XNetHack

xNetHack is a variant of the development version of NetHack 3.6.1, developed by aosdict, aka Phol ende wodan.

Its main goals are to fix game balance issues, remove sources of frustration and tedium, and experiment with new ideas from the community.

It is intended to keep up with vanilla NetHack, and will regularly merge in its latest commits.

Version 0.1.0 of xNetHack is currently unreleased, though it is available on the hardfought servers for beta testing:

• EU server: ssh nethack@eu.hardfought.org, or play in-browser at https://www.hardfought.org/nethack/hterm-us/
• US server: ssh nethack@hardfought.org, or play in-browser at https://www.hardfought.org/nethack/hterm-eu/

xNetHack's source can be found on Github, should you want to compile it yourself.

The changes listed on this page are those up through commit b4253568. Changes from later commits may not be shown here.

To read the full up-to-date changelog, go here.

Gameplay changes

Frustration and tedium removals

• Exploding bag of holding scatters 12/13 of its contents instead of destroying them outright
• Drop the XL threshold for the Quest to 10
• Replace poison instadeath with "potent" poison causing severe HP loss
• Remove the mysterious force

New levels, updated levels, and level generation

• Add jonadab's Gnomish Sewer Mines' End (dark twisty water level with many rings)
• Add a barricaded shop with an alive shopkeeper to Orcish Town, and scatter around a lot of gear that should be dropped by the dead denizens
• Non-spiked pits occasionally generate in graveyards, and they are flavored as open graves
• All sinks on non-special levels now generate with one ring buried beneath them
• Treasure zoos generate only animal monsters
• Upper Mines levels are always lit; Lower Mines levels are always dark.

Spells

Spells can no longer fail. Instead, their Pw cost is inflated for partial failures, using the following formula. It is intended to be simpler and rely less on a bunch of role-specific stats.

1. Compute a percentage as follows:
   1. +5% per point of Intelligence.
   2. +5% per experience level.
   3. If wearing a robe, wielding a quarterstaff or wand of nothing, +50%.
   4. Otherwise, if wielding a wand that matches the spell, +70%.
   5. -25% per spell level.
   6. -50% for metallic body armor.
   7. -50% for wearing a bulky (oc_large) shield, or -15% for non-bulky.
   8. -20% for a metallic helm that isn't a helm of brilliance.
   9. -35% for metallic gloves.
   10. -10% for metallic boots.
   11. +20% for Basic skill in the spell school, +40% Skilled, +80% Expert
   12. Clamp to the [0%, 100%] range.
2. Pw cost of the spell = (spell level * 5) / percentage. (If percentage is 0, the spell would require infinite Pw for you to cast and is uncastable.)

Pw regeneration is also overhauled, using FIQHack's algorithm. You get the sum of the following sources of Pw per turn (fractions carry over for the next turn):

• 100/100 if you have energy regeneration
• 3 * XL / 100
• 3 * Wis / 100
• 33/100 if you are a Wizard

Some spells are removed:

• Cure blindness, invisibility, and detect food no longer randomly generate. They can still be wished for or written.
• Identify is removed outright. It cannot be wished for or written.

Some spell levels are tweaked:

• Dig: 5 -> 3
• Detect monsters: 1 -> 3
• Clairvoyance: 3 -> 2
• Charm monster: 3 -> 6
• Detect unseen: 3 -> 2
• Turn undead: 6 -> 2
• Jumping: 1 -> 2

Other spell-related changes include:

• Wielding a spellbook cuts the Pw cost of casting its spell in half, rounded up
• Rebalance spellbook failure effects; notably a failure causes confusion instead of paralysis, and paralysis only happens as a side effect of level 5+ books. The steal gold effect is also replaced with the book biting you. A new level 1+ effect is the book dropping one level in BUC.
• Spellbooks disintegrate if and only if they are already cursed
• Blessed and cursed spellbooks act as +/- 10 Int, instead of guaranteeing success and failure
• Throw out the complicated spellbook delay formula; all spellbook delays are now 10*level

Monster changes

• Bribing demons demand 50d500 gold, regardless of what the hero is carrying, and may be successfully shortchanged depending on the hero's Charisma
• Generate a lot more monsters when a level is created, and slow down the normal generation rates
• Green slimes have an engulfing attack that starts sliming
• Orc-captains are considered a lord to their kind, and their speed is increased from 5 to 9
• Hitting a gremlin with light will anger it
• Shriekers will spawn a baby purple worm if regular purple worms are too hard

Object changes

New object: Thiefstone

A thiefstone is a magical gray stone that "steals" items out of your inventory.

• Stolen items are deposited in a certain space on the level (its "stash location") on which the thiefstone was generated, no matter where the hero happens to be.
  • If there is a container on this space, stolen items will automatically go into it.
  • A newly generated thiefstone will try to choose its stash location in this order: a vault, a closet, any other space with a container on it. Whichever space it chooses, if there is no container there already, it will generate a container there.
• Thiefstones will only steal inherently magical items. Blessed ones will also steal gold and all gems (including glass). They will never steal equipped items.
• All thiefstones are generated cursed.
• When you pick up a cursed thiefstone, it may pull some magical item out of your pack and teleport itself and the item off to its stash.
  • Unless you happen to be standing on its stash location already, in which case it does nothing.
• If you are carrying a cursed thiefstone and pick up a magical item, the thiefstone jumps out of your pack and teleports itself and the item off to its stash.
• Thiefstones can be cancelled. This makes them unable to teleport items ever again.
• Applying or rubbing a non-cursed thiefstone on some item that it will steal will send the item off to the stash, but not the thiefstone itself.

Other new objects

• Ring of carrying: chargeable 200zm ring that increases or decreases carrying capacity by 5% per enchantment.

Behavior changes

• Candle light radius is now sqrt(x)+1 instead of log_7(x)+1
• Blessed scroll of destroy armor asks the player which piece of armor to destroy
• You can rub rocks together or on touchstones to break them, occasionally producing flint stones
• Flint stones' weight is reduced to 1 aum
• The wand of speed monster on the player gives temporary very fast speed but not intrinsic speed
• The potion of speed gives intrinsic speed and a short duration of very fast speed
• The amulet of life saving does not work if the player is polymorphed into a nonliving form
• Add thiefstones, a gray stone which steals magic items and treasure back to a location on the level it generates. If the player tracks it down and removes its curse, they can use it to their own benefit.
• Unicorn horn is a poorer weapon (1d3/1d3) but applies itself passively if wielded in the bare main hand.
• Potions may be #dipped in sinks to pour them down the drain, causing the hero to suffer its vapor effects.
• Add vapor effects for all potions, and make most of them unambiguously identify the potion
• Chargeable rings will never generate at +0
• Dropping a ring down a sink has an 80% chance of being buried beneath it, rather than 20%
• Confused scroll of light will conjure several tame cancelled lights, which cannot explode but are useful as a light source. Will be yellow lights if non-cursed and black lights if cursed.
• Dwarvish and Uruk-hai shields count as bulky
• Scrolls of identify always identify 7/4/1 items for B/U/C; full inventory ID is no longer possible from scroll
• Potions of oil cannot be diluted
• Uncursed food no longer gives "Blecch! Rotten food!"; cram and lembas never do even when cursed

Trap changes

• Replace the KABOOM!! door trap with several different interesting traps that scale with dungeon level: screeching hinges, self-locking mechanisms, statically charged doorknob, falling bucket of water, removed hinges, boulder dropping out of the ceiling, hot doorknob, and fiery explosion.
• Change magic traps' taming effect to pacification

Dungeon features

• "Klunk!" from kicking a sink is less likely
• "Flupp!" effect from kicking a sink will dislodge and spit up one ring buried under the sink
• Throne insight always gives a full inventory identify

Other

• Add "artifactless" conduct: never touch an artifact (14th bit of xlogfile conduct)
• Add "petless" conduct: zero tame monsters the whole game (13th bit of xlogfile conduct)
• Occasionally when you die to vampires, green slimes, mummies, or anything else that would have made you arise from the grave, you turn into that monster but retain your sanity, and continue playing with permanent intrinsic unchanging.
• The player can now displace peaceful monsters (with a few small exceptions)
• Ghosts of Dudley can now be encountered
• Magic lamps can be wished for
• All roles now have a standardized "cutoff level" of 12 for maxHP and maxPw gains.
• Change can of grease material to plastic and color it bright blue
• Change hexagonal wand material to quartz (gemstone)
• Wizards get four spellbooks in starting inventory (force bolt, magic missile, and two random). This replaces the scrolls, potions, rings and wand they previously started with.

Interface changes

See the full changelog for interface changes.

Architectural changes

See the full changelog for architectural changes.