User:Tomsod/YANIs and patches

I have several clever ideas on how to improve NetHack (don't we all?) and aim to make them into actual patches over time. Might as well use this wiki for remembrance of the former and promotion of the latter.

Wand of make invisible can turn doors into secret doors

Only works on closed doors, doesn't work on Astral plane. Shop doors will reappear after a while.

Makes the wand significantly less useless (currently you only need one charge per game).

In terms of balance, the wand becomes about as useful as a wand of locking: while a secret door is giant-proof, you need to actually close the door first, so it's not strictly superior.

Surprisingly, wands of locking actually already have similar behavior in vanilla, but only on the Rogue level (for the lack of locked doors there).

I have written a patch for it (against 3.6.1), but it turns out secret doors can only imitate straight wall segments. If you dig out a room corner, make a door there, and turn it secret, there will be visual glitches (except on default symset)! It's not easily fixable, unfortunately.

Also there's a minor 3.6.1 shop bug that combined with this patch can allow you to break down the shop door without being fined. It's easy to fix, but I defer this right to devs for now. I will post a fix for it later, with authorship depending on their decision.

You can sacrifice junk artifacts to reduce artifact counter

Because people love leaving bones with their Demonbanes in my game just as I'm about to wish for the Eye.

dNetHack actually implemented a similar idea with their Unknown God priests. With how many artifacts that variant has, it does seem even more necessary!

Of course, you cannot sacrifice artifacts that were gifted to you! That would be rude. Any other artifact acts like a high-value sacrifice, and after disappearing no longer counts as generated for wishing and gifting purposes (but cannot be generated again).

Here's the patch (3.6.1). I didn't notice any bugs.

A command to eat one turn's worth of food

Probably #bite or something. I have read recommendations to save K-rations into endgame because their not immobilizing you for several turns is apparently a major strategic advantage. Well, what logically forbids your hero from eating just a half of their lembas wafer when time is at a premium? You can even already do that, just not purposefully.

The only downside with this idea is balance: it removes the only flaw of a lembas wafer, making it into the uberfood.

Also, lizard corpses become multiple-use with this command. Neat.

Luggage (from Discworld)

Yes, it has already been proposed before, but I intend to write an actual patch. Coding-wise, it should be my most ambitious one (for this game, that is).

Anyway, the Luggage appears as an artifact chest when it is gifted to you. As soon as you touch it, it transforms into a tame unique monster. It has the resistances of a golem, high MR, the digesting attack of a purple worm (but probably lower base level), and you can #loot it to store items inside. There are downsides, though:

• Unlike the books, the space inside the chest is not dimensionally packed or whatever. That means storing wands of cancellation is safe, but the Luggage can become encumbered.
  • The basic mechanics are as for a strong player, slowing down at 1000 weight units, and collapsing at 3000.
    • You can chat to it to reveal its level of encumbrance.
  • The engulfing attack is much rarer with many items inside the Luggage (too little space), and at (say) 2000+ weight doesn't occur at all.
    • That means you have to choose between using it as a pet or as a container.
  • At 3000+ not only the Luggage stops moving, it also stops responding to a magic whistle, so you can't really use it as a teleportable main stash (unless your main stash is really small).
• The items inside Luggage are technically its inventory, but behave more like as being inside a proper chest:
  • Luggage won't pick up or drop anything on its own.
  • Items are protected from elemental damage.
    • But not from nymphs! (Probably.)
  • Monsters attacking Luggage in melee (especially with kicks) can damage fragile items (like with kicking chests).
• Luggage is very loyal, and will not go wild due to neglect or abuse.
  • Relatedly, it is inediate despite the digestion attack.
• When killed normally, Luggage will leave behind its item form with its inventory inside.
  • It can be revived with undead turning, I guess.
  • It will or course always revive tame.
• The loyalty is not transferable, and bones Luggage will always be hostile and non-tamable.
  • It will transform into ordinary chest on death.
• Its letter is probably 'm'.
• As an artifact, it really should be unaligned, but 'unaligned' has a different meaning for monsters, so let it be neutral.

So it's really more gimmicky than useful: you can't store potions or orbs in it because they can break, you can't store wands because nymphs may use them against you... actually, there's a lot of items nymphs can use, so I may make the Luggage nymph-proof after all. At least, it should be useful as a pet. Not sure if I want it to be more useful as a pet than as a container, though.

Scroll of epitaph

When read, you are prompted for a message that is then engraved on the up stairs, to be hopefully read by your successor. Beatitude affects quality of message (burned/carved/written in dust). Blessed scrolls may also read themselves when you die. Confused reading creates a grave.

While mostly useful on public servers, you can possibly engrave Elbereth with it? It's mostly for improving your bones, though.

A 'moneyless' conduct for variants with shop services

Because services provide conduct-proof ways to do many important things, including enchanging/charging (illiterate), holy/unholy water (atheist), formal ID (zen/illiterate) etc. Also there are some very cheap tricks, like horn of plenty + credit cloning + tool shop -> infinite potions and food.

Not sure about the name. Maybe 'commie'? There must be a word for 'a person who deliberately avoids using money', I just don't know it.

For completeness, this conduct should also track regular buying/selling, donation to priests, paying to foocubi, bribes, vault guards and Oracle. Feels restrictive enough to qualify for a proper conduct.

EDIT: or I could throw out selling to shops and call it 'frugal'! Makes much more sense and doesn't really change anything important gamewise.

Monks should get a unique spell when crowned

Restore ability is quite useless and everyone acknowledges that. Similarly to getting an unique (artifact) weapon for other roles, Monks could get a unique (not randomly generated) spell that is otherwise only obtainable through wishing.

I think that restore ability was chosen because it's the highest-level spell of Monks' highest-proficiency spell school. So, enter new spell: rejuvenation. Healing level 7 (or 6?), non-directional (self only), mostly duplicates full healing, except for max HP increase (of course), and heal amount is level-dependent (say, XLd10). At skilled restores drained levels, like blessed potion. Also restores attributes (we've come full circle!) and cures wounded legs. Not too cheesy, I hope?

This should both provide reasons for Monks to be crowned and to advance healing spells beyond basic.

Or maybe it doesn't have to be unique, just rare? Wizards get their finger of death after all and nobody's complaining.