NerfHack
NerfHack is a variant of NetHack 3.7.0 created by User:hackemslashem. It is the successor to Hack'EM, which was a modernized variant of SLASH'EM based on EvilHack. Unlike Hack'EM, NerfHack starts fresh from NetHack 3.7.0 and is designed to be a significantly more challenging variant than vanilla NetHack. While it incorporates many features and mechanics from Hack'EM, it is not a full port, introducing numerous new changes in both content and design. By drawing inspiration from various NetHack variants and carefully fine-tuning different aspects of gameplay, key pain points have been identified and addressed to refine the difficulty curve — resulting in a more treacherous and rewarding dungeon.
Design goals
- usurp assumptions and approaches to the game
- discourage and prevent farming
- encourage exciting and creative gameplay
- give value to underutilized features
- create resource scarcity (altars, healing, death drops)
- introduce new threats: more monsters, behaviours, monster spells, traps; worse impairments and curses
- smooth out power spikes: spread out wishes, partial resistances
- introduce quality-of-life features: auto-ID, weapon familiarity, monster lookup
- emphasize role and race uniqueness: no QA wishing, racial armour
- introduce new and innovative features: Cartomancer and Undead Slayer roles, Dhampir and Grung races, new branches, weapon effects
- follow the feature uniqueness principle
- make it easy to variant-hop
Major changes
- resistances and reflection are only partial
- slow digestion only halves the rate
- quest artifacts are unwishable
- scrolls of exile ("genocide") are restricted to a single species and a single floor when blessed
- Luck always times out
- no pet theft
- no price identification
- after the Invocation, monsters spawn at the upstairs. Levelporting in Gehennom causes pain
- nerf farming
- changed skill and experience curves
- objects can be destroyed by erosion
- weapons can be enchanted much higher
- slashing/piercing weapons can be poisoned
- dtsund DSM
- gem alchemy
- nerf scrolls of genocide and gold detection
- replace WoW with scrolls
- magic markers don't generate randomly
- unicorn horns only reduce the timeout and don't restore attributes
- mirrors grant reflection
- new items: heavy sword, (shimmering dragon scales), anti-magic shield, bronze gauntlets, gauntlets of force, freedom boots, leather bracers, bracers of integrity, bracers of sleep resistance, bracers vs. shapechangers, bracers of unchanging, bracers vs. stone, ring of withering, potion of milk, potion of phasing, scroll of zapping, spellbook of flesh-to-stone, spellbook of waterproofing, spellbook of sacred vision, spellbook of divine reckoning, foulstone
- new artifacts: Load Brand, Mayhem, Serenity, The Lenses of Truth, Thunderfists, Oathfire, The Argent Cross, The Glyph Shard
- new monsters: revenant hound, warg pup, leper, spiked orc, compsognathus, (baby) shimmering dragon, Wintercloak, arch-vile, like-like, orb weaver, gorgon hulk, dhampir, The First Evil, familiar, grung
- monsters use more items and equipment
- flanking, berserking, withering, rabid monsters
- new monster spells
- role changes: Cavepeople start with dragon scales, Healers can see monster wounds, Monks get a marker on crowning, Tourists have all shop items identified, Wizards start with a cloak of protection and sense magic fountains.
- new roles: Cartomancer and Undead Slayer
- race changes: remove infravision, orcs start with negative alignment and the watch and priests are hostile, unlock some new role combinations. Favour racial equipment
- new races: dhampir and grung
- spellcasting is more difficult for fighters
- remove the mysterious force
- less secret doors and no secret corridors
- more special levels
- the Castle wand has decoys
- less items in Gehennom
- Sokoban can also have a cloak of magic resistance or magic marker as the prize
- Delphi always has an altar
- add the Temple of Moloch, Lost Tomb and Wyrm Caves
- add grass, puddles, forges, toilets, blood, new traps
- the Quest can be started at XL10
Roles and races
Dhampir
Dhampirs start with drain resistance, death resistance, breathlessness, infravision, resistance to lycanthropy, warning of humans/elves and voracious hunger. They can only ever gain 50% resistance to the elements. Most food items (juice and food rations) are replaced with potions of blood and they can't eat corpses either, but they can bite monsters to drain them for nutrition, health and maybe even intrinsics (but do not attack cockatrice while impaired!).
Grung
Grung are a nasty little race of frog-like people known for their toxic skin, sharp teeth, vibrant colors, and lack of long tongues. They are chaotic or neutral and can be Archaeologists, Barbarians, Monks, Priests, Rogues, Rangers or Wizards.
They have poisonous passive (blocked by heavy armour) and bare hands attacks and can poison weapons.
They start with poison resistance, searching and swimming, gain jumping at XL5 and speed at XL7.
Their biggest concern is staying hydrated. The timer starts at 6000 turns, with speed and combat penalties below 1000, below 250 being a major trouble (prayer restores 1000) and death at 0. Fire, heat and dry environments (Gehennom, Plane of Fire, dust vortex) speed it up, fire resistance slow it. Drinking, sitting in or being splashed by water restores 100-199 turns, submerging restores 1000 per turn, and a scroll of flood restores 4500-6000 turns.
Undead Slayer
| The First Evil (No tile) | |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 20 |
| Attacks |
2d6 touch paralyze, 1d6 touch slow, 5d6 touch cold, 2d6 touch shock, mage spellcasting |
| Base level | 25
|
| Speed | 18 |
| Base AC | −8 |
| Base MR | 80 |
| Alignment | -10 (chaotic) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | unique (not generated randomly) |
| Genocidable | no |
| Weight | 1450 (human) |
| Nutritional value | 0 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | cold, disintegration, sleep, poison, stoning, acid, shock
|
|
The First Evil:
| |
This role was modified from SLASH'EM. Compared to their appearance there, in NerfHack they aren't guaranteed a first sacrifice gift, have no special #techniques, cannot turn undead, have no multishot capability and are restricted in many skills; however their hit points were slightly buffed. Also imported were stakes, which can instakill vampires, and holy wafers, which stop you withering.
They can be played as a human, gnome, elf or dhampir of any alignment.
Undead Slayers have to-hit and damage bonuses against demons and undead, which always spawn hostile to them. They have a special ability to destroy zombie corpses so that they can't revive. Drinking a potion of vampire blood or eating a wraith corpse carries an alignment penalty, the latter also reducing Luck.
Undead Slayers gain the following properties at the specified experience levels:
| XL | properties |
|---|---|
| 1 | drain resistance, sickness resistance, warned of undead, stealth, slow (10) |
| 10 | speed |
| 15 | poison resistance |
Their starting pet is a revenant pup, a phasing undead. Chatting with it increases apport and can also tame hostile ones.
Their special spell is protection.
The Quest was redone, inspired by the one of Binders, and sees you reclaim The Argent Cross from The First Evil, travelling from the Desecrated Monastery through the Haunted Catacombs to the Abyssal Vaults. The Argent Cross is an amulet of reflection granting half spell damage, disintegration resistance and withering resistance when worn and is also a light source. If blessed, it will turn undead every 15-45 turns; if cursed, your god is angry, or you are non-chaotic and polymorphed into an evil form it will instead aggravate monsters. The First Evil is a shade that can cast mage spells. It is an undead.
The starting weapon skill can always be trained to Expert; getting the shortsword also allows training longswords to Skilled, and getting the whip also allows Master martial arts.
| skill level | weapon |
|---|---|
| Basic | crossbow, long sword, short sword, spear, whip; clerical and escape spells |
| Skilled | hammer, mace, polearms, unicorn horn; matter spells; bare hands, shield, riding |
| Expert | dagger, flail, morning star |
