User:Phol ende wodan/YANI/IRC archive

This section is an attempt to list YANIs that come up on several NetHack-related IRC channels, so they don't end up ignored and forgotten.

Attribution will be listed whenever possible. I make no claim to any of the ideas in this section. Feel free to add any other YANIs from IRC to this page, and to use or implement any of them as you see fit.

How these are retrieved: I log the #nethack, #nethack-dev, and #hardfought channels, and perhaps also some variant channels in the future. (If people are discussing YANIs on channels not listed here, let me know!) The logs are searched for strings like "yani", "yet another", and "feature request", with some surrounding context.

YANI list

Idea	Variant(s)	Source
Monks, or anyone skilled in martial arts, can kick weapons out of an enemy's hand		Tarmunora, NeroOneTrueKing
Dragon scales can be enchanted into dragonhide gear that is not scale mail	GruntHack	Demo
The Watch start with a small amount of gold, and will throw it at a player of the opposite gender while the player is disrobing		Demo, Grasshopper
Engraving with Fire Brand burns the engraving as a wand of fire does.		Tarmunora
New headstone messages: I'll just hit this thing a couple more times, it'll die. I don't need to unburden myself, they're only soldiers, I've been killing soldiers, it'll be fine. Maybe if I press this key a bit harder I'll hit for more damage next time.		Chris_ANG, jonadab, Grasshopper
Blank spellbooks in flooded libraries generate with the "number of times read" counter full, so they can't be polypiled into readable books.	dNetHack	NeroOneTrueKing
Add a high level monster spell "raise dead", which resurrects nearby corpses as hostile monsters.		Grasshopper
When attacking into a pit or falling while fumbling and wielding a pointy weapon, you have a chance to fall on your weapon.		bezaban
Boots of shock resistance, which have a thick rubber sole to prevent you from being grounded		Grasshopper
Improved alchemy in general and an alchemist role		Demo
Scroll of detect magic shows magic fountains on the level as well as magical items. Fountains discovered this way are then displayed as "magic fountain" when near or farlooked.	GruntHack	aosdict
New monster: green cube, which combines the abilities of a green slime and gelatinous cube: both sliming and paralysis.		Grasshopper
Merge the P and b monster classes, on the grounds that puddings and blobs are both classes of amorphous monsters that are sparsely populated. This was followed by a long discussion with several people about monster class rearrangement in NetHack Fourk.		jonadab, Grasshopper, bug_sniper, aosdict, Tarmunora, FIQ
Necromancer patch / necromancer class added to dNetHack, including: creating skeleton armies, binding the undead via rituals similar to the Binder, launching rocks that contain small petrified animals that transform into undead animals, bone chains, encrusting undead minions with different jewels to grant them different powers	dNetHack	introsp3ctive, Demo
Opening a cursed bag of holding does not tell you what has disappeared, or it just says "Things have disappeared from the bag!" without describing them		AmyBSOD
Role whose quest artifact's base item is a helm of opposite alignment. (This is apparently in Slash'EM Extended, but so are probably half the things on this list and I'm not going to bother cross-checking everything.)		jonadab
Conflict affects things in a radius. The ring of conflict is a chargeable item, affecting this radius.		jonadab
Monster status "discord", which causes a monster to be seen as a target and be attacked by other enemies. On the player, discord is the same as wielding Stormbringer. Discord is available through the spellbook of discord.	Fourk	jonadab
Applying a stethoscope tells the target's gender, and the hunger status of pets.		Grasshopper
Easter eggs as an actual item, in addition to monster and chicken eggs.		Grasshopper
The Bell of Opening is carried by your quest leader, who gives it to you when you return to them with the quest artifact. This solves the problem of making a game unwinnable by permanently changing alignment, since you can also get it by killing the quest leader.		jonadab, Grasshopper
Leprechauns steal anything made of gold, in addition to plain gold pieces. (In vanilla, the only gold item is the gold ring, but variants have other gold items.)		FIQ
Add rumors to FIQHack warning about dragons, which can be fairly dangerous.	FIQHack	rumflump
More acid resistance sources in FIQHack, to balance yellow dragons' exploding acid breath. Possibly a ring of acid resistance.	FIQHack	ais523, FIQ
Asmodeus should wield an artifact called the Ruby Rod.	dNetHack	zombifier
Pets on the Astral Plane always go with you when you ascend, regardless of whether they're adjacent or leashed to you.		AmyBSOD
Roditaur: new humanoid monster that has an oversized rat's head and four arms. Has a powerful bite attack and four weapon attacks.	SLASH'EM Extended	jonadab
Add "numeric prefix" as a hallucinatory monster.		ChrisE
Gehennom should be half as long, 10-12 levels, and should be mostly or all unique levels that are randomly chosen from a larger set		Duam
Oilskin cloaks should be MC3 instead of MC2.		jmr
Dragon eggs can be used as special types of thrown missiles. Black dragon eggs specifically have a disintegration effect.		Wooble
Level sounds on every level with a branch stairs. For spoiled players, the main benefit of this is to help locate the stairs to Vlad's Tower.		aosdict, jonadab
Chicken eggs identify as such when you formally ID them, and all eggs of a known type stay identified for the rest of the game.		Grasshopper, jonadab
Gauntlets and boots of reflection		Tangles
Water walking boots protect inventory from water and protect against drowning attacks		jonadab
The timeouts for intrinsic invisibility and see invisible from eating a stalker corpse should be very long.	SporkHack	jonadab
See invisible operates on a scale that determines what level of invisible monsters the player is allowed to see. (A low-level monster that drinks a potion of invisibility should be visible even with weak see invisible, an arch-lich casting disappear should require very strong see invisible.)		NeroOneTrueKing
Asmodeus and Baalzebub demand gold proportional to their difficulty or monster level, not the player's wallet. Possibly, if the player does not pay, they remain on the downstairs and will not move until the player has paid, which allows the player to return with the requisite amount of gold.		jonadab, zombifier, aosdict
Several small spellbook additions: The thick spellbook weighs more than other kinds. The thin spellbook weighs less. Reading a dusty spellbook has a chance of making you sneeze (if you are in a form with a nose), which wakes up monsters. Reading a silvery spellbook as a silver-hater makes you "not able to handle" the book and drop it		aosdict, raisse
Instead of pushing pets out of the way as they do other monsters, the Riders can trample over pets, instakilling them.		AmyBSOD
Net gnomes - wield tridents and have a sticky attack (the net), which causes subsequent attacks to hit automatically		Grasshopper
Players can polymorph dungeon features by zapping a polymorph beam down at it, with some special cases: Headstones can be created by polymorph and are more likely than other outcomes, but cannot be polymorphed into anything else. Trying to do so only polymorphs its epitaph. Polymorphing an altar angers that altar's god and any attendant priest since you effectively destroyed their altar Fountains either cannot polymorph into anything besides headstones or have a very limited chance of becoming something else; this is to prevent the player from being able to generate a bunch of thrones from fountains.		raisse, aosdict, jonadab, AmyBSOD
You can wear an empty bag over your head to blind yourself, but this sets charisma to 6.		Grasshopper
When invisibility is about to time out, give the player a warning message "You thought you saw yourself for a moment" ("You seem to unfade for a moment" if you can see invisible, "You feel introspective for a moment" if hallucinating.		raisse, aosdict
Monster damage armor spell ignores erosionproofing and damages the armor anyway, rather than removing the erosionproofing first.	SporkHack	AmyBSOD
Merge the ring of hunger and the ring of slow digestion into the same item; one is it with a positive enchantment and the other is with a negative enchantment		jonadab
Untrapping a lavender trap gets you potions of lavender essential oil. Ants naturally dislike lavender oil, so ants will flee from a player that has been sprayed by a lavender trap or used a potion of lavender oil.	Slash'EM Extended	aosdict
Uranium wands glow in the dark.		Grasshopper
Special room "ruined church" that contains ghosts, pieces of glass scattered around the floor, maybe an altar, maybe a spellbook, and blank paper/scrolls of junk mail scattered around the floor		rdplatypus, aosdict
Bump the cloak of displacement up to MC 2.		rdplatypus
Add a conduct for tracking whether the player has not used any of each class of objects.		AmyBSOD
Tripe rations should not generate randomly very often, but they should appear in the inventories of monsters that like tripe, such as orcs.		jonadab
Luck's effect on whether a projectile breaks is nerfed. Instead, the enchantment is the primary factor, and is not just simply "+2 or above".		AmyBSOD
Polymorphing a highly enchanted object will vaporize it if it turns into something that normally can't be enchanted that high.		AmyBSOD
Any gaze attack which is prevented by blindness (one which is visual in nature) is prevented by hallucination.		FIQ, Chris_ANG, aosdict
Give monsters their own XP, because the system of "all kills are equal experience" is weird		FIQ, greqrg
While wielding a polearm and attempting to move in a direction where there is a monster 2 spaces away, attack with the polearm instead of moving. Also attempt an attack for monsters 2 spaces away diagonally if polearms are Expert. To hit a monster a knight's move away, it still has to be applied. If preceded by the M key, don't try to attack.		FIQ
Make the Ranger quest artifact a crossbow if you are a gnome.		K2
Limit the amount of tamed monsters you can have at once.	FIQHack	FIQ
Rust monsters and disenchanters are quadrupeds, and should be q. (This would leave R empty though.)		jonadab
Add some effect to Snickersnee so that it's not just a slightly better katana. Ideas include confusion resistance, stunning resistance, displacement.		K2, jonadab, Mandevil
Give properties to other weapon materials besides silver that make them worth using. Iron - good against fairy, elf, and fae creatures Gold - associated with the sun, so good against undead Platinum? Copper? Metal? Wood?		AmyBSOD, aosdict, Chris_ANG
Mithril body armor prevents bisection.		jonadab
Buff late-game undead, because undead's significance in Gehennom tends to be pointless since they aren't scary by the time the adventurer gets there. Zombies can resurrect in Gehennom akin to GruntHack zombies. Spectres, which are like wraiths but much faster and with more attacks. Vampire mages. Skeletal dragons. Minotaur zombies. Z might need to be made ungenocideable.		jonadab, aosdict
Gnomes get a racial bonus using aklys and crossbow. Should probably be done by affiliating an item type with a certain race, adding this as a new object attribute, and only specifying it on racial items (elven armor, orcish weapons, the aklys and crossbow, etc.)		jonadab, aosdict
A more fleshed-out idea of elves and iron: Elves take extra damage when hit by iron. Not as much as silver, but still appreciable. Elven players take a small amount of damage when wearing iron gear, but get no further penalty. (dnethack hurts their regeneration rate while wearing iron, which is another option). Possibly some detrimental effect when wielding iron weapons as well, a to-hit or damage penalty, or negating bonuses from dexterity, strength, and skill, or something. This is balanced by elven racial equipment being better (not improved; it's already better).		jonadab, aosdict
A skill system with more intermediate levels, such as Unskilled -> Basic -> Competent -> Skilled -> Advanced -> Expert -> Master -> Grand Master.		jonadab
Most artifacts should have a negative to-hit bonus, so you have to train the weapon's skill with some weapon that isn't the artifact.		jonadab
Monsters get bonus AC against attacks coming from allies (hostile versus hostile, or pet versus pet).		Chris_ANG
Roles which are good with melee weapons (Bar, Val, Kni?, Cav?) should be able to see the enchantment of their weapon after using it for a while, or perhaps right when wielding it. Alternatively, seeing the enchantment of a weapon should be based on skill: basic will reveal enchantment on 1% of hits, skilled on 10%, expert as soon as you wield the weapon.		Chris_ANG, FIQ
Have the game display your base to-hit bonus (presumably excluding circumstantial modifiers) at all times, perhaps for both ranged and melee to-hit.		Chris_ANG
Allow the player to disable things that display on the status lines, like ability scores, gold, dungeon level, and experience level, none of which have to be monitored constantly like HP or Pw do.		Chris_ANG
Bull rush command that lets a player shove a target monster back one or more squares. The relative size of the monster and player and the strength of the player are important factors. The character might move into the space of the displaced target.		Chris_ANG
Split up the effects of magic resistance, as it is too extensive. It protects against magical force, death magic, teleportation, polymorph, etc.		jonadab
Maximum HP should have some ceiling that depends on your race/role combination, proportional to what you would get by leveling up to 30 as that race/role.		Chris_ANG
A way to search for hidden passages behind a boulder you are pushing.		loli
A role whose starting pet, if eaten, confers amazingly good benefits, so that the player has to make a hard choice of whether to deliberately kill and eat their pet, and suffer the penalties.	Slash'EM Extended	aosdict
Artifact arrow that auto-returns to your pack and cannot break. But there is only one of it, so it can't be multishot.		bug_sniper
A way to transfer contents from one container to another without moving through your inventory.		bug_sniper
A number of ways for weapon enchantment to be learned without formal identification. Rubbing it on a blessed touchstone Making a number of successful hits with it SLASH'EM's weapon practice ability Making a number of attempted hits with it (they don't have to hit)		Tarmunora, aosdict, jonathanhanes
Wind dragons, a cyan D whose breath is a wind beam: it doesn't damage you, but blows you backward, and can't be reflected. Their scales grant flight, which now confers resistance against knockback and Newton's Third Law.		Tarmunora, aosdict, jonadab
Some roles get food appraisal as a permanent intrinsic. Caveman at level 6, Tourist at level 10, maybe Healers at level 1 but they already get poison resistance so maybe not.		aosdict, raisse
In Orcish Town, have a powered-up hostile orc shaman who has taken over from the dead Minetown priest.		K2
Dwarf kings have a chance to carry a silver dagger.		raisse
Lightning attacks deal more damage to monsters in water.		AmyBSOD
Cavemen get a berserking bonus if their pet gets killed.		tesko
A side effect of a ring of three wishes: while wearing it, if you die, a wish gets used up and you get lifesaved.	dnethack	NeroOneTrueKing
You can #invoke a ring of hunger to make yourself more hungry immediately so you can eat dragon or giant corpses.		bug_sniper
You can apply an amulet of strangulation to an adjacent monster (that has a head and neck) which will strangle it in 5 turns.		bug_sniper
Magnet traps that attract metal items out of your inventory, but also attract loadstones and are a means of getting rid of them.		bug_sniper
Applying heat to loadstones demagnetizes them and turns them into flint stones.		bug_sniper
The effectiveness of the protection spell depends on how your off-hand is being used (open is better than carrying a shield, which is better than using it to wield a weapon). If your off-hand is free, the spell gives you a "spectral shield".		NeroOneTrueKing
There is some expensive and complicated ritual the player can perform to remove the "graveyard" status from a level. Perhaps read the cursed Book of the Dead and raise the dead, then stand on 7 different headstones and read a blessed scroll of remove curse on each. The same headstones cannot be used twice for this purpose.		aosdict, jonadab
Amulets can be flushed down toilets to identify them.	Slash'EM	bug_sniper
The game should allow you to reread a spellbook and relearn the spell whenever you want.		ChrisE
MSGTYPE:replace to replace a specified message with another one.		stenno
A monster that stands helpless if you can see it with normal vision (not infravision, or telepathy, or detect monsters or anything else), and attacks viciously if you cannot.		jonadab
Blessing a corpse prevents it from being tainted or (ordinarily) rotten (the "Blecch! Rotten food!" effect).		ais523
Greed as an object property for containers: the container will refuse to open 80% of the time, costing a turn. Either any gold put into the container vanishes permanently or gold weighs nothing when in the container.	FIQhack	FIQ, jonadab
Archeologists should start with searching rather than having to get to XL 10 for it. To compensate, they now get stealth at XL 10 instead of 1.		hothraxxa
Searching finds everything in your range, but takes multiple turns. The s command by default will take this many turns and will either tell you about all the hidden things around you or tell you that there is nothing interesting; you can specify a numeric prefix to search for less than that if you want.		jonadab
Amulet of zombification. Increases your zombification counter while you are wearing it. Taking it off cures the zombification.	FIQhack	jonadab
You can jump over swimming monsters in water, and over tiny monsters.		ais523, raisse
Your starting cat can have kittens.		Wooble
The helm of opposite alignment may turn lawful or chaotic characters neutral, instead of always converting to lawful or chaotic.		xyzyxx
Armor should make use of its corpsenm (monster index) for efficiency and to do interesting things that are not currently done. For example, this would allow dragon scales and scale mail to be merged into two items that use the various dragon monster indexes to figure out its special effects, and it would allow for fireproof low boots created from polypiling a crocodile corpse to be flavored differently. In variants where applying dragon properties to other pieces of armor is being considered or planned, this would provide an easy way to do so.		ais523, FIQ
Possible nerfs to charm monster: Only works if you're not wearing any armor. (This is apparently how D&D does it.) Make it more reliable than it is now, but it always fails if you have other pets. (You can only have one pet at a time without using scrolls of taming.) Only tames one monster at a time.		ais523, FIQ, Chris_ANG
Something to prevent utility spells at high failure rate (e.g. identify at 90% fail) from being a mere inconvenience to players. Ideas include: Large penalties for failing to cast a spell, like a 1% memory loss and 50 hunger. Failing to cast a spell locks it for a certain period of time. It would be hard to make this not turn into an even slower grind for utility spells, since the lockout period doesn't really matter. Make spells never actualy failable, but Pw cost is increased proportional to the failure rate, specifically: real Pw = base Pw / success rate. Pw would need to be exposed in the spellcasting menu rather than failure rate, even though failure rate still needs to be calculated. Maybe use different colors in the spellcasting menu to denote spells you can cast now, spells you can cast by waiting to recover more Pw, spells you can't cast even at your current maximum Pw, and forgotten spells.		ais523, FIQ, aosdict, jonadab
Changes to identification, particularly price ID: If price ID were removed, scrolls of identify should be known to all characters. Price ID should be less regimented and predictable. Reduce the potential consequences of use-testing items so it's not as terrible of an idea, such as giving a warning for reading way out of depth spellbooks. Do outright remove price ID, because it's tedious and considered a bad feature by roguelike players who don't primarily play NetHack. Change price ID so that each item is assigned to a "band" of possible prices. There are four price bands, and each item class has its base price randomized based on its band. The price bands show up on unidentified items, e.g. "an expensive scroll labeled KIRJE". Some items might fall into more than one price band.		ais523, jonadab, FIQ, aosdict
Make spellbooks partially identifiable outside of a shop without having to formally identify them: Higher level spellbooks could be heavier. Make the appearances more complex based on level. A simple color indicates a 1-2 level book, an unusual color or appearance indicates a 3-4 level book, a very odd or ridiculous appearance or material indicates a 5-6 level book, and a completely over-the-top appearance indicates a level 7+ book. (Example: "red", "steel", "bone", "jewel-encrusted"). Shuffling of the random appearances would need to be changed so that the books retain an appearance in their original bracket.		ais523, jonadab, FIQ, aosdict

YASI list

Some ideas are not intended to be taken seriously. But they might still find some use if listed here.

Silly Idea	Variant	Source
New "farmer" role: starts with seeds and a spade, has other tools available like sickles and scythes.		jonadab
Opening a cursed bag of holding does not destroy the items, but it redistributes them around the level, or perhaps the entire dungeon.		Grasshopper, AmyBSOD
Dropping a ring of polymorph control down a sink, then a ring of polymorph, turns the sink into a regularly erupting geyser.		FIQ
The Mazes of Menace are located on the moon Titan, to mess with day/night and moon phases.		rumflump
Donkeys that carry around the player's loot. If you kick a pet donkey, you get the YAFM "You kick your own ass!"		jonathanhanes, Grasshopper
Playable race that doesn't have teeth and can't eat anything unless polymorphed into something that can.		aosdict
New scroll label CONULATION (apparently it is CONGRATULATIONS minus GRATS?)		aosdict
Potion of un-dilution. Does nothing when quaffed or thrown. Only effect is that when you dip a diluted stack of potions into it, they become undiluted.		aosdict
Trap which pushes the player one level higher, like a potion of gain level.		aosdict
Oilskin sack of cancellation, which cancels items that you put into it.		AmyBSOD
Priest players, if they are at XL 30 (with the "High Priest(ess)" rank title), can kill their own high priest and take over, becoming the new high priest.		aosdict
If you genocide @, you only die if you have showrace turned off so your symbol is a @. If you have showrace turned on, you live, but if you ever turn it off again that game, you die.		Wooble
Lego trap. If you're not wearing metal boots, you take damage when you step on it.		FIQ
Chicken soup that cures constitution loss when consumed. When thrown at a shade, wraith or ghost, it is instakilled (chicken soup is good for the soul).		bug_sniper, aosdict
Dipping a thirsty weapon into water makes it satisfied. Hitting things with a satisfied weapon removes their hunger.		bug_sniper, jonadab
Burying a troll corpse results in a troll zombie, which is twice as likely to reanimate. Sticking a troll corpse in an ice box results in an ice troll emerging from the box. Dumping a troll in lava results in a lava troll. Dumping a troll corpse in water results in a water troll. Locking a troll corpse in a box results in a freedom fighter troll, who goes around liberating all the other trolls from their boxes.		Tangles, jonadab, aosdict
Tasp: charged ranged tool that works on monsters that have a mind and are not immaterial. It paralyzes for one turn, dealing no damage, and has a small chance of taming. To keep the monster tame, you have to keep tasping it occasionally. Applied to yourself, it cures hallucinations by electroshock therapy.		jonadab, Grasshopper
Add a corpse swinging skill, which increases your odds of hitting with a wielded corpse. Only Cavemen can get skill in it.		aosdict
You can apply Fire Brand to an adjacent tame rothe to brand it with your cattle mark.		aosdict
Pools of oil, black or brown }		FIQ
Rather than spell schools, every spell must be trained individually, costing the same amount of skill points as normal.		AmyBSOD
Rename the mundane two-handed sword to "claymore". Apply it to adjacent tiles to create a land mine.		jonadab
Hobbit nuns, and nuns as a playable role that can use a #sing command.		jonadab
Roaming shopkeepers, that will attack and kill you even before you break any doors.		bug_sniper
You can #jump onto tiny monsters, which makes a Dex check. If successful the monster is squashed.		AmyBSOD
Deli shopkeepers sometimes have a tinning kit in inventory. If a monster dies in their shop, they will instantly tin its corpse and drop the tin in their shop for sale.		jonadab
You can eat leather while starving.		ChaseSP
Eating a bag of holding lets you store items in your stomach.		aosdict
Eating a magic lamp gives you intrinsic light.		Wooble
Potion of solipsism: gives every other monster on the level temporary phasing because you're not sure whether they're figments of your imagination or not.		aosdict
Artifact Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses, which when equipped cause blindness and warning when a monster is in line of sight.		jonadab
Librarian monster whose attack breaks illiterate conduct.		jonathanhanes
The Candelabrum of Invocation, if it contains 7 candles of invocation, can be used to do the invocation without the other invocation items / from anywhere in the dungeon	dnethack	Chris, AmyBSOD
Pets you get from other players' bones files that were the pets of the dead adventurer are harder to make do what you want, like in Pokemon.		aosdict
Wand of alignment conversion, which will convert the alignment of both altars and priests tending those altars, so the priest may not get angry.		bug_sniper
Hill orcs can grow up into hell orcs, which are much stronger and normally spawn only in Gehennom.		aosdict
Winter wolves can grow up into spring wolves, which can coil their body and launch themselves several spaces in one linear move to attack, damaging you from the impact and landing next to you.		jonadab
Pinball monster: Has a fast speed, rolls around and bounces into walls, and occasionally teleports. Uses the S_BOULDER symbol. If you kick it, it changes direction.		FIQ, aosdict, jonadab
Add charm monster to the list of maintainable spells. If you maintain charm monster, you automatically cast it any time you're next to a hostile monster.	FIQhack	jonadab
Add a spellbook of wish, but it is not randomly generated, unwishable, costs over 100 ink minimum to write, and is level 27 so nobody can cast it.		aosdict, jonadab
Amulet of undead turning. If you die while wearing it, you rise from the grave as a zombie. If an undead monster dies while wearing it, it has the same effect as an amulet of life saving.		aosdict
Fire gloves and ice gloves that send a bolt of fire or cold in the direction you hit.		Wooble
If your terminal is big enough, whenever the game makes a die roll, you must watch an ASCII-art animation of the die roll.		jonadab