Bugfix release

This release mainly tweaks things, fixes some bugs and pulls in some mpa-sil improvements.

Subtlety now makes Crits an extra point cheaper. Rings of Archery have become Rings of Cowardice. Robes of Permanence have gone, armour of Nogrod has arrived (I renamed the great axe). Regeneration no longer costs hunger when you're not healing.

Sils are very much easier to cut. Morgoth is easier to hurt, but gets angrier and more dangerous. He also gets angrier and more dangerous the more Sils you take. The new songs have all been upgraded a little bit and Rout has been weakened some.

Bugfixes and convenience:

• weird and random earthquakes should be gone now
• guaranteed forges should be always guaranteed
• mithril smelting in used forges is in
• recognise healing potions when healthy
• broken door glyph is changed to a grey ' as per mpa-sil
• passive identification is much faster
• forges are guaranteed to have 3 uses minimum
• smithing menu fixed
• Song of Aule mentions that it grants rFire
• mpa-sil dump additions are in
• using empty staves or failing to pick things up no longer wastes a turn

Songs and Morgoth's revenge

Morgoth is still killable. But probably not by you.

Morgoth is much tougher, and gets harder to kill as he gets more damaged. Someone will doubtless manage to kill him sooner or later, but a three-sil victory with Morgoth alive is probably easier than a Morgoth kill now. Getting a Sil and getting out is definitely easier. The throne room enemies crowd you less at the start, Morgoth's crown takes less to knock off, and the Sils yield themselves up to three different tests, only one of which is helped by Sharpness. When fleeing to the surface, all the stairs are upshafts and downshafts, going 100 ft at a time and there are twice as many of them.

Song of Slaying has gone away. Song of Sharpness has gone away. Song of Este has gone away (this I was more torn on, but I don't think I've heard of anyone using it since it was last buffed).

What's new?

Song of Challenge makes enemies too aggressive to think straight. This means archers and scouts will close to melee range, and enemies will pile into corridors after you without waiting to flank you. Of course, making everyone who can hear you upset and aggressive probably has some downsides, but I can't think what they might be.

Song of Thresholds lets you turn every door into a Glyph of Warding. The better you sing, the better your ward. The best warding is nearly unbreakable. You also gain a bonus to Evasion when defending a threshold.

Song of Delvings slowly reveals the permanent features of the map around you, along with any creatures of stone that might be slinking through those rocky passages.

Song of Aule has more of a forge flavour, and also grants resist fire.

Vengeance is a skill that replaces Defiance on the Will tree; it grants you an extra damage die when you get injured in melee. It goes away when you score a successful hit, and I'm afraid you can't stack damage dice by getting hit a lot; my testing confirmed that that got very broken very fast.

Leaping now jumps all traps except roosts and webs.

Mewlips no longer have map rot. They should still present some challenge.

Horns of Blasting damage creatures of stone.

Lug is a bit less lethal again.

There are other minor bugfixes but probably not in areas many people noticed.

Savefiles are broken between version and now save as 1.3.2 - this is so anyone actually killing Morgoth now has their bragging rights visible from the version.

Smithing and more

Lots going on in this update.

Smithing has had a substantial reworking. Artistry is gone. You can now modify item stats simply from having Weaponsmith or Armoursmith. It's not quite as cheap as it was. Slays are cheaper, sustains are cheaper, resistances are cheaper; sharpness is more expensive. Abilities cost less experience at the lower end and more at the higher end; they're very slightly cheaper to add. There have been a lot of little tweaks, please play around and see what you think.

Expertise is the new smithing skill. It reduces your costs by half, rounding down. A lot of things that you'd otherwise only craft with a Herb of Restoration handy are now more easily available once you have the skill.

Smashing Blow is gone for something more interesting: Coup de Grace. It's now possible to satisfyingly murder enemies whose health is less than your combined strength and dexterity without any prospect of them escaping. You can use this to finish off almost dead enemies or swat a fragile evasive thing. At the moment there are no prerequisites; I rely on your feedback to let me know how much balancing it will need.

Lorekeeper and Loremaster are gone. Alchemy takes up the slack for identifying potions and herbs and staves, and tells you when things are cursed. Someone capable of enchanting items with Enchantment can tell precisely what enchantments are present on an item. Forewarned tells you all about enemy stats, and adds a hefty bonus of 1/4 your Perception to your Evasion - provided you've invested more into the former than the latter.

Skeletons are searchable. Orc skeletons will give you fairly terrible stuff which will probably still be worth considering at 50 feet. Other skeletons may do better for you.

Light levels give bonuses to perception for traps and secret doors. The worst traps (acid and false floors) are easier to disarm than before.

Horns have been overhauled. They now work like breath weapons. In particular Horns of Force behave quite differently (and IMO more usefully) than they did.

Daggers and sceptres and crowns are now more likely to have enchantments on. Longswords and bastard swords will be a little rarer early on.

Artifact rarity has been rebalanced a bit. Some non-broken artifacts have been made less rare, but artifacts are rarer in general.

Rog's hammer is in. It is suitably powerful, but is not without dangers.

Various other bugfixes are in: monster protection is applied to earthquakes, !a inscription no longer lets you spot invisible monsters, Gorthaur is back to summoning Oathwraiths.

Broken swords are out. A new artifact spear is in.

Enjoy.

Release 3

Savefile compatible with release 2, but watch out for skills changing.

Blunt weapons do bonus damage against armour. Armour only absorbs 3/4 of the damage the blunt weapon deals - this is better than 25% Sharpness where the amount of damage you would do is less than the armour roll. Damage dice remain low to compensate.

Whirlwind attack tweaked further; it now has a 50% chance of halting every time you deal damage.

Careful Shot is now replaced by Rout, aim with +5 to hit against fleeing enemies. This gives casual archers a good tool particularly in the early game, but is unlikely to be overpowered late on.

Merged Clarity, Mind over Body and Resist Fear into a new skill, Indomitable.

Moved Strength in Adversity to Mind over Body's slot. It now boosts Dex as well.

New skill - Defiance - saves you from a death-blow and sets your current and max HP equal to your Will.

256-colour terminal support.

mpa-sil screen centering fix merged.

Gorged status is gone. Eating more than you can stomach only spurs your digestion to new heights (you still shouldn't eat all your food at once, but you'll manage to get that herb or potion in when full).

Artifact with Throwing Mastery replaced.

Concentration prerequisite removed.

Song of Este prerequisite removed. Song of Este boosted a little. Now sustains stats as well. This is a temporary fix until the Song tree can be more properly reworked.

Deathblades gone, two new orc uniques added.

Release 2 - version updated to 1.3.1-q

Forges are now guaranteed (or should be) at 100, 300, 500, 700 and 900.

Channeling now lets you get twice as much out of staves.

Monsters scared off the level give experience.

Ring of Damage is now Ring of Archery.

Slow Poison is now Antidote.

Polearms of Piercing, Warhammers of Crushing, Quarterstaffs of Vaulting added.

Quarterstaffs now 2d4.

Version updated to 1.3.1-q for dump, 1.3.1 for savefile.
Savefile compatibility is broken!

Small boost to Song of Lorien, Song of Mastery.

Throwing Mastery gloves replaced with new artifact.

First release

• Throwing Mastery is gone.

• Knock Back is moved into its place.

• Impale replaces Momentum. Impale works with Rapid Attack, but not with Whirlwind Attack.

• Smashing Blow is where Knock Back used to be.

• Whirlwind Attack is no longer restricted by walls.

• Strength prerequisite is gone.

• Song of Freedom prerequisite removed.

• Filthy rags removed.

• Cruel Blow and Crippling Shot rebalanced - more chance of connecting at lower critical levels, less at higher.

• Stealth boosted a little bit - on early levels, monsters are less alert