Halls of Mist attributes and skills

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Powder of the right type, or any powder?

Only possible problem I foresee is that is that you have to inspect the powder vial in order to learn about the circle/terrain feature, or does inspecting the terrain give the same general message.

Bingo! You find broken circles, and can use any powder you have to complete it. Alchemy skill check required, and the powder is used up even if you fail.

There are seven different types of circles, all of which are described in the manual. I'll give the full list tomorrow. Some powders generate only one type, others have a coin flip of two possible circles. Some deep powders are able to generate super hyper powerful circles -- balanced by the facts that not every level has broken circles, and you need to succeed in an alchemy check or waste the expensive powder for nothing.

In playtesting, two basic circles have become essential tools for an adventurer:

1) Circle of Lifeforce restores physical stats and experience, cures disease, protects from undead and demons.

2) Circle of Knowledge gives +7 to Lore calculations, enabling you to identify pack etc if you have MEM+WIS 23 or more.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Ritual magic

Now that you know about alchemical circles, I can show you ritual magic. Every dungeon book or artifact book has a ritual. A ranger spellbook is now an exciting find for everybody!

Hint: offer a gift to an intellectual goddess and wield a Torch of Wisdom before attempting rituals... Ritual magic takes careful planning.

Whoops, these images are from an older version. INT should be MEM.

[buzzkill]

Now that you know about alchemical circles, I can show you ritual magic. Every dungeon book or artifact book has a ritual. A ranger spellbook is now an exciting find for everybody!

I don't know if you covered this already or not. Is there one ritual per stat? Does HoM still have stat potions, or are rituals the only way to raise stats? Are there other types of rituals that do other things?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I don't know if you covered this already or not. Is there one ritual per stat? Does HoM still have stat potions, or are rituals the only way to raise stats? Are there other types of rituals that do other things?

Yes, yes and yes.

For example, there's a ritual that permanently increases your infravision by one square per 10 power points. Another raises all of your resistances by 3 points per a 10 power points. Yet another summons powerful weapons, one weapon per 10 power points.

It's just one extra way to raise stats. Stat potions are probably more common now than they were in FayAngband levels 1-48, perhaps a lot more common. Hard to say because item drops are very different now. (You'll find less items but they are more powerful and more interesting. Lots of boring items have been deleted and replaced with new, interesting items. Ego items are now much more common but artifacts are rarer.)

You can also get a random stat increase by drinking from a Fountain of Increase Ability. Be careful with unidentified fountains, though! You automatically try to identify fountains by making a Perception roll when you walk next to them. ("You smell disease.") Like with many skill checks in Halls of Mist, you only get one try.

I don't believe the theoretical average winner has maximized all her stats. That's a good thing considering that I want stats to make characters distinctive.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Some design thinking behind the religion system

The deity system is not "complicated" by accident. It tries to accomplish several things.

First of all, this is how I think religion would work in a polytheistic world. I dislike how in most roguelikes you need to pick a god early and then stick with him.

The flavour is that the player meets these new goddesses for the first time. His old gods don't have power here in the Halls of Mist.

The goddesses are a bit alien for a purpose. It's a pantheon with goddesses for obsession, conflict, purity, transformation and secrets. It's a bit different from your typical fantasy pantheon.

Like any good polytheist, even a Priest or a Templar has an open mind when he meets new deities. How powerful is this deity? Let's check it out by giving her a gift...

For the first part of the game, the player is supposed to find out lots of information about the goddesses. Later, when he finally finds an artifact he is ready to part with, he knows how powerful most of the deities are from his point of view. (A warrior would want different kinds of blessings than a mage.) If you want to insert some roleplaying into the decision, you may also think how compatible your character's ethics is with the deities'. This would definitely be a part of the choosing process. After all, you are about to become a follower of this goddess for the rest of your life.

Oh, and the allies and enemies of each deity may affect your decision too! After you have become a follower of a goddess, it's usually (but not always) wise to only offer sacrifices to her friends. You are not choosing a single goddess, you are choosing a trinity.

Unlike most characters, priests and templars complete their testing and choosing process in the early stages of the game.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

All seven circles

Circle of Lifeforce restores and sustains STR, DEX, CON and experience points. It also cures and protects from the effects of disease. Undead and demons have difficulties moving (80 % fail) or attacking in melee (50 % fail) on a Circle of Lifeforce.

Circle of Illusions increases spell range by 7 squares and makes your influence spells (not devices) harder to resist. Animals, persons and humanoids have difficulties moving (80% fail) or attacking in melee (50 % fail) on a Circle of Illusions.

Circle of Nexus restores and sustains MEM, WIS and PRE. All teleportation effects other than Phase Door will take you to the Circle of Nexus. Any teleporting monster (for whatever reason) will also end up there.

Circle of Recall will call you back when your hitpoints are at 20 % of maximum or lower.

Circle of Summoning summons a group of monsters when completed.

Circle of Knowledge gives +7 to Lore calculations. When your MEM+WIS+bonus reaches 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 you gain either more Lore points or better proficiencies.

Circle of Permanence will make any positive temporary status effect started inside the circle last until you leave the dungeon level.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

BTW, buzzkill, the rituals are the end product of the thinking process that you started with a thread about alternative uses for books.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Alchemy skill checks

You make Alchemy skills checks to:

• find out one of the potion's ingredients when drinking it.
• fully identify a potion, including both of its ingredients, with the Greater Lore proficiency (a)nalyse item (you need MEM+WIS 30 or more to access Greater Lore proficiencies)
• mix a potion.
• complete an alchemical circle.
• disarm a magical trap.
• master a warding rune in a wall. Use the (D)isarm command. Mastering the rune means that you can switch the rune on or off by (D)isarming it again.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Jumping skill checks

You make Jumping skill checks to:

• hop on a table or platform
• hop over bushes
• dodge thrown weapons and missiles (but not magical bolts)
• avoid theft
• avoid the effects of some traps, like the stat-draining darts

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Navigation skills checks

You make a Navigation skill check whenever you take the stairs down to a new dungeon level.

If you make it, you get to start play on stairs leading back to town.

If you make another Navigation check, you have followed a map to this place. You get a mapping effect that reveals nearby dungeon and detects nearby traps and runes.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Saving Throw skill checks

You make Saving Throw skill checks to:

• resist hostile magic that tries to affect your mind.
• resist the effects of a warding rune.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Perception skill checks

Perception generally works automatically as you walk next to something interesting. In all cases you only have one try!

You make Perception skill checks to:

• notice a trap
• notice a warding rune in a wall
• find a hidden item in a closet, in a bookshelf, or in a weapon rack
• find a hidden torch, mushroom or faery portal in an "interesting" (purple) vegetation square
• identify a fountain
• fully *Identify* a non-potion item with the Greater Lore proficiency (a)nalyse item
• disarm a non-magical trap
• master a lock on a door (try opening the door). Once you have mastered the lock, you may open and close the door as you like, but most monsters will have great difficulties following you through the locked door. Besides, there's often a small treasure room behind a locked door!

It's a long list and I might have forgotten something. I'll come back to edit in that case.

There shouldn't be any need to press 's' to search anymore. Repeated searching is useless.

Secret doors can only be found in special walls: cave paintings, closets, bookshelves, and weapon racks. You don't need to make a Perception check to find a secret door, it's automatic.

I should also add that the only things you can currently tunnel through are rubble and trees. There's no easy way around a locked door. Forcing it won't work.

[buzzkill]

Secret doors can only be found in special walls: cave paintings, closets, bookshelves, and weapon racks. You don't need to make a Perception check to find a secret door, it's automatic.

Did you mean, you don't need to search to trigger a perception check to find a secret door? or, secret doors aren't really very secret, they're revealed as soon as you move adjacent to them. It's almost sounds like the search command won't have any uses at all. Will it be removed?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

or, secret doors aren't really very secret, they're revealed as soon as you move adjacent to them.

This.

There may still be some cases when you need to search manually once, like after teleporting. I haven't looked through all the cases carefully enough. Search command still exists in the first version but is hopefully gone in the next. Search mode has already been removed.

There's one case where secret doors may remain undetected. Namely, secret doors in cave paintings (red walls). Cave paintings often have hidden Warding Runes which shoot out evil rays to all cardinal directions -- usually to just one direction, though, across the room. A careful player might want to leave some cave walls unsearched if you don't need to cross the room. On the other hand, there just might be a hidden treasure room behind the painting... The best tactic in this case is to use a Staff of Detect Force which detects all terrain features with magical power.

BTW, some Warding Runes are off by default. If you find one with a Perception check, you may then want to use your Alchemy skill to switch it on -- it's fun to let a Warding Rune of Evil Eye curse a horde of orcs as they run past it!

Hmm, maybe this passing mention is enough to cover Warding Runes. Find a Warding Rune with a Perception check, master it with the Disarm command, then Disarm it again to switch it on or off. A successful Saving Throw protects you completely from their effects. Be careful out there when you see red walls!

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Town

You may be in for a shock in your first game of Halls of Mist. Even the town level is now populated by the Thin White Duke's agents: novice persons that used to populate dungeon level 3!

You'll want to start thinking tactically from the very beginning. Maybe you should run first to the weapons shop to buy a short bow? Would boots and gauntlets help you defeat that novice warrior?

Luckily you start with a good melee weapon, a Scroll of Phase Door, and a Potion of Cure Serious Wounds.

Warriors will usually clear the town easily and make a couple of experience levels while doing so. Mages have no problems either, if you're smart. Some race/class combinations may have a little trouble but it's nothing impossible.

Rewards are bigger too. It's quite normal to find cool ego items on the first dungeon level, and there's enough variance in devices, potions, and scrolls to make the early game interesting. Basically you get to skip the boring early levels and skip right to the interesting part.

Wounds

The Wound system has been tuned a little to make the early game more forgiving. Whenever your hit points go to negative, you heal to half your maximum hitpoints, cure most negative effects, and get a random wound. There are three possible wounds: Vigor (STR & CON), Wit (MEM & WIS), and Grace (DEX & PRE). If you ever get the same wound again, you die.

The ability damage from a Wound now depends on your dungeon level:

• In town, you just get a scar. No ability damage.
• Starting from DL 1, you get some temporary ability damage to one of the stats.
• Starting from DL 12 you get some temporary ability damage to both stats.
• Starting from DL 24 you get a point of permanent damage to one of the stats, and some temporary damage to both stats.
• Starting from DL 36 you get a point of permanent damage and some temporary damage to both stats.

There are now a couple of ways to cure a Wound: drinking from a Fountain of Cure Wound or performing the Ritual of Cure Wound. The ritual may sometimes cure more than one wound. If a Wound is cured, all the permanent ability damage from that wound is also healed.