XNetHack

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

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.

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.
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

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.

Monster changes

Bribing demon lords 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

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 slightly poorer weapon (1d8/1d10) but applies itself passively if wielded in the bare main hand, and is now a one-handed wield weapon. You can no longer #apply a unicorn horn to restore lost ability points.
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

The KABOOM!! stunning door trap is replaced with several different traps. The available traps depend on the current level difficulty. All of the following impact monsters and players as symmetrically as possible.

Trap	Dlvl	Triggers	Effects
Screechy hinges	1+	Closing, opening	Awakens nearby monsters.
Self-locking mechanism	1+	Opening, closing, unlocking	Shuts and locks itself. If you try to unlock it after it's locked, the trap is automatically removed.
Static shocking doorknob	2+	Opening, closing, unlocking, failed untrapping	Zaps for d(level difficulty * 2) + 1 shock damage. Damage is reduced by 75% for shock resistance. The trap is automatically removed.
Falling bucket of water	3+	Opening, breaking, failed untrapping	Classic bucket-propped-above-a-door prank. Your inventory is randomly wetted. The trap is automatically removed.
No hinges, falling forward	6+	Opening, breaking, failed untrapping	Door is rigged without hinges, falling away from you. You crash on top of the door and are stunned for 2d4 turns. Destroys the door. This effect also happens if you try to kick open the other "no hinges" trapped door.
No hinges, falling backward	8+	Opening, failed untrapping	Door is rigged without hinges, falling on top of you. The door crashes on top of the monster, making you helpless for 3 turns. Destroys the door.
Boulder dropping out of the ceiling	10+	Opening, breaking, failed untrapping	You break a tripwire, dropping a boulder out of the ceiling on you (it will drop on the door space if you open the door from a distance). The trap is automatically removed.
Hot doorknob	12+	Opening, closing, failed untrapping	Burns you for d(level difficulty) damage. If you have fire resistance, damage is halved. If you are wearing any gloves, damage is halved again and the gloves may be eroded. If you are specifically wearing "padded gloves", damage is entirely negated (because they are designed for heat.)
Fiery explosion	15+	Opening, breaking, failed untrapping	Causes a fiery explosion dealing d(level difficulty) damage centered on the door. The explosion is normal (it may burn your inventory and is resistable normally, no special effects). Destroys the door.

There is only one other trap change: magic traps' taming effect is changed 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
Sinks are recolored from # to \.
Drawbridges are recolored from # to +.

New conducts

Artifactless conduct: never touch an artifact. (Invocation items and the Amulet don't count; they're unique items not artifacts.)
Petless conduct: zero tame monsters the whole game. Start with OPTIONS=!pet configured, and never tame a pet at any point.

Other gameplay changes

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

Monster and object lookup

Monster lookup is more or less ported directly from FIQHack; object lookup is new. These allow you to use the / (whatis) command to see a bunch of detailed information about the monster or object you're looking up. It is displayed above the encyclopedia entry.

Information for monsters is things like size, speed, attacks, resistances, and intrinsics conferred. Information for objects varies more based on object class, but contains things like weight, base cost, whether it's magical, base AC, and weapon damage.

Miscellaneous

Using the open command to target "." (self) is an alias for #loot
When you ascend with a non-starting alignment, the end-of-game reason is "ascended (in dishonor)"
The Ranger pantheon changes Mercury (lawful) to Apollo and Venus (neutral) to Diana
Whenever monsters polymorph in sight of the hero, print a message saying what they turned into
After sacrificing the Amulet to Moloch, you get flavor text of an invisible choir chanting in Latin and being bathed in darkness
Correct "Thou cannot escape my wrath, mortal!" to "canst not"
Priests will give you bitcoins for an ale while hallucinating
After being crowned, thrones give you the "very comfortable here" message
Paying exactly 1/10 of your gold to a priest will "pay your tithe"
The Candelabrum reads (n/7 candles attached) to make explicit that it holds 7 candles
Gravestone color is now white; this probably doesn't matter for a lot of fonts
Bones levels now have a level sound: the same "eerie feeling" as in walking into an abandoned temple

Monster recoloration and letter rearrangement

Many monsters are recolored so that there are no duplicate monster glyphs. The 'leprechaun' and 'ghost' classes are also eliminated, to move lizards and ghosts off of punctuation symbols.

Monster	Vanilla glyph	xNetHack glyph
Leprechaun	l	i
Gecko	:	l
Newt	:	l
Iguana	:	l
Baby/regular crocodile	:/:	l/l
Lizard	:	l
Chameleon (unpolymorphed)	:	l
Salamander	:	l
Ghost		W
Shade		W
Wraith	W	W
Barrow wight	W	W
Werejackal	@/d	@/d
Wererat	@/r	@/r
Werewolf	@/d	@/d
Wolf	d	d
Warg	d	d
Coyote	d	d
Floating eye	e	e
Mind flayer	h	h
Master mind flayer	h	h
Kobold and variants	k/M/Z	k/M/Z
Titanothere	q	q
Baluchitherium	q	q
Giant rat	r	r
Rabid rat	r	r
Aleax	A	A
Shrieker	F	F
Minotaur	H	H
Arch-lich	L	L
Gnome and variants	G/M/Z	G/M/Z
Orc and variants	o/M/Z	o/M/Z
Mordor orc	o	o
Bugbear	h	o
Human and variants	@/M/Z	@/M/Z
Ettin and variants	H/M/Z	H/M/Z
Cobra	S	S
Owlbear	Y	Y
Sasquatch	Y	Y
Imp	i	i
Kops	K/K/K/K	K/K/K/K
Acid blob	b	b
Erinys	&	&
Barbed devil	&	&
Marilith	&	&
Vrock	&	&
Nalfeshnee	&	&
Pit fiend	&	&
Piranha	;	;
Fire vortex	v	v
Fire giant	H	H
Fire elemental	E	E
Demon lords	&	&
The Wizard of Yendor	@	@
The Riders	&	&

Architectural changes

See the full changelog for architectural changes. These shouldn't impact playing the game at all.

XNetHack

Contents

Frustration and tedium removals

Spells

New levels, updated levels, and level generation

Monster changes

Object changes

Thiefstone

Other new objects

Behavior changes

Trap changes

Dungeon features

New conducts

Other gameplay changes

Interface changes

Monster and object lookup

Miscellaneous

Monster recoloration and letter rearrangement

Architectural changes

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