User:Chris/dNetHack/Rule Changes

Race changes

Human

• Accelerated skill slots -- humans get 1.5x the amount of skill slots compared to other races

Dwarf

• Begins the game knowing all magical staves, as well as a club and a knife to carve staves.

Gnome

• Low-light vision -- light radius is doubled
• Smaller than other races - can only equip small-sized armor and start with small weapons. Non-fitting armor can be resized with an upgrade kit.
• Gnomish racial equipment added
  • all gnomes start with gnomish pointy hats
  • gnomes begin with an aklys instead of bullwhips or clubs
  • gnomes begin with crossbows instead of bows
• Gnomes get an extra damage +1x weapon damage with crossbows
• Can become expert in club and crossbow, regardless of role.

Orc

• Low-light vision -- light radius is doubled
• No longer has infravision
• Very low maximum stats, but gain increased AC, to-hit, damage, carrying cap, and physical stats (STR, DEX and CON) with every level up.
• Gain magic resistance at level 15

Elf

• Major low-light vision -- light radius is tripled
• No longer has infravision
• Can still use Elbereth at its' full potential (like in vanilla)
• Hates iron - will take bonus damage when hit with iron weapons and regenerates more slowly when their bare skin is in contact with iron (iron armor, rings, etc.)

Vampire

Based heavily on the Vampire Patch, with the following changes

• Gets new perks as they level up -- cold resistance and halved nutrition consumption at level 10, polymorph control at level 21
• Can see any monster with blood despite being blind or monster is invisible

See full dnethack race page here

• Takes extra damage from silver, in addition to penalties for wearing/wielding silver or blessed gear.

Role changes

A difficulty table of all the modified dNethack roles can be foundhere.

Archeologist

• Special alignment penalties made harsher.
• Itlachiayaque Patch installed.
  • Itlachiayaque is a shield of reflection (thus, automatically confers 2 AC and reflection).
  • It confers ESP, magic resistance, half spell damage and fire resistance when carried.
  • When invoked, it creates a stinking cloud that the player can place unless Itlachiayaque is cursed or the player is not an Archeologist.

Barbarians

• Can reach expert in Broadsword and Trident.
• Barbarians now have iterative attacks when in their natural form:
  • At 11th level, they start making two attacks per turn, one at full to-hit, the next one at -10.
  • At 21st level, they start making three attacks per turn, at full, -10 and -20.
  • At 30th level, they make four attacks per turn, at full, -10, -20 and -30.
  • Should they wish to make fewer attacks, they may do so as n(number)F.

Knights

• Can reach expert in polearms but only basic in two-weapon fighting.
• Can expend 30 energy to turn undead in 1 turn instead of 5.
• Special alignment penalties made harsher.
• Clarent patch implemented, with Clarent as the Knight first gift.
  • Clarent has the following properties:
    • Intelligent lawful short sword
    • Can be used to dig
    • When invoked, reveals the location of your retinue (all tame creatures) on the level, and increases the tameness of any within line of sight
    • Acts as a luckstone
    • Clarent submits to being held second to Excalibur (but not the other way around)
    • Annoys demons
    • If Clarent is stuck in a wall/door/tree/stone, then it can be pulled out by #untrap as long as you are at least devoutly lawful
    • Is not generated at random.
    • +d8+2 to hit and +d2 damage against thick-skinned monsters (all gargoyles, all mimics, all naga, all baby naga, all dragons, all baby dragons, the Chromatic Dragon, Ixoth, {gold, wood, clay, stone, glass, iron} golems, mumakil, titanotheres, baluchitheria, mastodons, earth elementals, xorn, skeletons, horned devils, barbed devils, sharks, crocodiles, salamanders).

Monks

• Receive (level) extra AC when confused, as a reference to drunken boxing
• Receive extra AC if they aren't wearing body armor. Dependent on wisdom and level. At best (level 30 and 25 wisdom) 13 extra AC
• Intrinsic energy resistance is more valuable in dnethack, as intrinsic energy resistances gained from eating corpses now time out.
• Can two-weapon martial arts (two-weaponing with an empty offhand performs a martial arts attack as an additional attack, even if wielding a two-handed weapon). Any roles that is capable of martial arts can do this. Monks can reach Grand Master with two-weaponing.
• Their crowning gift has been changed from the outright useless spellbook of restore ability to Grandmaster's Robe, a robe that switches martial arts dice from 1d4 to 1d8, uses exploding dice, and gives double the normal robe effect for spellcasting
• Special alignment penalties made harsher
• Continue to gain highly valuable intrinsics past level 17.
  • Level 19: Acid resistance
  • Level 21: Water walking
  • Level 23: Sickness resistance
  • Level 25: Disintegration resistance
  • Level 27: Stoning resistance
  • Level 29: Magic resistance
  • Level 30: Drain resistance

Priest

• Can attack more effectively with artifacts
  • Always receive the artifact's to-hit bonus
  • Always receive the maximum to-hit bonus (ie, receive +10 to-hit instead of +1d10)
  • Inflict +1dlevel bonus damage when attacking with an artifact
  • 20% reduction in invocation wait period.
• Can expend 30 energy to turn undead in 1 turn instead of 5.

Ranger

• Now highly variable depending on race
  • Each different race has a different quest and artifacts, as well as different crowning gifts.

Samurai

• Can reach skilled in polearms, and gain a +1 skill-level bonus when using naginatas (glaives).
• Female samurai start with a glaive and a knife instead of a katana and a shortsword.
• Special alignment penalties made harsher.

Tourist

• Quest monsters revised to better reflect Ank-Morpork.
• Gains EXP from seeing new things (new dungeon level, new type of monsters)
• Allowed to wish for anachronistic items, including lightsabers.

Valkyries

• Can reach expert in spear but only skilled in longsword.
• Start with a +1 spear instead of a +1 longsword (as in Slash'EM).
• Start with leather armor and +1 small shields.
• Get fractionally more energy per level (1x instead of 3/4x)
• Can no longer twoweapon

Wizard

• Wizards start with a -1 athame
• Hungerless casting nerfed:
  • 50% hunger reduction for intelligence of 15
  • 25% hunger reduction for intelligence of 16 to 19
  • no hunger reduction for intelligence of 20 to 25

Crowning

• You can no longer become crowned before finishing your role quest.
  • In order to be formally acknowledged as having completed the quest, you must speak to your quest leader while carrying the quest artifact.
• a luckstone is now also required (your luck must be 12 or higher, so maximum luck with a non-cursed luckstone will crown you, on your first prayer)

Changes to alignment record

• Many transgressions now reduce your maximum alignment record in addition to reducing your current record.
• The hod sephirah may appear to attack characters who earn many such reductions.

BAB (base attack bonus)

Different roles and binder spirits grant different BAB. BAB grants a <modifier>*level bonus to-hit, so for example a level 30 barbarian would have +30 to-hit on each of his attacks. The roles that get each bonus are as following:

• Full BAB roles: Barbarian, Convict, Anachrononaut, Pirate, Samurai, Valkyrie, Monks with no weapons wielded.
• 3/4 BAB roles: Archeologists, Binders, Cavemen, Monks wielding weapons, Nobles, Priests, Rogues, and Rangers.
• 1/2 BAB roles: Bards, Healers, Tourists, Wizards.

In addition, Berith grants full BAB with any weapon (or none), Eurynome grants full BAB with no weapon, and Enki grants 3/4 BAB. In addition, lightsabers get full BAB with either extrinsic or active intrinsic telepathy, and 3/4 BAB otherwise.

Ability scores

• Score drop from abuse can no longer be cured with a unicorn horn. Makes sustain ability more useful, coupled with some new potential nasty stuff in Gehennom.
• Constitution and Wisdom changes apply HP/Pw changes that they would have given for level ups retroactively, discouraging drain for gain and making high bonuses more effective lategame
• Constitution/Wisdom co-relation with HP/Pw gains at level ups slightly changed -- you get +4 bonus HP at 19-20, +5 at 21-22, +6 at 23-24, +7 at 25 con. You get +N bonus Pw from level up where N is Wis/4
• Dexterity contributes to AC. The formula is (score-11)/2.
  • As a rule, dex bonuses are not cumulative with body armor base AC, but penalties are.
    • Some body armors allow up to 1/2 of the dex bonus to contribute to AC.
      • Specifically: leather armor, studded leather armor, chain mail, scale mail, banded mail, and bronze plate mail.
    • Dex bonuses are fully cumulative with leather jackets and mithril coats.
• characters with a natural strength limit of 19+ will have to go through the stages of 18/01 to 18/** before moving higher.

Eating Corpses

• Changed how gaining intrinsic resistances from food works
  • You have a shot at all resistances a corpse can give.
  • Fire, Cold, Shock, Sleep, Acid, Displacement, Drain resistances time out.
    • (Resistances received from leveling up and from crowning do not time out).
  • Use the self-examination command (Ctrl-X) to receive clues about your current resistances.

Tweaked skills

• Expert gives +5 to-hit and +5 damage (-2 to hit and +2 damage for twoweapon fighting)
• Expert riding gives +2 to-hit and +5 damage
  • In vanilla, high skill levels give diminishing returns rather than escalating bonuses.
• Crossbows now function differently. High crossbow skill does not grant multiple shots, instead it increases the damage dealt by a single crossbow bolt.
  • at basic or lower, does 1x(bolt+enchantment) damage.
  • at skilled, 2x(bolt+enchantment) damage.
  • at expert, 3x (bolt+enchantment) damage.
  • at all skill levels, adds 3x the damage bonus from skill (-5 restricted, -2 unskilled, +0 at basic, +2 at skilled and +5 at expert)
  • This extra damage is precision based, and so does not apply against amorphous, stationary, or incorporeal monsters; which are assumed to lack discernible weak-points.

Enchantments on Armor

• Many, but not all, artifact armors can be enchanted to +7.
• All crystal gear (helm, plate mail, shield, gauntlets, boots) can be enchanted to +7.
• Plain (iron) plate mail, bronze plate mail, and cloaks of protection can also be enchanted to +7.
• Elven gear can be enchanted to +7, but this includes high-elven helms, plate, and gauntlets and elven togas in addition to vanilla elven gear.
• For wizards, cornuthaums and the Robe of the Archmagi can be enchanted to +7. (but not normal robes for anybody, including wizards)

When any artifact (armor or not) is enchanted beyond the safe point, it will reset to +0 instead of evaporating. This is subject to the same evaporation chances, so with enough enchant scrolls (and a good amount of luck) it is possible for your artifact gear to reach +8 or even +9, or +6 or +7 if it cannot be enchanted past +5 safely.

Dungeon features

Iron bars

• Break when struck by force bolt spells or wands of striking.
• Can be eaten by some monsters (Malcolm Ryan).

Trees

• Chopping down a tree no longer produces fruit.

Alignment quests

• In addition to the role quest, every game now also features alignment quests.
• There is a lawful quest, a neutral quest and a chaotic quest.
• They have always have the same layout and guaranteed loot.
• They can be done regardless of your alignment.
  • You need to do at least parts of these until you have three keys to Gehennom (each quest holds three keys)
  • You can do only one quest in full, the easiest sections of all three, or indeed do all of them fully.
  • Some artifacts may not be usable when not of the correct alignment

Shopkeeper services

• shops may (or may not) offer multiple new services. Find out about them by #chatting to the shopkeeper
• possible services include charging, identify, remove curse, proofing, enchanting and poison weapons.
• services may be basic or premium. Premium service provides additional effects; premium identify will add BUC status or enchantment, for example, and is more expensive than basic. Premium charging may be used to "overcharge wands", giving them bonus charges. It *is* possible to use this for a wand of wishing, resulting in a (guaranteed) 1:4 wand.

New special rooms

dNethack adds some new special rooms, namely:

• Sepulcher
• Magic Item Vault
• Garden
• Waterlogged Library
• Dilapidated armory
• Island

In addition, throne rooms and swamps are somewhat modified, and rivers can spawn on normal dungeon levels.

Bugs/exploits removed

• Fixed Astral Call bug (based on Patric Muller's patch)
• Fixed Artifact ID bug. Or removed that feature.

Artifacts

• Quest artifacts and crowning artifacts can no longer be wished for by any class (not even your own crowning gift)
• Only your quest nemesis will deliberately steal your quest artifact, other monsters may steal the amulet and invocation items.
  • The QA is therefore a much more dependable source of extrinsics.

Traps

• Can be cancelled (Malcolm Ryan, tweaked). Zapping a wand of cancellation downwards while standing on a magical trap will disarm it. This applies to magic traps, teleporters, level teleporters, and polymorph traps. The original patch also included magic portals, dNethack removes this aspect.

• Breaking certain wands can create traps (adapted from UnNetHack)

Hallucination

• Now affects how objects are seen as well, until you pick it up (James).

Item material and size

• Weapons and armors can have different sizes and material.
  • Size of a weapon affects its damage and weight. Size of an armor piece determines what body type can wear it. Ill-fitting armor can be resized with an upgrade kit. Starting equipment will automatically be of your size.
  • Material of an item determines their weight (mithril equipment is very light, gold is heavy) and whether they deal bonus damage against certain creatures (iron weapons deal bonus damage against iron haters, silver weapons deal bonus damage against silver haters). As a consequence, silver weaponry like silver daggers or silver spears no longer exist as separate items, there's only one "base" item type and a material can be applied to it.
    • Artifacts are naturally generated with a specific material, which may be iron, silver, mithril, and more. Excalibur obtained by dipping in a fountain will always be whatever you dipped.

Misc

• Amnesia only applies to maps, no longer formally IDed items.
• Luckstones only slow down losing good luck, even when blessed. They still give the usual extra luck, however.
• Quaffing potions of booze now permanently slightly lowers the chance of moving in the wrong direction when confused or stunned (three potions per XP level). Dwarves outside the mines now carry potions of booze.
• Sokoban boulders have been replaced by huge stone crates, that will pop open and spill out food when pushed into the holes.
• Switching between primary and secondary hand no longer takes time.
• The doors to Gehennom in the Valley of the Dead now need to be unlocked with special keys you find in the alignment quests (see other new features page)
• The number of pets you can have is now limited by Cha/3 (rounded down). When going over that limit, the weakest pet will untame after a few turns.