FAangband 1.2

[Nick]

However, after fiddling around a bit on wizard mode, I realised that the 'ultimate' spellbooks for the mage classes (e.g. Necronomicon, Book of Runes, Powers of Aman) are unusable. I get the message "You cannot browse that" even at CL 50.

Confirmed - that's a bug.

Wilderness is harsh; I haven't gotten very far out of wizard mode (though it can also be attributed to my lack of skill). Spellcasters are nastier in the open.

Yes it is - if it's any comfort, it used to be worse Advanced races (especially High-Elf, Adan, Druadan and Grey-Elf) are hard to start, but strong later.

Lastly, some general comments. Why are the Nazgul still in-game? They didn't arise until the SA, although I suppose that they're there more for gameplay purposes than for flavour; there aren't any 'groups' of powerful evil characters that are like the Nazgul, so they are really hard to replace. I'd also like to see more unique Balrogs!

You'll notice that there are seven unique wraiths, but they are not formally identified as Nazgul - the two that Tolkien named as Nazgul (the Witch-King and Khamul) have been removed. I really should rework them to make it clearer. As for Balrogs, Gothmog is really the only one named, but it might be nice to identify a couple of others (particularly the one that fought Glorfindel).

Anyway, thanks again for the great variant, and I hope I didn't just repeat stuff that you already knew.

Thanks for your feedback - very helpful.