a couple questions

[will_asher]

Do Hobbits still get a bonus with slings?
(and if not, why not?)
It doesn't say anything about that in the manual.

What happened to scrolls of door & stair detection? Those can be useful. Sometimes it takes a while to find the stairs.

I like almost all the changes that have been made since I stopped playing several years ago*, but I'm wondering if Nick has considered rebalancing the weapons. A dagger shouldn't be a better weapon than a cutlass (except maybe for a Hobbit Rogue like my current character).

(*It's neat to see some of the things I had in my old variant have been implemented in Vanilla: throwing weapons, more room shapes, passable rubble, um, I think there was something else I forgot too. I don't know why there's lava in the town though. Where is this town?)

[Selkie]

To answer your questions

The town is Pompeii
Hobbits get no bonus with sling, they ain't David let's stick to the canon
If you're too weak to lift a weapon it makes sense a lighter weapon deals more blows - things change in the end game
Scrolls of door stair location sound a bit like scrolls of mapping, only without the mapping. Don't complain or you'll nerf it

[Estie]

To answer your questions

If you're too weak to lift a weapon it makes sense a lighter weapon deals more blows - things change in the end game

It is the opposite in the game though - if you are weak, you want the heaviest weapon you can wield (for more damage with your 1 blow), but if youre strong, you want the dagger since strength grants multiple blows with light weapons and the damage bonus is additive.

[will_asher]

Another thing I noticed: Is it me, or is there significantly more monsters with acidic attacks now? There's even an ant that spits acid? that's annoying.

[will_asher]

I found a vault with the Balrog of Moria. I'm not quite tough enough to beat him yet, but I was thinking I'd try to lure him away from the vault so I could loot it. Then I found a scroll of Banishment, so I banished "U"s but it didn't work. The balrog is still there. What happened? Does banishment not work on uniques or something?

[Nick]

I found a vault with the Balrog of Moria. I'm not quite tough enough to beat him yet, but I was thinking I'd try to lure him away from the vault so I could loot it. Then I found a scroll of Banishment, so I banished "U"s but it didn't work. The balrog is still there. What happened? Does banishment not work on uniques or something?

That's right, banishment does not work on uniques - the confusing thing being that the priest spell Banish Evil teleports away all evil monsters in line of sight, including uniques.

[will_asher]

Fortunately, I was still able to lure the Balrog far enough away to be able to loot the vault. (Where among other things, I found a wand of Teleport Other which would've been useful...)

Another question: Didn't we used to be able to carry 99 arrows in one slot? Why can we only carry 40 per slot now?

[Nick]

Another question: Didn't we used to be able to carry 99 arrows in one slot? Why can we only carry 40 per slot now?

That was changed in 3.4 - maybe as a late balance to the introduction of the quiver (3.1.2). Certainly there was a feeling around that time that the game had become too easy, and there was a bunch of rebalancing done over 3.3, 3.4 and 3.5.

[will_asher]

Just checked my dumps. Apparently the last version of vanilla I played (before the last few days anyway) was 3.1.1.
DaJAngband had a quiver first!

[will_asher]

'nother question: Where's the option to turn tiles off?
(apparently making the slightest little tweak breaks a lot of tiles.)

[Pete Mack]

NPP had a quiver first. Then NPP 0.5 came along and I couldn't stand it--just wall to wall monsters. Too exhausting. I do like the terrain system tho.

[Ed_47569]

I found a vault with the Balrog of Moria. I'm not quite tough enough to beat him yet, but I was thinking I'd try to lure him away from the vault so I could loot it. Then I found a scroll of Banishment, so I banished "U"s but it didn't work. The balrog is still there. What happened? Does banishment not work on uniques or something?

No it doesn't - don't think it ever has? Destruction works on uniques but unlike older versions it also removes artifacts from the area, so best avoided in vaults.
Balrog of Moria has same hit points and found at the same depth (2500') as the original Balrog in uMoria. His escorts are pretty weak now too - just orcs and trolls.

[Nick]

'nother question: Where's the option to turn tiles off?
(apparently making the slightest little tweak breaks a lot of tiles.)

If you're using windows, it's in the window menus - options -> graphics -> none.

[will_asher]

NPP had a quiver first. Then NPP 0.5 came along and I couldn't stand it--just wall to wall monsters. Too exhausting. I do like the terrain system tho.

Oops, yeah, DaJAngband wasn't the first. I take that back. DJA had it before V anyway.
I think I tried a couple games of NPP one time. I honestly don't remember anything about it.

If you're using windows, it's in the window menus - options -> graphics -> none.

Oh yeah, I forgot to look there, thanks.