[Announce] Poschengband 3.2.0 Released

[chris]

Found a big problem (or bug?) with Rune Swords. My Rune Sword DOES NOT WORK AT ALL for my Possessor!!!! I'm in Arena 79 and I have to rely on Kenshirou's kick attacks to kill anything in sight. If I'm killing Hell knights (level 52 monsters), my Rune Sword should at least gain something. Is Kenshirou one of body types that is always [Unskilled]! at Rune Swords? Rune Swords are 15lb. That's not too light. I'm ready to use my Scroll of Mundanity to blow up this permanently-cursed Rune Sword any minute.

If anyone can help me figure this out, I would greatly appreciated it!

Chris, if you're reading this, I sent you an email.

I commented on your dump, but I'll quote here in case others are curious:

Attempting to use the Rune Sword for this character is probably a bad idea. For one thing, they take a long time to build to power. For another, they only grow when they land a killing blow, and your innate kick attack is going to annoyingly steal most kills from you, I fear.

To use the Rune Sword, you need to get it started, which means overcoming the -50 innate damage. Use whatever equip you have to pull this off even if it means exposing resistance holes. Then beat on weaker monsters until the sword grows a bit. Stay shallow until the sword does enough damage to be playable and then switch back to your normal kit. But to grow the sword to power will take thousands of kills, so this takes time, at least 10 hours of play. I don't recommend attempting this with a late game character who has already killed so many uniques.

I think Rune Swords are a bit of an oddity, but surely someday someone will use them. Better to find them early with an intentional build to take advantage (e.g. Craft caster).

[Arjen]

My biggest problem with Rune Swords is his super rarity. They are even way more rare than Maces of Disruption. You never find one early in a game. Maybe you should make a quest with as reward a runesword.

*edit*
Or maybe a (new) RuneKnight in the arena who drops one. Right after the Ogre Shaman.

[poschengbandplayer]

I dissaggree.I once found a runesword deathsword in a vault full of deathswords in the icky caves(and in a really shallow depth too).well,the rng giveth but mostly it takes.i was a blood mage,so i could not use it really.haha.

hello chris!i am a long time player of your awesome variant,i think i am playing it since the first version.i just wanted to thank you for your awesome work,and i also wanted to make some suggestions that could improve this already extremely awesome game(dungeon crawl and poschengband are my most favourite games of all time by the way)

sooo,the game play changes i would like to propose,in random order.and i am sorry if my sentences sometimes seem to be odd.english is not my native tongue,so sorry for my writing style!!! :0

nerf\buff the initial max stats when starting a new character.sometimes i roll a char which gets a +5 boost in a stat on level 10,sometimes +1.this is extremely annoying.Can you change it so that all chars only get +1 every 5 levels?

buff the character class choices:i mean by that,make undeads and androids for example be able to be blood knights\blood mages.I dont think this would be unbalancing in any way,and i love to make up weird stories in my mind of how a skeleton can have access to blood.well,you get it >.>...

the original angband and other angbands have a generator that generates weight,height and background story and etc,why did you remove it (!please put it in again,it just adds so much to the game when the char has a written background story.if you do that,also please increase the space for the "background story" part.as i remember,after four lines you cannot write more in it.

why did you delete all the amulet and ring descriptions?could you please add it in again?

recently i was insta killed by YBFsomething the patient one in 1150(last level of orc cave).can you make a special level feeling for levels which contain extremely out of depth monsters?i mean,it is sickeningly unfair when i get killed by a unique thats supposed to be 1200 feet below my current depth -.-.not fun at all.

okay,youre probably gonna refuse this request straight away.can you make monster races able to choose player classes?this would be sooooo cool.

and for the future of the game
pleaaaase,dont delete anything.i would rather prefer that the game is slightly unbalanced and has a thousand of monsters than being perfectly balanced with only a few.same applies to races\classes\items\dungeons

add in more dungeons?one that would come to my mind right now would be a nuclear waste dungeon,where the hallways are 3 tiles in length but the walls are radio active,making you take damage when near them.you get the general idea i guess,i want weird dungeons lol.

well,that was all i could think of.i hope my suggestions are not too horrible.i also have some other suggestions but i think they would be too annoying and too hard to code,so i wont bother you with those.

have a nice day you all!

ps:i forgot to write those

why,for the love of god,did you make the crown of beruthiel have an ancient curse?????????wasnt -75 to three stats and permament curse not enough?please delete it asap!!!(i know i can edit it in the game files but it makes me feel like a cheater so please to it lol)for that matter,delete the ancient curse entirely dude,i mean,nobody is going to use an item with that curse cuz its kinda like a death wish.as it is,those items are just a source of gold and a death trap for new players.thats bad,very,very bad.

and there is a really,really gamebreaking abuse that includes beastmen,grow mold,and the start option of disallow player to summon\charm monster+pits and the anti melee cave....i think you got it,haha.i was able to get 20 million experience points in 40 minutes xD.as a nerf i would suggest you to make mold unable to grow in the anti melee cave(the magical forces rip the fungus apart in seconds) and make them fall in pits(your summoned fungi falls into the dark pit,screaming feebly(lol))

[Djabanete]

The amazing thing about PosChengband is the fertility of ideas that seem to spring up around it. Chris, as long as you ask "what should I add next", your work will never be done, not even close.

Some of the recent ideas in this thread capture my imagination, like the nuclear wasteland dungeon (sounds fun but brutal) and the Mjollnir quest with the storm monsters.

That "grow molds" exploit is pretty amazing. I have had fun myself with farming summons in no-pet mode --- this gives an extra dimension to, say, Trump casters. You can level up by farming spiders, but they get scary fast! This exploit seems to be no-risk (except for new monsters getting generated on the level), so maybe that's not so good. Perhaps prevent generation of any monster without spells/breaths/arrows in that cave?

Chris, did you think about allowing Draconians to pick Dragon personalities? What about a Dragonmaster class that can summon, evolve, devolve, and ride on dragons? Maybe some resistance and treasure-detecting spells? Maybe some Dragon's Fire/Frost/Breath spells?

[HugoVirtuoso]

Here's my take:
Overall, the active and careful implementation of new ingenious ideas (e.g., Possessors, Rings, Dragon realms, etc.) are what make PosChengband the true masterpiece of many roguelikes. For this reason, it would be nearly impossible for PosChengband to stop development.

[debo]

So, I was given the Hoard as my DL24 Angband quest monster, and I have literally just spent 40 minutes trying to kill it. I'm a Possessor holding onto a Cave Ogre's body, so basically all I can do is melee dudes. My normal speed isn't helping. I've illuminated every room in the level so I can see him coming, and dug little zig-zag corridors everywhere, but I can't ever get more than 2-3 hits on him before he steals my money and poofs.

I had 100k in pocket before I got here and now I have 10k left. Not to mention I've been kicked out of my body twice... (thank god for passwall). Any secret techs I can use other than screaming "fuck" and ragequitting on this dungeon quest?

I doubt I have much fame at all yet (just did Thieves, Warg, Orc Caves) and I don't even really care that much about it, so no big deal I guess.

[chris]

So, I was given the Hoard as my DL24 Angband quest monster, and I have literally just spent 40 minutes trying to kill it. I'm a Possessor holding onto a Cave Ogre's body, so basically all I can do is melee dudes. My normal speed isn't helping. I've illuminated every room in the level so I can see him coming, and dug little zig-zag corridors everywhere, but I can't ever get more than 2-3 hits on him before he steals my money and poofs.

I had 100k in pocket before I got here and now I have 10k left. Not to mention I've been kicked out of my body twice... (thank god for passwall). Any secret techs I can use other than screaming "fuck" and ragequitting on this dungeon quest?

I doubt I have much fame at all yet (just did Thieves, Warg, Orc Caves) and I don't even really care that much about it, so no big deal I guess.

I would just surrender the quest. Alberich can be just as bad, completely unkillable for certain builds. At least you aren't getting your equipment trashed!

For the Hoard, you need enough speed and AC so that it cannot get away, but this is unlikely at DL24. I always wait a long time before doing this quest for just this reason. In fact, my CL48 snotling still hasn't bothered

[HugoVirtuoso]

So, I was given the Hoard as my DL24 Angband quest monster, and I have literally just spent 40 minutes trying to kill it. I'm a Possessor holding onto a Cave Ogre's body, so basically all I can do is melee dudes. My normal speed isn't helping. I've illuminated every room in the level so I can see him coming, and dug little zig-zag corridors everywhere, but I can't ever get more than 2-3 hits on him before he steals my money and poofs.

I had 100k in pocket before I got here and now I have 10k left. Not to mention I've been kicked out of my body twice... (thank god for passwall). Any secret techs I can use other than screaming "fuck" and ragequitting on this dungeon quest?

I doubt I have much fame at all yet (just did Thieves, Warg, Orc Caves) and I don't even really care that much about it, so no big deal I guess.

You should post a chardump so we see what's going on.

debo:
Just to point out about clvl 24 quest - The quest monster could be way worse. If that was Gachapin (i.e., the toxic waste breathing dude), leave the quest right away. Dudes like Gachapin can instakill unprepared players!!

[krazyhades]

Gachapin quest has killed 2 of my characters so far.

[poschengbandplayer]

@djabanete.
No,the trick is to make a layer of walls of molds surrounding you,the molds aren't friendly,so monsters won't attack them,if you do it right,they even cannot push past them,the only monster that COULD screw you up in this exploit is a rock giant or something similar,but either they are very very rare or they can't push their way past the monsters that were there earlier.in any case,it only happened to me once,so it is practically a no risk operation,haha.

[debo]

I just killed my first possessor and they feel really strong. I don't remember ever stomping shit as hard as I did with some of the most basic monster bodies, and I had absolute trash for equipment.

In retrospect, the most fun part was actually getting kicked out of my body and having to figure out what to do!

This is probably a stupid idea: What if the probability of getting kicked was made higher, but you were given a voluntary controlled phase door when it happened? Would that be fun or annoying?

[krazyhades]

So basically a C.Tele/C.Blink or Dimension Door type of effect? Or a normal Phase but you can choose to decline it?

[Fnord]

It's been a long time since I played a *band - Zangband used to be my thing since 2.4-frog-knows (and vanilla even before). Had a couple winners back then, but of course, after 10+ years without *bands, I'm feeling like a newbie. I was delighted to find a direct descendant so actively maintained and apparently really suited to my tastes.

That said, I do have a couple comments, questions, suggestions and more.

* I'm using a single window to play. This means that the "more"ing really becomes annoying. I know of the auto-more option, but that means I might miss vital information. How about optional squelching? As a warrior, I don't mind standing surrounded by a ton of orcs, but clicking away 20 misses each round gets old really fast. How about allowing to compress those into "(+20 misses and spell failures") or such?

* Why are !berserk and !heroism in the default auto-pickup? And isn't there a mana-user option for !mana? And another auto-pickup option: Allow auto-destroy for high-level spellbooks for warriors? It's a pain given the many many schools to know whether it's worth to destroy one (and then to do it)...

* Given my "history", I actually consider going lite-town in the future. I do like that I have more black markets to check - but that also means that each time I recall, I feel obligated to town-travel to all of them. Which is more than slightly annoying. Perhaps, for a fee, the markets can show the inventory of competitors in other towns?


I also posted a dump of my current character - got specific questions there regarding advisable depths etc as well, so if someone knowledgable has comments, those'd be welcome there: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=16076

[Fnord]

Not sure if my mundane queries killed all activity in this forum, but I'll assume that's just coincidence and go on with more of that!

How about we can see the "power" of *identified* items in inventory and home? That'd make picking out stuff for reforging much easier.

Similarly, if ~9 could display *all* properties, that'd be helpful in organizing gear.

I've seen the lengthy debates about identifying, *identifying* and stone of lore - but it seems really silly to occupy a slot what essentially is a meta-thing. I can always recall and *id* everything* after one level (and I often do - annoying!). I'm a really old-school *band player, but after running around with SoL for a while, I feel almost crippled to have to take totally trivial, yet annoying steps to achieve the same after swapping it out.

[debo]

I play with a patch I borrowed from someone who is good at ruining things that makes identify = *identify*. Sorry, chris, I Really Really Hate *Identify*

I play single-window too, and I just leave auto-more on and use ctrl-p if I feel like something weird happened. I'm sure this gets me into trouble sometimes, but hey.

I'm pretty sure !Restore Mana is in the default autopickup list? Note that it's a pretty good idea to edit your autodestroyer prefs and then save-and-quit if you've never done it before (or loaded a different one) for a new character. I find that the defaults don't really trigger until I do that.

Lite-town is great.