Hi, crawlers! The tournament is officially over (results up soon!), and development of 0.17 has officially begun. Here’s what’s new since 0.16.0 came out:

  • Monsters:
    • Most uniques (mainly those that can spawn in D) have had their XP and placement adjusted. In general, their XP has been increased (by anywhere from 50% to 150%), and they’ve been prevented from spawning in areas that were late enough to make them no longer challenging. (E.g., Fannar in Elf.)
    • Phantasmal Warriors’ attacks no longer pierce SH & AC.
    • Silent Spectres are now much rarer in Crypt, no longer spawning outside vaults.
    • Unborn have been merged into death knights; the latter now have Agony, Haunt, and Injury Mirror, and the former no longer exist.
    • Revenants no longer ignore silence.
    • Monster rElec has been changed; rElec++ has been removed, and monsters that had it now either have rElec+ or rElec+++ (immunity).
    • Mnoleg’s attacks have been simplified.
  • Spells:
    • Summon Guardian Golem is now level 3 (previously 4).
    • Sure Blade has been removed.
    • Blade Hands has its offhand attack back (accidentally lost it at the start of 0.16 development), and Dragon Form now has one too. Beware the rising dragon punch!
  • Items:
    • The Cloak of Flash has been merged into the Cloak of Starlight; the latter now has a +2 enchantment and gives Stlth– (from Stlth-).
    • Wands of fireball, lightning, and draining now have 15 max charges, up from 9 for the former & 12 for the latter two.
    • -Cast should no longer appear on non-armour randarts.
    • Staves of power no longer store power for a short while after being unwielded.
    • Quicksilver Dragon Armour has had its base armour reduced by one, from 10 to 9.
    • Potions of decay have been removed.
    • Gnoll sergeants no longer have a special chance to spawn with potions of curing or heal wounds.
    • Staves of summoning no longer have a chance of abjuring on hit.
    • Warding now affects ranged attacks from summoned enemies, in addition to melee attacks.
    • Faith no longer makes your god more likely to save you.
  • Gods:
    • Finesse no longer causes contamination. (It previously caused slightly less contamination than dissipated naturally per-turn.)
    • Shadow Step no longer works on harmless plants (‘plant’, ‘fungus’, ‘bush’…).
    • Beogh’s Smite ability now scales more strongly with Invocations.
    • Lugonu no longer accepts corpse sacrifices. (Piety gains from kills has increased.)
  • All races’ evocations aptitudes have been reduced by 1.
  • MP limits have been reworked & simplified; you now get 0.9 max MP for each experience level, and the lowest highest of (0.9 MP per level of spellcasting, 0.54 for each level of Invocations, or 0.45 for each level of Invocations). The preceding is already out of date – rapid balance changes…
  • Species that cannot wear armour can no longer get the ‘ill-fitting armour’ mutation.
  • Throwing wielded items is no longer three times faster than normal.
  • Krakens no longer spew ink continuously.
  • The rod of shadows can no longer summon friendly pan lords.

Happy crawling!