Posts from ·Grunt·

Trunk updates, 13 December 2015

Hi Crawlers! Here are the latest and greatest goodies from trunk.

  • The Orcish Mines are now two levels, and only spawn plain orcs as part of bands; gold generation is doubled to account for the shorter branch.
  • The Elven Halls now contains elementals and dancing weapons (in addition to the ones normally found in the Hall of Blades).
  • All enemies, including uniques, now have (at least slightly) randomised HP.
  • You can no longer gain breath abilities as mutations; only draconians and nagas have access to them.
  • Xom’s random spell set has been adjusted slightly.
  • The penalties for amulets of dismissal and regeneration have been adjusted:
    • Wearing an amulet of dismissal subjects the player to vertigo for a few turns, reducing accuracy, EV, and spell success.
    • The amulet of regeneration no longer rots on removal; instead you need to be at full health at least once while wearing it for it to have an effect.
  • The amulet of stasis has been replaced by the amulet of reflection, which grants a few points of SH that act as a shield of reflection. The Brooch of Shielding is now a +8 amulet of reflection.
  • Chaos champions lose Chaotic Mirror and instead gain Call of Chaos, an ability which applies (usually) positive status effects to allies in its line of sight. Mnoleg also gains this spell.
  • Deep elf mages are now HD 9 and absorb the spells from the deep elf conjurer and summoner into some of their own spell sets.
  • New enemies:
    • Deep elf archers, who have attained a notable level of skill in both archery and hexes.
    • Deep elf elementalists, with mastery of all of the elemental schools and the noted ability to turn rock into earth elementals to dig out entrenched foes.
  • Deep elf fighters, conjurers, priests (but not high priests), and summoners have all been removed.

Happy Crawling!

Trunk Updates, 4 December 2015

Hi crawlers! With the close of the tournament, let’s find out what has changed in trunk since 0.17.

  • Gods
    • New god: Pakellas the Inventive. Pakellas is a temple god, with an altar either in Temple or on D:2-9.
      • Grants MP on kills (at about half the rate of Vehumet) and passive wand charge identification.
      • Blocks MP regeneration and hates channeling (staff of energy, crystal ball of energy, the Staff of Wucad Mu, and Sublimation of Blood).
      • Piety on kills.
      • 1*: Quick Charge: spend 2/3 your current MP pool to add some charges to a wand or rod proportional to your Evocations, your current MP pool, and the capacity of the device.
      • At 2*, Pakellas gifts you a wand once (of any type other than heal wounds, hasting, and teleportation).
      • 3*: Device Surge: on your next use of an evocable item, spends 1-9 MP to apply one to three enhancers to its power output, with maximum MP and number of enhancers dependent on piety.
      • Starting at 4*, Pakellas occasionally gifts rods, wands, and miscellaneous evokables (always starting with a rod unless you are a felid).
      • 6*capstone: Supercharge: sets a rod to +10 (18/18), or sets a wand’s capacity to 50% above normal for that wand type (in addition to recharging it – this has the effect of improving Quick Charge’s efficiency on the wand).
    • Xom now chaos brands more weapon gifts, and can chaos brand ranged weapons again.
    • Finesse is no longer blocked by stasis.
    • Jiyva altars in Dungeon no longer appear as early in Dungeon.
    • Cheibriados now blocks chaos effects from hasting the player.
    • Piety given for a Ru sacrifice is more explicitly stated.
    • Abandoning Yredelemnul now destroys your zombie minions.
    • Followers of Elyvilon can pacify insects (again).
    • Zin’s Recite is now only interrupted if the player is silenced or incapacitated (or goes berserk).
  • Branches, Environment
    • The enemies in the Elven Halls ending vault are now less likely to be lured out of the vault.
    • Ziggurat portals no longer appear in Pan.
  • Character
    • A new mutation: Sturdy Frame, reducing base ER by 2/4/6 and thus making heavy armour easier to wear. Can be a demonspawn mutation.
    • The player no longer takes an accuracy penalty for fighting while invisible but without SInv (also true of monsters).
    • Formicids now have 0 Throwing aptitude (was -2).
    • Taking a known shaft now has a 2/3 chance of shafting one floor and 1/3 of two floors.
  • Items
    • New items:
      • The amulet of dismissal, which has a chance of teleporting away enemies that attack you in melee combat, and contaminates the player when it is removed.
      • The +8 frozen axe “Frostbite” {freezing cloud, *Noise +Fly rC+}, an executioner’s axe with a chance of placing freezing clouds on enemies it strikes.
      • The +12 armour of Talos {ponderous, rF+}, a troll/ogre-sized suit of plate mail.
      • A figurine of a ziggurat – evoke to create a ziggurat portal. Appears on Zig:27 of all ziggurats and in the Tomb:3 loot.
      • Pieces from Xom’s chessboard – evoke to randomly swap the positions of you and all enemies and LOS, or (on failure) to trigger a Xom effect.
    • The robe of vines is now +2, Regen+7.
    • The Majin-Bo now speaks occasionally.
    • The amulet of Cekugob is now an amulet of dismissal.
    • Removing an amulet of regeneration now causes 2-7 hp of rot.
    • A new property can now generate on random artefacts: Fragile, which destroys the item when it is removed.
    • Amulets of faith now grant a 25% bonus to piety, not a 33% bonus.
    • Removed items:
      • Amulets of resist mutation and warding.
  • Monsters
    • New monsters:
      • Spark wasps, lethally electric swarming insects that appear singularly in Spider and in packs in Depths.
      • Iron giants, with all the resilience that iron implies and the ability to throw you into the pack of giants they lead.
      • Doom hounds, lurking in Tartarus who can howl to summon a pack of their brethren.
    • Mnoleg gains Random Bolt and Dig.
    • Gloorx Vloq gains Summon Executioners and Black Mark.
    • Juggernauts now have two less damaging attacks instead of one powerful attack.
    • Jellies and death oozes cannot be blinded.
    • Jumping spiders and mana vipers can be blinded.
    • Jumping spiders cannot see invisible.
    • Giant eyeballs and golden eyes can now see invisible.
    • Salamander stormcallers’ chant does not need to be continuous; they now only need to try to cast Fire Storm at their target three times for it to trigger.
    • Entropy weavers’ corrosion is now instant and smite-targeted, but only applies one level of corrosion.
    • Ice devils are now tier 4 demons, with lowered HD to match.
    • Hellwings now have the swoop attack formerly possessed by blue devils.
    • Orange demons have their attacks split – they now have a reaching poison sting and a melee-only weakness attack.
    • Salamander mystics lose Localised Ignite Poison.
    • Natasha, deep elf knights, and salamander stormcallers can no longer cast Conjure Flame.
    • Spectral mist can no longer summon completely random spectral enemies.
    • Banishment from powerful monsters can now send you deeper into the Abyss than Abyss:1.
    • Removed monsters:
      • Octopode crushers.
      • (Plain) spiders.
      • Salamander firebrands.
      • Blue devils.
      • Brain worms.
  • Spells
    • New spell: Yara’s Violent Unravelling (L5 Hexes/Transumations). Dispels all cancellable effects on the target and, if any were dispelled, causes a damaging explosion of mutagenic energy around the victim.
    • Hydra Form now has a fixed number of heads.
  • Interface
    • Earth elementalists now have their stones start on b.
    • Characters starting with a primary ranged weapon now have their melee weapon on b by default.
    • An option is added to the butchering prompt to allow butchering only (e)dible corpses.
    • Auto-eat now triggers for ghouls if they are rotted.
    • The religion screen now shows all god powers, with currently accessible powers (per level of piety) being highlighted.

Time to start the experiments… happy crawling!

0.15.2 bugfix release

Hi crawlers:

We bring to you another bugfix release, featuring the following:

  • Assorted crash fixes, bug fixes, and display cleanups.
  • Always weight formicid weapon acquirement towards two-handed weapons.
  • Allow in-game updates to the mon_glyph option to change the glyph.
  • Allow the option syntax of mon_glyph = : in order to set the color/glyph of one monster using the base values of another monster.
  • In tiles, the tile_player_tile option allows you to specify an arbitrary monster tile to display for your character. The options tile_weapon_offsets and tile_shield_offsets can be used to adjust the player weapon and shield location when using these custom tiles.
  • For use with tile_player_tile: the old orb guardian tile, a new monster vampire tile, and weapon/shield offsets for various monster tiles.

Builds for most platforms are now available over at the downloads page.

Happy Crawling!

0.15.1 bugfix release

Hi crawlers:

With the tournament now over comes another long-standing Crawl tradition – the release afterwards containing all of the bugs found and fixed during the tournament, 0.15.1:

  • Assorted crash fixes.
  • Monsters don’t benefit from player throwing skill.
  • Monsters no longer flee at random on re-entering a level after a short time.
  • Several messages correctly no longer appear for out-of-sight monster actions.
  • Dithmenos’ stealth bonus works properly again.
  • Several spell icons that missed the initial 0.15 release.

Builds for most platforms are now available over at the downloads page.

Happy Crawling!

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Crawl 0.15: “Storm Over Zot”

We are proud to announce the release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.15: “Storm Over Zot”! 0.15 features a new deity and many, many tweaks to and streamlining of the general flow of gameplay.

Download DCSS 0.15 here, or play it online on one of many servers across the world!

The release tournament will begin at 20:00 UTC on Friday 29 August, with all online 0.15 games counting towards your score. See the tournament website for more details, including how to set up or join a clan.

0.15′s highlights include:

  • Characters: Characters are now unencumbered by carrying-weight limits.
  • Combat: The system of ranged combat has been fundamentally redesigned: it now behaves more like melee combat in terms of accuracy and damage, and is generally more consistent.
  • Gods: Qazlal Stormbringer makes a thunderous debut, bringing elemental destruction to those unfortunate enough to cross paths with worshippers. Nemelex Xobeh’s decks have been shuffled considerably and are granted on exploration rather than through sacrifice of items.
  • Items: Items are no longer subject to destruction through fire or cold, and equipment corrosion is more severe but temporary.

For a list of other major changes, see the changelog. Many thanks to all those who have contributed to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. We hope you enjoy playing 0.15!

Update 2014-08-30: OS X builds are now avaialable from the downloads page neil

Trunk updates, 23 May 2014

Hi crawlers! Here’s your roughly weekly dose of trunk update news:

  • The special diets of centaurs (fast metabolism 1, herbivorous 1) and halflings (slow metabolism 1) have been removed.
  • Vampires always get the full effect of all potions, can always mutate, and always get the full effect of all mutations.
  • Corrosion affects all of your equipment, but only temporarily.
  • Purple (very) ugly things deal extra damage in lieu of a sickness attack.
  • Sustain abilities effects no longer stack.
  • Scrolls of brand weapon can roll any brand on an unbranded weapon.
  • Ambrosia and royal jellies have been removed; honeycombs have been renamed to royal jellies.
  • The Mercenary card generates base demonspawn instead of spriggan riders.
  • Sif Muna wrath can no longer cause amnesia.
  • Gods that give missile gifts can do so sooner, i.e. there is no skill-related breakpoint associated with it.

Happy crawling!

Trunk updates, 14 May 2014

Hi crawlers! Here’s what’s new in trunk:

  • The Lava Orc species has been removed.
  • Player clinging (seen only in Spider Form and with the boots of the Spider) is no more.
  • Kobolds, hill orcs, and ogres are no longer saprovorous.
  • Ogres no longer have a fast metabolism.
  • Silver statues and orange crystal statues are immune to disintegration, but have less health and AC and have their abilities converted to spells such that they spam less; this implies OCS confusion can be resisted.
  • Bog bodies no longer randomly rot.
  • Removed monsters: shedu, plague shamblers.
  • New unrand: the +8 orange crystal plate armour {Archmagi, Int+3 Clar SustAb}
  • Potions of blood cure a point of ghoul rotting.
  • Removed unrands: the boots of the Spider.
  • Decks of wonders now contain Dowsing, Battlelust, Helm, and Shadow instead of Experience, Helix, Sage, and Trowel.
  • Decks of dungeon are no more.
  • The Potion card has a new list of effects: power 0 is decay/curing/agility/ might/brilliance; 1 has a chance of resistance/haste; 2 has a chance of magic/heal wounds.
  • Removed cards: Experience, Sage, Water, Vitrification, Trowel, Minefield, and Shuffle.
  • Zin’s Recite no longer prompts for a book, instead affecting all monsters in sight with the strongest effects that would impact them.

Happy crawling!

Interim Win32 trunk builds

Hi crawlers! While we figure out how to get our server’s trunk build system up and running again, I’m going to provide occasional trunk builds for those clamouring for them.

Enjoy!

EDIT: We’ve reached a solution to get our trunk build system ready to serve builds again.

EDIT: Greatzebu’s OSX build bot died but he managed to get an OSX Tiles build up, too!

Trunk updates, 7 May 2014

Hi crawlers! Here’s the latest and greatest from trunk:

  • The gods branch has landed, bringing two new gods: Gozag Ym Sagoz the Greedy and Qazlal Stormbringer. Both are temple gods with an altar either in Temple or on D:2-9.
    • Gozag
      • Charges a service fee for joining, dependent on the amount of gold that has been generated in the game.
      • Does not have piety.
      • Defeated enemies turn to gold; these gold piles distract nearby creatures, causing them to sometimes not act.
      • Potion Petition: purchase one set of potion effects.
      • Call Merchant: fund a merchant to set up shop somewhere near to areas of the dungeon you have explored.
      • Bribe Branch: send money to the inhabitants of a branch to turn them + temporarily neutral or incite them to join you.
      • Duplication: one non-artefact item can be duplicated at an altar.
    • Qazlal
      • Piety on kills.
      • All followers are immune from their own clouds.
      • 1*: Storm Shield: you passively generate elemental clouds around you and gain bonus SH, and gain RMsl at 3*; you also generate a lot of noise.
      • 2*: Upheaval: blast a small nearby area with elemental forces.
      • 3*: Elemental Force: turn nearby clouds into elementals.
      • 4*: Elemental Adaptation: taking elemental or physical damage sometimes temporarily grants you resistance against that element.
      • 5*: Disaster Area: blast the entire area around you with elemental forces.
      • 6*: at an altar, gain a permanent elemental resistance of your choice for as long as you worship Qazlal.
  • The Abyss no longer sometimes blocks blinking.
  • Wanderers have tweaked starting kits with generally better items.
  • Teleportitis cannot be controlled.
  • Manticores have an unlimited number of spike volleys.
  • Base draconians can become nonbase draconians with experience.
  • Undead and nonliving enemies regenerate as fast as other enemies.
  • Ghouls and necrophages can no longer equip weapons or armour.
  • Monster melee attacks can no longer destroy items.
  • Death Channel lasts twice as long.
  • The blowgun of the Assassin returns; it has a chance to affect the target more than normal blowguns.
  • Gloves of archery no longer penalise melee.
  • (Plain) bows have been renamed to shortbows.
  • Identify scrolls now always identify a single item.
  • Monsters with special attack flavours have this noted in their descriptions.
  • Summon Elemental has been removed.
  • Spriggan enchanters (the monster) and phoenixes have been removed.

Happy crawling!

Trunk updates, 3 May 2014

Hi crawlers! Here’s what’s new in trunk:

  • The ranged_combat branch has landed – it is a rewrite of the ranged combat system to be based on many of the same formulas as melee attacks, so the effect of AC/EV on ranged attacks is more predictable, weapon delay is more predictable, and even Throwing should be a viable option compared to the other ranged weapons.
  • Jewellery automatically identifies on equipping it.
  • Cleaving hits the full eight squares around a player.
  • Rebranding a distortion weapon no longer causes a distortion effect.
  • Scrolls of brand weapon can no longer affix brands; they keep their effect of rerolling a weapon brand.
  • Blessed weapons can be rebranded.
  • Amulets of inaccuracy are always cursed.
  • New rings of stealth and loudness, which positively/negatively adjust a player’s stealth; these take the place of rings of sustenance and hunger.
  • Followers of good gods no longer get a chance to turn holy enemies neutral.
  • The Book of War Chants is no more.
  • Removed spells: Fire Brand, Freezing Aura, Lethal Infusion, Poison Weapon.
  • Removed enemies: silver stars, flaming corpses, grizzly bears.

A brief reminder that the gods experimental branch is still available for testing on cszo and cbro; if you want to help get our newest potential additions to the pantheon into the game, be sure to help us try them out!

Happy crawling!

0.14.1 bugfix release

Hi crawlers:

With the tournament over, here is a new minor release fixing the known bugs that cropped up during the tournament – 0.14.1:

  • Several crash fixes.
  • Fire dragons correctly grant bonus Dithmenos piety.
  • Ranged attacks from invisibile monsters correctly turn off autopickup.
  • Good gods punish the player properly for negative energy clouds.
  • Natasha no longer revives after being pacified, and does not get a new item when reviving.
  • When playing a race with permanent flight ability, it is now possible to remove an item granting flight over dangerous terrain.
  • Wanderers do not occasionally get more MP than other backgrounds.

Builds for most platforms are now available over at the downloads page.

Happy Crawling!

Trunk updates, 27 April 2014

Hi crawlers! With the end of the tournament, trunk development is gearing up again. Here are some of the changes that have already been made:

  • A large number of enemy glyphs (for console players) have been changed; see Mantis #8242 for more details.
  • Crypt has been reduced to three levels (was five); the entrance to Tomb is always on Crypt:3.
  • Some areas of the Tomb layout can now vary.
  • Formicids can no longer throw large rocks.
  • Tengu gain their permanent flight ability at XL14 (was 15).
  • Changes/improvements to forms: all non-undead forms can eat and drink normally; all forms can butcher; wisp form can read scrolls and cannot blink innately.
  • Enemies are more intelligent about using some attack spells such as Symbol of Torment and Chain Lightning when the player is not in LOS.
  • Manticores can now move as fast as the player.
  • Komodo dragons bite harder but can no longer sicken the player.
  • Deep dwarf death knights are now (human) death knights.
  • Removed enemies: vapours, thorn lotuses, giant goldfish, silver stars.
  • Dazzling Spray replaces Invisibility in the book of Maledictions (the Enchanter starting spellbook); Invisibility in turn replaces Apportation in the book of Burglary. (Note that each of these spells is still available in at least one other spellbook.)
  • When the player casts Ozocubu’s Refrigeration, they are now prevented from using potions for several turns instead of having their potions destroyed.
  • Damage from the electrocution brand has been reduced slightly.
  • There are status lights for might, agility, and brilliance.
  • Followers of good gods no longer get a chance to pacify holy enemies.
  • The low-level weapon branding skills and the book of War Chants have been removed.
  • Scrolls of brand weapon can no longer be used to affix brands, and do not trigger a distortion effect on rebranding a distortion weapon.

In addition, crawl.beRotato.org has some experimental branches available for testing: “ranged_combat”, containing a mostly-complete rewrite of the system of ranged combat (bows, crossbows, etc.), and “gods”, featuring two new deities – Gozag Ym Sagoz the Greedy and Qazlal Stormbringer. These branches should also be available on crawl.s-z.org shortly.

Happy crawling!

Crawl 0.14: “The Shadowy Depths of Madness”

We are proud to announce the release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.14: “The Shadowy Depths of Madness” is released! 0.14 features two new races, a new god, a new branch, many new spells, enemies and items, and a wealth of other changes.

Download DCSS 0.14 here, or play it online on one of many servers across the world!

The release tournament will begin at 20:00 UTC on Friday 11 April, with all online 0.14 games counting towards your score. See the tournament website for more details, including how to set up or join a clan.

0.14′s highlights include:

  • Characters: Two new races: Formicids, an insectoid species with permanent stasis and an affinity for digging, and Vine Stalkers, a parasitic plant on a human host – very fragile, but possessing great regenerative ability, permanent guardian spirit, and a powerful magic-draining bite. Recommended backgrounds and species have been adjusted; in particular, backgrounds can recommend species that don’t necessarily recommend that background and vice versa (e.g. Chaos Knight -> Troll may be recommended whereas Troll -> Chaos Knight is not). Fighters and Gladiators start with better weapons. Poison damage is now deterministic.
  • Places: The lower half of the dungeon has been transformed into a new branch, the Depths; five levels long and containing the entrance to the Realm of Zot. The Vaults require a rune to enter. Ziggurats now require three runes to enter in lieu of an entry fee.
  • Monsters: A great deal of new enemies appear, primarily in the Lair sub-branches – from new specialist nagas to plants with vicious volleys of thorns to demonspawn with a variety of sets of mutations and jobs. Three new uniques make their debut: Natasha, the lost felid familiar of a powerful wizard; Asterion, a powerful minotaur king; and Vashnia, leader of an elite squad of naga sharpshooters. Adjustments have been made to many other enemies.
  • Gods: Dithmenos the Shadowed makes a debut, granting followers an aura of shadows and many abilities related thereto. Divine wrath is now contingent on gaining experience; it can no longer be “waited out”. Zin and Okawaru no longer care about the deaths of allies.
  • Spells: A great deal of spells have been added to the Summoning school, allowing the creation of minions from lightning spires to harpies and sphinxes to your very own spell-casting construct. Glaciate, a level 9 Conjurations/Ice spell, makes its debut as a replacement for Ice Storm; it creates a powerful cone-shaped icy blast that can freeze enemies solid.
  • Items: Several new rods have been introduced, from the rod of clouds with its ability to call forth strange and powerful cloud effects at high power to the rod of ignition with great explosive power. Many new pre-defined artefacts are available, and several have received tweaks and modernisation. All scrolls now identify on read.

For a list of other major changes, see the changelog. Many thanks to all those who have contributed to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. We hope you enjoy playing 0.14!

(Update 2014-04-10 16:20 UTC: OS X binaries of 0.14.0 are now available from the downloads page. Many thanks to frogor! -neil)

(Update 2014-04-24 20:36 UTC: Debian/Ubuntu packages in 0.14 are now available! See the downloads page for more info. ~Grunt)

0.13.2 bugfix release

Hi crawlers!

In anticipation of the imminent release of 0.14, we’re happy to announce the final 0.13 release, 0.13.2. Get the source code and Windows builds over at the Downloads page.

Check back in a week or so for the final 0.14 release!

A sneak peek at future development

Hi crawlers!

For a limited time, we’re offering an insight into the future of Crawl development. To see the latest and greatest the devteam has to over, check out trunk on http://crawl.s-z.org/ .

Happy crawling!

Crawl 0.14 beta and tournament schedule

Hi crawlers!

Crawl 0.14 has entered the beta phase; it is now playable on CSZO and CAO, and should be available on other servers soon. Local beta binaries should also be available in the immediate future.

The release will most likely occur a day or two before the tournament’s start date on Friday 11 April 2014 at 20:00 UTC. The tournament will run until Sunday 27 April 2014 at 20:00 UTC.

See also the 0.14 changelog and the tournament rules.

Trunk updates, 22 March 2014

Hi crawlers – here are some more changes as we wind down 0.14 development:

  • MR-granting items now grant fixed increments of magic resistance (see the % screen – there are numbers involved behind the scenes but those exact values aren’t important).
  • Orbs of destruction don’t explode if they collide with another orb of destruction before travelling more than a short distance (so feel free to abuse those high powered decks of destruction).
  • The colours of the species/background menu selector have been changed again.
  • The amount of poisoning dealt by poisonous monster attacks has been adjusted slightly (less for early game enemies, more for late game enemies).
  • Josephine has a new spell set (and rN+++).
  • Formicid self-shafting is no longer noisy.
  • All tiered demon enemies can now open doors.

Look forward to news about the release of 0.14 soon, and happy crawling!

Trunk updates, 16 March 2014

Hi crawlers – here’s another round of last minute tune-ups to 0.14:

  • Formicids can no longer wield giant (spiked) clubs and have slightly adjusted aptitudes.
  • Throwing nets no longer degrade; instead they mulch similar to other projectiles.
  • Fighters start with a potion of might.
  • Swinging a chaos weapon no longer polymorphs or shafts the attacker.
  • The shopping interface has been simplified.
  • Spells can be memorised even at 100% failure rate.
  • Picking up runes in Pandemonium increases the chances of exits being generated.

Here’s to a 0.14 release in the near future – and happy crawling!

Trunk updates, 11 March 2014

Hi crawlers! Here’s what I’m hoping will be the last major round of changes before 0.14 gets prepared for release:

  • All panlords now see invisible.
  • Player merfolk can now be mesmerised by mermaids and sirens.
  • Plain formicids no longer generate as enemies.
  • Formicid venom mages lose Stone Arrow and gain Localized Ignite Poison.
  • Artificers and Wanderers do not start with knowledge of scrolls/potions they don’t actually possess.
  • Chaos champions lose Rearrange the Pieces and gain Random Bolt (per the rod of destruction).
  • Spriggan enemies in general now merely have fast movement speed instead of fast speed in general, more damage and less EV.
  • The movement behaviour of sirens has been adjusted to make them less likely to be completely out of reach of the player.
  • Spriggan air mages have Haste (replacing Shock).
  • Spriggan druids’ Druid’s Call now calls 2-3 creatures out of LOS nearby and does not invisibly might creatures; instead, nearby creatures are healed and frenzied on their death. Stone Arrow also replaces Sunray in their spell set.
  • Shock serpents no longer have a lightning torrent attack.
  • Boggarts are more durable.
  • Rakshasas gain a monster spell “Phantom Mirror”, which summons a clone of a nearby allied monster with half the hit points with a 50% chance of swapping the clone for the original; this replaces their previous self-cloning abilities. Rakshasas can now also cast Iskenderun’s Mystic Blast and will summon two clones of themselves at 50% HP as a one-time effect.
  • Giant orange brains now have Mass Confusion instead of Confuse.
  • The main Dungeon is now 15 levels, and the Depths five; the entrance to Vaults is now on D:13-14.
  • The duration of Sentinel’s Mark has been reduced by 25%.
  • The Enchantress now appears as a normal unique in Depths.

Look forward to more news about the 0.14 release soon, and happy crawling!

Trunk updates, 6 March 2014

Hey crawlers – since a pretty significant number of changes have just landed, here’s an update sooner than usual!

  • The ring of Shadows now has a small umbra in lieu of EV+4 and AC-4.
  • Racial armour has been removed (thus there is no racial equipment left).
  • Nemelex’s deck gifts are now independent of sacrifice type.
  • New summoning spells:
    • Summon Mana Viper (L5 Summoning/Hexes); it appears in the Book of Beasts.
    • Monstrous Menagerie (L6 Summoning), which summons a manticore, some harpies, a lindwurm, or a sphinx (at high spellpower); it appears in the book of Beasts and the book of Summonings (replacing Summon Ugly Thing).
    • Forceful Dismissal (L6 Summoning), which ends all player summons and damages enemies next to them; it appears in the Grand Grimoire.
    • Aura of Abjuration (L6 Summoning), a less powerful but per-turn mass abjuration effect; it replaces Mass Abjuration in the Grand Grimoire.
    • Spellforged Servitor (L7 Conjuration/Summoning), which summons a servitor with a subset of the player’s most destructive conjurations; it replaces Fireball in the book of Wizardry.
    • Dragon’s Call (L9 Summoning), which for its duration of effect summons dragons near targets at the end of LOS (at the full spell cost per summon); replaces Summon Dragon in the Book of the Dragon.
  • Removed spells: Summon Ugly Thing, Demonic Horde, Mass Abjuration, Summon Dragon.
  • Poison damage is now deterministic.
  • Fighters and Gladiators now start with better weapons.

Most of these changes are now live on the servers, so happy crawling!