Hi, crawlers! Here’s the latest changes from trunk:
- Beogh no longer gives piety for sacrificing dead orcs’ bodies. Instead, they can be brought back from the dead with a new 6* ability, Resurrection. Hostile orcs will be converted by the experience. Saint Roka may be tough to persuade to your side, but he’s considerably less so once he’s dead…
- Also, orcs will no longer drop items that you’ve gifted them, even if they preferred whatever weapon/armour they had before.
- Monster changes:
- New monster: Dart Slug, a slow D:1 monster with a ranged attack. It probably won’t kill you, but it’ll be very funny if it does.
- New monster: Howler Monkey, an early D monster that’s fairly weak, but makes a heck of a lot of noise. On later levels, they spawn in packs.
- New monster: Rime Drake, replacing fire drakes. Very similar, but instead of fire, they breathe Flash Freeze, a single-target cold-damage spell that slows victims’ movements for a few turns after they’re hit.
- Flash Freeze can sometimes miss, though if Antaeus is casting it, it probably won’t.
- Pandemonium lord generation has been considerably reworked, hopefully resulting in more distinctive foes.
- Nymphs will flood any type of adjacent walkable terrain, including shops and stairs. They’re also significantly more fragile.
- Shock serpents’ discharge now only strikes whatever hit it, rather than all enemies (but not any of the serpent’s allies!) in a wide area.
- Deep Elf High Priests and Sorcerers no longer cast Summon Demon.
- New command: “?#” lets you browse your character dump in-game.
- Qazlal’s wrath can now summon a range of elemental-themed creatures, rather than just elementals of subtly-varying HD.
- Gozag no longer demands any service fee in sprint, rather than demanding a significant fraction of all gold on the entire map to join.
- Covering a ziggurat in gold with Gozag no longer causes enemies to be completely paralyzed.
- “Megazigs” (ziggurats entered after fully clearing previous ziggurat(s)) are now considerably nastier, and should give a bit more of a challenge to players & characters who are capable of fully clearing multiple ziggurats.
- Ziggurats no longer all have the same layout in a given game.
- The rMut artefact property now works the same as the mutation: a 2/3rd chance of preventing mutations, down from 9/10.
- Mass Confusion is no longer a player-castable spell.
- Passwall’s range is now fixed for a given spellpower (& displayed on the spell screen), rather than being random per-cast.
- Needles of slowing have been removed.
- Blowguns no longer have extra power when ‘stabbing’ unaware targets.
- Monsters can no longer pick up items from stacks you’ve seen, even if you haven’t seen the specific items that they’re trying to pick up.
- However, Maurice can now pick things up from the floor. Even things you’ve seen! Is he cheating…?
- It’s no longer possible to evolve a permanently petrified plant into a permanently petrified oklob.
- Spectral shapeshifters can now once again turn into something other than spectral ghost crabs.
- Vampires can no longer drink ghosts’ blood.
- Bribed demons can no longer escape Hell.
- Dumb monsters can no longer shout.
- Dead monsters can no longer shout.
Thanks to chequers for helping to compile this post.
Happy crawling!
1. Comment by Frank
7/Mar/2016 at 18:14
“Dead monsters can no longer shout.”
Wait, does this mean they COULD before?
2. Comment by PleasingFungus
7/Mar/2016 at 18:19
Sometimes!
3. Comment by Hindered
7/Mar/2016 at 21:16
Thanks!
4. Comment by Pakars
8/Mar/2016 at 10:54
I was playing on the most recent trunk version on CAO, and I’d like to point out that the newest update of dcss-git appears to have made dancing weapons have no image on webtiles. Just lost a MuWz because I didn’t realize that there was a morningstar of holy wrath right next to me.
5. Comment by PleasingFungus
8/Mar/2016 at 18:01
That’s this bug, which is already fixed for your next character. Sorry about that!
6. Comment by Spidey
9/Mar/2016 at 06:35
Tukima’s Dance is also causing a Crash To Desktop.
7. Comment by PleasingFungus
9/Mar/2016 at 07:43
That’s probably caused by the same thing. The latest build should have fixed this problem – if it doesn’t, please let us know!
8. Comment by Anonymous
10/Mar/2016 at 05:36
> The rMut artefact property now works the same as the mutation: a 2/3rd chance of preventing mutations, down from 9/10.
What’s the underlying reason/theme for the various changes recently to reduce the effectiveness of mutation resistance?
9. Comment by PleasingFungus
10/Mar/2016 at 05:51
There’s some reasoning in the respective commits: rMut amulet removal, artefact rMut simplication.
10. Comment by toastedzergling
12/Mar/2016 at 01:41
Is there any clarity on when .18 will be officially stamped?