Hi crawlers! This week, I’ll write up the latest changes to trunk, plus one fact about world geography.

• Spells that previously operated on spell skill directly have been changed to use spellpower. This affects Death’s Door, Passwall, Sticks to Snakes, Condensation Shield, Ozocubu’s Armour, Stoneskin, Ice Form, and Statue Form.
• Shatter now always affects the full LOS, rather than sometimes affecting a smaller radius at low Earth Magic skill.
• Statue Form no longer gives -10 EV.
• Sublimation of Blood now actually only draws from the caster’s body, rather than using chunks. Really, this time.
• rPois now gives a consistent 66% resistance against poison effects. This includes ‘being poisoned’ (down from 90%), ‘being hit with curare’ (down from 80%), and ‘direct poison damage’ (up from 50%). “Strong poison” (from e.g. redbacks) is now affected by rPois normally, instead of automatically piercing it at half strength. Wasp poison can also now partially pierce rPois, with a chance to cause slowing when it would have otherwise caused paralysis.
• rCorr now gives only 50% resistance against the corrosion status effect, instead of 90%.
• The Mace of Brilliance has become a star – specifically, the +1 Eveningstar “Brilliance”.
• To drive from Tripoli, Libya to Kano, Nigeria, would require traveling roughly the same distance as a trip from Barcelona, Spain to Moscow, Russia.
• Torpor Snail slow now ends as soon as they die or break LOS. Their frequency has been reduced considerably in Lair & Spider (now that they’ve had some good testing), and they’ve been moved in small numbers to a few other places.
• Spriggan air mages no longer cast Haste.

Happy crawling!

Hi crawlers! Another week, another set of crawl changes.

• Draining no longer permanently reduces monsters’ stats (“hit dice”); instead, it now applies a temporary “drained” status, which reduces their hit dice while in effect for most purposes. This means, among other things, that draining attacks will no longer reduce the XP you get for killing monsters even slightly.
• Draining weapons now trigger slightly less often, but will always apply “drained” to monsters when they do. (The old effect only activated for 20% of “draining” hits.)
• A few more ranged weapon tweaks, tidying up after last week. Sling bullet & crossbow damage slightly down; longbow base delay, also slightly down.
• Similarly, deep elf master archers & centaur warriors are now slightly stronger (to adjust for their weapons being weakened), and Joseph is slightly weakened (similarly).
• Various sprites added; ghost crabs, triple crossbows & hand crossbows (the latter being a placeholder). Greatslings sprite still pending, possibly because everyone’s arguing over the name.
• Sprite revamps: in addition to the continuing work on ability & spell icons, there are new sprites for the Hellfire effect (purple, to make it clearer that it’s Not Actually Fire), Shadow Demons, and the demon blade Leech.
• New tiles option: tile_show_player_species, to display the player using the monster tile for their race instead of the normal sprite. (Note that this won’t display any equipment other the weapon & shield you’re using, and not even that for a few races.)
• Dispelling effects (the potion of cancellation, purple draconian/quicksilver dragon breath…) now reduces transformation durations to one turn instead of cancelling them instantly, to reduce instant deaths.
• New Gozag wrath effect: a 1/5 chance of potion drinking to simply fail.
• Donning & doffing armour now always takes 5 turns.
• Grey draconians have lost their former “trample monsters that are in a water tile while standing in deep water after successfully hitting with a tail-slap” ability.

Happy crawling!

Hi crawlers! Things have been pretty quiet until the last few days; lots of behind-the-scenes work, not much exciting to report. That’s happily over now, though, so here’s the latest changes in trunk!

• Big ranged weapon changes! The second half of the Great Ranged-Combat Rebalance:
• Slings have been split into two types: hunting slings, which replace the old basic sling type, and a new rare ‘greatsling’ type. Both have had their damage increased considerably.
• Crossbows have also been split up into multiple weapons. The hand crossbow returns as a starting weapon for crossbow hunters; “crossbows” have been renamed to arbalests, and adjusted to fill a mid/late-game role. There are rumors of a third, rare & powerful crossbow type…
• Bows have had their delay increased somewhat; shortbows now have slightly lower base damage, longbows somewhat higher.
• Various unrands have been adjusted as appropriate. Punk is now a +7 greatsling; Hellfire is now an arbalest; Sniper is a “heavy crossbow”, with a base delay of 27.
• Scrolls of vulnerability have been split in half. Status effect removal has been moved onto a new item type, “potions of cancellation”, which replace potions of paralysis. Scrolls of vulnerability now only have the “halve magic resistance on all visible creatures” effect.
• Mimics are now somewhat more polite; they will no longer mimic doors, statues, fountains, or hatches.
• The hoof mutation no longer gives extra damage or a stealth penalty when covered by boots.
• Ashenzari now considers Felids fully bound when all three jewellery slots are cursed.
• Undead monsters will now fall to pieces in deep water, instead of hiding invisibly.
• Big fish, sharks, and lava worms have swum off to the great aquarium in the sky.
• Potions of strong poison have taken the poison pill; they are no more.
• Flying creatures no longer have a 2/3 chance to dodge throwing nets.
• Brown (contaminated) chunks are gone, replaced with normal chunks.
• Qazlal no longer provides a permanent resistance gift at 6* piety.
• Pigs now have trotters.

Happy crawling!