User:Tomsod/YANIs and patches/Infidel
| Infidel role | |
|---|---|
| Author | Tomsod |
| Download | link |
| NetHack PatchDB | unknown |
Infidels are a role that specializes in offensive magic, with some similarities to Priests, and to Flame Mages from SLASH'EM. They can be humans or orcs; like Priests, they have a random pantheon, but Infidels always follow Moloch. The Infidel role offers a slightly unusual game, as they start with the Amulet of Yendor and are initially tasked with returning it to Moloch's Sanctum. There are a number of other quirks as well.
The EvilHack implementation of the Infidel role is heavily based on this patch, but there's a number of (sometimes important) differences, which this page currently doesn't document. Refer to the respective section of the variant's wiki page for a more up-to-date info.
Contents
Starting equipment
- 250 to 500 gold pieces
- the uncursed Amulet of Yendor
- an uncursed +1 dagger (orcish dagger for orcs)
- a cursed fireproof +1 leather jacket
- a cursed fireproof +0 cloak of protection
- if an orc, two random comestibles
- an uncursed spellbook of drain life
- another random uncursed spellbook (at most level 3, not drain life, not from a restricted school)
- 3 potions of unholy water
- an uncursed fire horn
- an uncursed magic marker
In addition, all Infidels know the appearance of the scroll of charging, although they don't start with any. Their starting pet is a homunculus.
Intrinsics
- XL 1: Fire resistance
- XL 15: Warning
- XL 20: Shock resistance
Skills
| Infidel skills | |
|---|---|
| Max | Skills |
| Basic |
|
| Skilled |
|
| Expert | |
Infidels start with Basic skill in Dagger and Attack spells. Their special spell is fireball. Spell success is determined by wisdom.
Special rules
Infidels are partially immune to curses ("weldproof" in dNetHack terms): using cursed weapons, armor, jewelry, or loadstones does not stick them to their persons, so they can be freely unequipped and dropped. Other detrimental effects of cursed items take place as usual, however.
Infidels are penalized for wearing blessed armor: for each worn blessed piece of armor, their spellcasting penalty is increased by 2. Blessed weapons and jewelry do not have this effect. Wearing cursed armor reduces this extra penalty by 1 per cursed item, but never below zero. (This is why the starting armor is cursed.)
Since Infidels are expected to carry the Amulet with them for most of the game, the energy drain is much more merciful on them, increasing cast spells' cost by at most 50%.
Infidels suffer a multishot penalty for all weapons except daggers.
Most other quirks are due to Infidels being unaligned (followers of Moloch); wearing a helm of opposite alignment temporarily negates all the peculiarities listed below.
Unaligned
Unaligned alignment can be succinctly described as "more strongly chaotic": unaligned Infidels can still commit murder and sacrifice their own race, and may also sacrifice pets and attack peaceful creatures with impunity; they take 4d6 damage from holy water (compared to chaotics' 2d6), and unholy water heals them for the same amount; like chaotics, their sacrifices reduce prayer timeout more and divine anger less (Moloch needs a sacrifice of value 16 or more to be mollified).
The most important difference is the unreliability of prayer in the early game: when praying to Moloch above Gehennom, not on an unaligned altar and without your quest artifact, the prayer has a 80% chance to fail. This doesn't increment the prayer timeout, but neither does it provide invulnerability. On the other hand, praying to Moloch in Gehennom will always succeed.
Similarly, converting aligned altars is much more difficult as well, having the same 80% chance to fail outright under the aforementioned conditions. However, same-race sacrifice is still guaranteed to convert lawful and neutral (but not chaotic) altars to Moloch.
Another important bit is that Moloch expects regular sacrifices to him. After turn 6000, if you haven't yet performed a sacrifice to Moloch, your alignment record begins to drain at an increasing rate; reaching negative values has a chance to increment Moloch's anger as well. Successfully performing a sacrifice delays this effect for 500 turns per point of sacrifice value; this delay is not cumulative, and if the previous remaining delay was higher, it isn't affected. Any sacrifice to Moloch counts, including same-race sacrifice and sacrifice on a cross-aligned altar (as long as you're actually trying to convert the altar and not yourself). You will be warned when you're due for a sacrifice, both through a message and in the base attributes window.
Moloch's prayer boons are also infernal-themed: instead of blessing and repairing the wielded weapon, Moloch curses and repairs a random worn piece of armor; water prayer to Moloch always produces unholy water; and the uncursing aura will not uncurse said water and will unbless carried armor instead of uncursing it.
Chaotic monsters can be peaceful to unaligned characters, but the chance of this is halved compared to truly chaotic heroes. Also, elves will never be peaceful, not even to humans. On the other hand, major demons have a chance to start peaceful to Infidels, and carrying the Amulet of Yendor has no effect on monster hostility. Peaceful chaotic monsters are not considered truly co-aligned, so Infidels don't get penalties for killing them.
Unaligned Infidels are entirely exempt from the mysterious force.
Infidels are discouraged from using Elbereth: scaring monsters this way incurs a -5 alignment penalty. On the other hand, attacking under the protection of Elbereth does not (but the engraving will still disappear).
Infidels cannot peacefully interact with aligned priests of other gods: merely entering a cross-aligned temple makes the priest hostile; in Minetown, this also makes the Watch angry.
Wearing a helm of opposite alignment temporarily makes Infidels lawful; a permanent conversion is not possible.
First gift
| ) Secespita (No tile) | |
|---|---|
| Base item | knife |
| Damage vs. small | 1d3 +1 |
| Damage vs. large | 1d2 +1 |
| To-hit bonus | +1d5 |
| Bonus versus | living |
| Weapon skill | knife |
| Size | one-handed |
| Affiliation |
|
| When carried |
(none) |
| When wielded |
improved sacrifice |
| When invoked |
(none) |
| Base price | 1000 zm |
| Weight | 5 |
| Material | iron |
The first artifact Moloch gifts you is a slightly improved knife called Secespita. It's primarily an utility artifact: wielding it while sacrificing a corpse improves its sacrifice value by 50%, rounded down. This makes it very useful in allaying Moloch's anger, as it lowers the minimum required monster difficulty from 15 to 10.
In combat, Secespita has a modest bonus against living targets (that is, not undead, golems or vortices). More importantly, if you manage to kill such an enemy with this knife, it will restore some of your energy (approximately half again the late monster's level). As it's a very poor weapon, this effect may be difficult to trigger, however.
For Infidels, Secespita will be unaligned; in non-Infidel games, it's chaotic, continuing the proud tradition of shitty chaotic sacrifice gifts.
Further gifts from Moloch are limited to unaligned artifacts.
Crowning
Crowning as a result of a prayer to Moloch needs a special mention, as it's very different from regular crowning. Instead of merely giving you intrinsics, Moloch permanently transforms you into a major demon, changing your race from human or orcish to demonic. You do get intrinsic see invisible, poison resistance and fire resistance permanently (although Infidels already have the last one), but the rest of unique demonic traits only persist as long as you're not polymorphed, those being:
- Infravision.
- Drain resistance.
- Immunity to death magic.
- Intrinsic slow digestion, effectively, as demons are inediate.
- Flight that is blocked by most body armor (which constricts your wings).
- Leather jackets and dragon scales (not DSM) are allowed.
- An extra sting melee attack which can poison your enemies. (It won't trigger against footrices.)
- Vulnerability to silver. Like in vanilla, you cannot wear or wield silver items as a demon.
Demons have very good maximum stats:
| Character race |
Strength | Dexterity | Constitution | Intelligence | Wisdom | Charisma |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Demon | 18/** | 20 | 20 | 18 or 16 | 18 or 16 | 18 |
The limits on Intelligence and Wisdom are inherited from your former race; thus, former orcs will have a maximum of 16, while former humans will have 18.
Besides their attributes, demons also have higher HP and energy growth than any other race; you may want to polyself into your own race or otherwise re-roll level-up bonuses after crowning.
Orcs and fellow major demons will often be peaceful to demonic Infidels, but the other races are hostile. Unlike demon polyself, you cannot gate other demons by bare-handed combat.
In addition to losing access to silver items, the downsides to this kind of crowning are inability to perform a same-race sacrifice (as all demons are corpseless), and for former orcs, a penalty for cannibalism (which is mostly relevant only if polymorphed). You will also be unable to pray to the lawful and neutral gods (if you wanted to for some reason).
The crowning gift is always a spellbook of fireball, as Moloch doesn't have an associated artifact weapon. If you already knew fireball before crowning, the wielded weapon will also be unrestricted.
It's still possible to get crowned the regular way as an Infidel, by praying while wearing a helm of opposite alignment. Regular crowning and Moloch crowning are mutually exclusive.
Quest
In the Infidel quest you travel to the Howling Forest to duel the Paladin for the Idol of Moloch. The Paladin is intended to be a tough opponent, and you're encouraged to use guile to defeat her. The quest monsters are agents and champions; like ninja, they're unique to Infidel games, but they can also spawn in the main dungeon (if you're an Infidel); due to their lowered difficulty, this can happen fairly early.
Quest artifact
| ( The Idol of Moloch (No tile) | |
|---|---|
| Base item | figurine |
| Affiliation |
|
| When carried |
|
| When applied |
|
| When invoked |
|
| Base price | 4000 zm |
| Weight | 50 |
The quest reward is the Idol of Moloch, an artifact figurine of a horned devil (representing Moloch himself). It will be unaligned to Infidels, but for wishing and bones purposes it's chaotic, giving chaotics a way to obtain slotless magic resistance and half spell damage. In addition to these two properties, Infidels will benefit from improved energy regeneration while carrying it, but only if they're piously unaligned. If their alignment is lower, but still positive, this effect will be proportionately reduced; for Infidels in bad standing with Moloch (or with changed alignment), and for all other roles, the energy regeneration will not be improved at all.
In addition, carrying this item removes the penalties Infidels have when converting altars and praying above Gehennom. Invoking the Idol while standing on an altar instantly converts it to Moloch; invoking or applying it otherwise summons a random major demon, much like an ordinary figurine, except the Idol will not be expended. These two powers respect an invocation timeout.
In Infidel games only, the Idol is nearly indestructible and cannot be put into containers, in the manner of an unique item. If it's still somehow destroyed or lost, the game becomes unwinnable.
Ascension
Infidels have slightly different winning conditions: they cannot ascend by offering the Amulet of Yendor; given that that they start with it, it would make for a very short game otherwise! Instead, they first need to bring the Amulet, along with their quest artifact (the Idol), to the Sanctum's high altar. (For Infidels, many Sanctum monsters, including the high priest, will be peaceful.) There, Moloch will imbue the Idol with most of the Amulet's properties, and afterwards Infidels have an almost ordinary ascension run, but with the Idol instead of the Amulet (and without the mysterious force).
The Astral Plane lacks the guardian angel and the minions of Moloch in Infidel games; all the monsters are hostile. The goal is to invoke the Idol while standing on the correct high altar. Guessing the altar wrong will subject you to the relevant god's wrath, including a wide-angle disintegration beam. It's possible to determine the correct altar in advance.
