You rampage towards the trunk updates!

Hello crawlers, and welcome to the last trunk updates post of July 2020.

The past month saw some giant changes to crawl; in the past week things have slowed down a little bit, and some of the devteam’s focus has shifted to interface and polish while the dust settles. For our visually impaired players, this means some new accessibility improvements:

• A new boot ego: rampaging comes to us from Implojin. Boots of rampaging cause the wearer to take an extra step whenever they move in the direction of a foe (whether they want to or not!).
• Thanks to rjcrjc, Kobolds now have the Nightstalker 3 mutation from the start, while Demonspawn no longer have the Nightstalker facet as an available mutation.

• Artificers no longer start with a spectral club; farewell to the brief experiment.
• Item stacks are now fully visible from anywhere in LOS, and no longer require visiting.
• The Cloud Mage has learned to fly.
• Beastly Appendage now merges only helmets and boots, not the full set of aux armour.
• Formicids can no longer use Wu Jian martial moves while digging (sorry twelwe).

You start singing a song of trunk updates…

Hello Crawlers, and welcome to a charming round of trunk updates fresh from the ever churning chaos of the changelog abyss!

The big news this update is that the long awaited Charms overhaul has arrived. For many years the devteam has tossed around different ideas for what to do with charms, and the school had become quite thin and unfocussed because of a fundamental tension: pure buff spells don’t fit well with crawl’s MP and tactical systems. Some forks experimented with various “permabuff” systems that reserved max-MP, but to us these felt more like items. The result of all this is that the Charms school and skill are no more. The remaining spells in the school have either moved to other schools of magic or to item effects. Without any charms to cast, Skalds have sung their last and are removed. Here are the spell changes:

• Ozocubu’s Armour is now Ice only.
• Swiftness is now Air only.
• Death’s Door is now Necromancy only and Level 9.
• Excruciating Wounds is now Necromancy only, prevents unwielding your weapon for the duration, and applies a Wizardry penalty as well as noise.
• Battlesphere is now Conjurations only and its targeting has been adjusted to work with all Conjurations school spells other than Servitor.
• Song of Slaying is now Transmutations and renamed Wereblood; the noise is reduced somewhat.
• Infusion, Shroud of Golubria, Spectral Weapon, Darkness, and Ring of Flames are removed.

Then there are the new or revised items that take up some of the old charm effects:

• Gozag no longer offers flight potions in petition and occasionally offers lignification.
• Viewing a monster with xv now shows to-hit chance with your current weapon.
• The “view stack/pickup key” ; can be pressed twice to force autopickup even in unsafe situations.
• Beastly Appendage now melds auxilliary armour slots, weapons, and shields, and gives two levels of both Horns and Talons (octopodes keep their tentacle spike) instead of randomly choosing.
• Alistair’s Intoxication prompts when nothing in view can be affected, always applies Vertigo when successful, and has a higher power cap.
• Sticks to Snakes is removed.
• Palentonga charge now provides a to-hit bonus as well as the damage bonus.

That’s all for now. Still on the horizon is a look at Kobolds; for a preview look out for the kobold-nightstalker experimental on CPO and possibly coming soon to CKO. Beyond that who knows what might emerge from the seething chaos! Until next time, happy crawling!

As the wereblood boils in your veins your song becomes a howl!!! 

The trunk updates roll forward with a clatter of scales!

Hello crawlers, and welcome to the first trunk update of the 0.26 cycle. There’s been a flurry of activity in trunk since the end of the tournament, and I’m excited to bring you the latest from Geh:7. Before diving into the details, I want to highlight two major changes that arrived just as this post was going to press, as well as something that’s unfolded over the past week.

The first is a new species: Palentonga. Palentongas are a two-armed, four-legged, scaled mammal species the size of a horse. Their special power is the ability to curl into a ball and launch a rolling charge at enemies, dealing extra damage proportionate to the distance traveled. Palentongas have flat melee apts, slightly weak spell apts and fairly weak ranged apts. They have +3 base AC and extra HP, along with an aux attack – an upgraded tail slap. They wear bardings (which have been merged into a single item type, shared with nagas). Stats skew towards strength and away from dex, to give the ‘large race’ feeling. Palentonga have deformed body and bad armour/dodging apts. In the Lore, Palentonga are an up-and-coming power, displacing the orcs, trolls, and ogres of the eastern wastes. Their generals ride elephants into battle, goading them forward with spiked ankuses.

The second is a new background: Delver. Shaft traps are fun. What if you had a background that started shafted all the way to D:5, and needed to find their way back up to survive? To make it fair, you start with a nice set of consumables: a wand of digging, scrolls of mapping, fear, and fog, and a potion of haste.

Finally, several aspects of the game have been touched with the long-hungered for removal of food and hunger mechanics. That’s right, no more eating, no more butchering, no more spell or ability hunger, and no more rations.

What happened to Ghouls with the removal of chunks? Well, read on gentle crawler, read on…

• Crimson Imps no longer spawn in D, and Shadow Imps less often (not at all after D:10); in their place White Imps and Ufetubi chase adventurers.
• Shadows and Wights no longer spawn in Crypt; replaced with flying skulls, necromancers, and wraiths.
• Spider is now ambiently quiet, apart from the unsettling clatter of chitin.
• Evocations skill no longer grants max MP.
• Banishment (from Lugonu or distortion) grants full XP.
• Wizards have been renamed Hedge Wizards; they now start with a dagger and 2/6/4 stat modifiers.
• Conjurers start with -1/10/3 stat modifiers that Wizards used to have.
• Assassins have been renamed Brigands.
• Ghouls, no longer able to eat chunks, now heal when they kill the living.
• Centaurs have galloped out of the game and are removed.
• Deep Elves‘ bow aptitude is increased to +3 for all you longbow enthusiasts.
• Nemelex has removed the shaft card from their decks, and the self-banishment chance from the exile card.
• Amulets are now slow to equip; guardian spirit, acrobat, and reflection no longer need to attune to the wearer.
• Pikel’s minions are now lemures, demons that depart this plane if you free them from Pikel.
• Spiny Frogs have been renamed Cane Toads for the authentic Australian experience™.
• Pandemonium lords’ spells and melee flavours have been adjusted; melee focused lords have now learned a few position-altering spells so watch out!
• Hungry ghosts hunger no more, because they’re removed.
• Conjure Ball Lightning now summons a fixed number of balls, with damage scaling with spellpower.
• Necromancy ally spells have been adjusted:
• Animate Skeleton and Animate Dead animated remains have a reduced duration. The durability of skeletons and zombies produced by these spells scales with spellpower. Animate Skeleton now animates the nearest skeleton, without requiring the caster to stand on it.
• Death Channel spectral things have a reduced duration, and all spectral things vanish when Death Channel expires.
• Infestation scarabs have a reduced duration.
• Aura of Abjuration, Recall, and Summon Butterflies are removed.