only takes 1 turn (shopkeepers are either very good at tinkering or just cheating with a hidden potion of gain level behind the counter)
  • Base charge is $2000
  • Low intelligence (under 18 INT) players are subject to $500 price gouge
  • Lower intelligence (under 13 INT) players are subject to $1000 price gouge
  • Non-gnomes are charged double

Add property

  • Weapon, armor, and ring shops can offer this service.
  • Base charge is $2000 for adding properties
  1. To remove properties, it costs $250 - but there is only a 1 in 4 chance of success.
  • Only one property can be added to an item at a time, if you attempt to add to an item with an existing property, the shopkeeper will prompt you to remove it.

Service details

Shop/Race Services
All shops:
  • 1 in 3 offer uncursing services.
  • 1 in 20 offer rumors
General stores:
  • Capable of offering any type of identify service
  • 20% offer firearms training
  • 25% offer basic charging
Weapon shops:
  • 75% offer weapon ID
  • 20% offer armor ID
  • 25% offer weapon fixing
  • 25% offer weapon enchanting
  • 25% offer weapon poisoning
  • 20% offer firearms training
  • 20% offer property grafting (for weapons)
Armor shops:
  • 75% offer armor ID
  • 20% offer weapon ID
  • 25% offer armor fixing
  • 25% offer armor enchanting (Note: Armor shops will refuse to work with dragon scales)
  • 20% offer firearms training
  • 20% offer property grafting (for armor)
Scroll stores:
  • 75% offer scroll ID
  • 20% offer book ID
Spellbook stores:
  • 75% offer book ID
  • 20% offer scroll ID
Potion stores:
  • 50% offer potion ID
Ring stores:
  • 33% offer ring ID
  • 20% offer amulet ID
  • 20% offer gem ID
  • 25% offer basic charging
  • 20% offer property grafting (for rings)
Wand shops:
  • 50% offer wand ID
  • 20% offer armor ID
  • 25% offer basic charging
  • 25% offer premium charging
Tool shops:
  • 50% offer tool ID
  • 25% offer basic charging
Deli/food shops:
  • 100% offer food ID
  • 10% offer potion ID
Pet shops:
  • 50% offer food ID
  • 25% offer tool ID
Lighting shops:
  • 10% offer potion ID
Dwarves:
  • 20% offer weapon ID
  • 20% offer armor ID
  • 20% offer gem ID
Orcs:
  • 25% offer weapon poisoning
Gnomes:
  • 25% offer tool ID
  • 25% offer tinker
Giants:
  • 20% offer gem ID
Nymphs:
  • 10% offer ring ID
  • 20% offer potion ID
Hobbit:
  • 50% offer food ID
  • 10% offer ring ID
Illithid:
  • 25% offer scroll ID
  • 25% offer spellbook ID

New shop types

  • Pet Shops (From UnNetHack)
  • Instrument Shop (From UnNetHack)
  • Tin Shop (From UnNetHack)
  • Junk shop (from SpliceHack): Features all your favorite items in one convenient place!
  • Mask shop (from SpliceHack)
  • Archery shop (from SpliceHack)
  • Gun shops (from SlashTHEM)

Misc shop changes

  • Lighting shops can now carry wands/scrolls/spellbooks of light, as well as the rare wand of lightning.
  • Delis can carry meat sticks, royal jelly, and huge chunks of meat.
  • Hardware stores stock potions of oil and occasionally touchstones.
  • Archery shops will not appear if your character cannot attain proficiency in BOW.
  • Gun shops will not appear if your character cannot attain proficiency in FIREARM.
  • Gun shops can also carry assault rifles, flintlocks, grease, and towels.
  • Pet shops can carry bardings of all types.

Dragons and dragon scales

Hack'EM inherited the dtsund patch from EvilHack for dragon scales, which means that dragon scale mail no longer exists. In its place we can apply dragon scales to any armor. Since robes are now body armor - we can even create dragon scaled robes! Evil introduced some passive effects, these have been expanded so that every dragon scale provides a form of passive attack. The scales' abilities have also been slightly modified. Dragon scales worn on their own only exhibit their primary effect.

Dragon Primary Secondary Passive
Black Disintegration res Disintegration (!!)
Blue Shock res Speed Shock (!!)
Deep Drain res Slow digestion Drain life
Gold Light Infravision
Clairvoyant 		Blinding
Gray Magic res Cancel protection Cancellation (!!)
Green Poison res Sickness res Poison
Orange Sleep res Free action Slow
Red Fire res +1d6 melee damage Fire (!!)
Shimmering Displacement Stun Resistance Confuse/Stun/Slow
Silver Reflection Cold resistance
Blinding res 		Scaring
Sea Magical breathing Swimming Water/rust (!!)
White Cold res Freeze water/Lava walk Cold (!!)
Yellow Acid res Stoning res Acid (!!)
Violet Sonic res Flying Sonic (!!)

!! - Risks item destruction from the type of attack - Most of the passive attacks only trigger 33% of the time.


Spellcasting

Spellcasting changes

  • Unlike in SLASH'EM, the standard retention for spellbooks is still 20000 turns. The reinforce memory technique can be used to extend your spell memory when a spell gets low.
  • Removed the BODY spell school in SLASH'EM, moved to the ESCAPE spells
  • Removed PROTECTION spell school in SlashEM, moved to the CLERIC spells
  • Removed CLERIC spell school and created a NECROMANCY spell school to support the new spin on the Necromancer role. The spells from the CLERIC school have been distributed among the other schools as appropriate.
  • Increased available max spells by 10 (Added 0-9 for spell list letters)
  • Spellbook weights are now based on their level.
  • Spellcasting while wearing body armor will negatively affect your spell success rate. The exception to this is crystal plate mail, which does not adversely affect spellcasting in any way.
  • Casting any spell successfully adds +500 turns to your memory of it (from SLASH'EM).
  • You can reread a spellbook to refresh your memory at any time


Variant Changes

Here is where Hack'EM diverges from it's ancestors.

Changes from SLASH'EM

  • The Drow has not been ported, but may be inherited from EvilHack's implementation in the future.

These features have been removed or replaced:

  • Skipped races: Lycanthrope.
  • Skipped monsters: Gypsies, Doctor Frankenstein, Frankenstein's Monster
  • Skipped items:
  • Skipped spellbooks:
  • The Guild of Disgruntled Adventurers is removed and replaced by mini-guild special rooms
  • Frankenstein's Lab is removed
  • The variations on the vibrating square levels have NOT been imported - the EvilHack version remains.
  • None of the SLASH'EM Demon prince lairs have been imported.
  • Removed "Hits as +x weapon" property from SLASH'EM monsters
  • Removed "Need +x weapon to be hit" property from SLASH'EM monsters
  • Removed the extra artifact blasting (6d6 to 8d10) from SLASH'EM; this mechanic does not seem to add much to the game other than making early wishes less useful and killing unknowing players.
  • Removed wraith corpse nerf. In SLASH'EM there was a reduced probability of gaining levels with a mix of other effects.
  • Removed the temporary polymorph mechanic for objects. There is no "hazy" status for polymorphed objects. This mechanic was not imported for 2 reasons: it makes it possible to create overpowered weapons (e.g. +127 weapons) and it is also not intuitive for new players since it contradicts the vanilla behavior of polymorphed items.
  • Removed SLASH'EM's invisible objects. For now, there has not been a compelling reason to bring this mechanic in.
  • Removed SLASH'EM polymorph behavior for monsters; when killed shapeshifters could immediately poly into their polyform (or different form if a chameleon or similar). This mechanic was quite frustrating to deal with, especially concerning new threats like weretigers or werepanthers. In SLASH'EM you could be forced to kill the same shapechanger many times before it would finally die in its base form. The EvilHack behavior replaces this so that a shapechanger cannot poly again once it has been killed in its polyform.

Changes from EvilHack

  • Removed the Goblin Town branch.
  • Removed the Ice Queen branch.
  • Removed the Vecna's Domain branch. We still have Vecna but in a different level for the Chaotic Quest.
  • Removed the indestructible drawbridge from the VotD; it can be destroyed like a regular drawbridge now.
  • Demon lords and princes no longer negate being able to self-teleport or use cursed potions of gain level.
  • Removed the Wand of Orcus. Orcus gets his standard wand of death now.
  • Some of the dragon scales have had buffs or different secondary effects added. All scales grant passive effects now. See the section on Dragon Scales for details.
  • Removed chromatic dragon scales.
  • #forge has been renamed to #craft for working with forges. The reason is to make #force and #craft auto-complete. #forge still has the same meta shortcut: M('F')
  • Removed two-weaponing weight-based restrictions.
  • Removed the monster riding monster mechanic.
  • Monster spawn rates depend on the number of wishes made, not on game progress.
  • Zapping light around peaceful monsters could anger them. This mechanic has been removed except for when you break a wand of light.
  • Spellcasting monsters have to see you in order to cast summon nasties.
  • Spellcasting monsters have had their spell range limited by their level (gnomish mages are level 3 and can only cast fire bolt in a radius of 2-3 tiles instead of 13).
  • Changed timeout for monster spell of stone to flesh to timeout 2d7 instead of rn2(7).
  • Removed engulfing attack from gelatinous cube, water elemental, earth elemental, and fire elemental. The Splice elementals (magma, mud, ice, acid) still can engulf.
  • Removed cursed weapons reverse hitting (was in EvilHack and Splice). Instead, cursed weapons will miss their target 25% of the time.
  • Revert the standard cursed wand backfire chance from 1-in-30 to 1-in-100.
  • Revert EvilHack sacrifice gift changes: Instead of a mix of regular items and artifacts, players will receive only artifacts (unless you get a minion as a gift).
  • Removed accompanying artifact defenders when wishing for artifacts.
  • Lowered the poison insta-death resistance threshold from 35% to 25%. If your poison resistance is under 25% you have a chance of insta-death from poison dart traps, poison bite, etc.
  • In EvilHack the Amulet of Yendor has a chance of teleporting randomly if dropped on the floor, this random chance of teleport has been removed.
  • Revert cursed amulet of life saving effects
  • Revert Amulet of life saving will not work if the player is in nonliving form.
  • Revert Amulet of life saving does not fully heal the wearer.
  • Illithids used to get flying at level 12, now they start with flying.
  • Centaurs used to get jumping at level 5, now they start with jumping.
  • Giants can wear mummy wrappings, giant robes, and dragon scales.
  • Any giant can wear large splint mail.
  • Tortles can wear robes, mummy wrappings, and dragon scales.


Funny or silly changes

  • Gnomes hate eggs (from EvilHack)
  • Vampires can't use toilets.
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