Showing posts with label roguelikes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label roguelikes. Show all posts

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Roguelikes with Action Points (APs)? [closed]

Question

Are there any roguelikes that use Action Points like D&D?

Answer

Action points aren't really a feature of roguelikes, since the general way in which the game progresses is that it's your turn until you take an action, and then it is every enemy's turn at once. They tend to just specify some subset of the actions that give away your turn, and some subset of the actions that are essentially "free."

Many have a "speed" system for allowing for multiple moves/attacks in a single turn, but I don't know if that qualifies as having "action points" or not. Angband, for instance, has potions and rings that grant you additional speed, which works out to grant you more than one "action point" per turn.

That said, there are a very large number of roguelikes, so there is a chance that one exists that uses a similar system to the D&D action point system. However, I've never encountered it, and I couldn't find one while searching. I saw a lot of action point mechanics proposed, but no completed games that featured the mechanic.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Roguelike game where you need to retrieve an orb back from the dungeon

Question

I'm looking for a roguelike game I remember from my childhood, running on Apple's Macintosh Plus machine.

Details I remember:

  • It was a top-down view game with a deep dungeon you would explore, and you were able to develop your characters with spells / abilities - in short, a roguelike.
  • Its graphics used actual images, it was not ASCII-based GUI.
  • I don't recall if it had any 'save' feature or if death was permanent, and I don't remember if the levels were randomized.
  • The ultimate goal was to find some "orb" and bring it back to the surface.
  • Upon victory (and it wasn't easy), there was a picture of happy townspeople cheering, or something similar.
  • The only monsters that I remember were dragons and "ice balls", which looked really similar to the orb you were supposed to retrieve.
  • Some levels had boulders you could push around, and one of the later levels had some weird floorplan with lots of these boulders.

I guess the game is from circa 1987, and it was possibly monochrome (or was just displayed as monochrome on the macintosh's display).

Answer

I think it's this one :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Revealed

http://www.gamefaqs.com/mac/938009-the-dungeon-revealed/faqs/46761

Thursday, August 18, 2011

What's a good role and race for a Nethack beginner?

Question

I've just started to play Nethack (games you can play in a shell are useful). What is the easiest role and race to start with?

Answer

How easy any given class is depends on your playing style of course, but most people agree that valkyrie is the easiest class in nethack. They're good for fighting, they start with good equipment (+3 small shield means that once you've picked up some body armor, you'll have a very nice AC for a starting character) and food and they have a decent quest artifact. They also get speed at level 7.

Race doesn't matter as much, but dwarves are a good choice for valkyries, because they have good stats for fighting and most inhabitants of the gnomish mines will be peaceful towards you (so you can go shopping without endangering your life - as much).

Saturday, August 13, 2011

What is a reliable source of electric resistance in Dungeon Crawl?

Question

The LearnDB suggests that you should not consider taking on the Zot dungeons without some source of rElec. However, I have never found so far any item that granted such a protection, except for potions of resistance and spells.

What is a reliable source of electric resistance in Dungeon Crawl?

Answer

The primary ways to get electrical resistance are Storm Dragon armour, or artefacts (especially certain non-random artefacts, like the Amulet of Cekugob).

I'm not certain that there is a reliable way to obtain either, but the more areas you explore, the more artefacts you will gain, and with each artefact you gain, there is a chance that it will grant electrical resistance.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

How can I tell if a corpse is safe to eat?

Question

I am playing a human wizard, and I just killed a monster, leaving a corpse on the ground. How do I tell whether it is safe to eat this corpse?

I leave the monster unspecified because I am interested in "how can I figure out whether this is edible," rather than whether any particular monster is edible. Likewise, I would prefer to avoid having to look up or memorize a list of every single monster (but rules for particular symbols are great).

Answer

First off, no matter the corpse, never eat unless you just made that corpse or you have a method of preservation (tinning, icebox). Rotten corpses cause food poisoning (unless you're a fungus or a ghoul), and it doesn't take very long for a corpse to rot. And there isn't a visual indication of rotting, either, so the safe bet is to never eat something you didn't just kill. Most undead corpses are automatically rotten, as well. (See below for a more technical explanation.)

If the monster has poison or acid attacks, or is made of poison or acid, then there's a very high chance that you'll be poisoned or take acid damage. Both of these can be fatal, the former even instantly so, but poison and acid resistance will protect against this. Note that most poisonous corpses will chance to give you poison resistance, so this can be something to risk if you have enough health. Other elemental effects like fire, cold, and electricity are traditionally safe.

If the monster causes you to be stunned, hallucinating, or confused by natural attacks (as opposed to casting a spell), then it is highly likely you will be tripping after you eat its corpse. Some of these are very obvious. Actually, most creatures with negative effects like petrification will also carry over that effect with their corpse.

While it won't directly kill you, the corpses of teleporting creatures like imps, nymphs, tengu, and leprechauns will often give you teleportitis. Note that tengu do have a chance of giving you teleport control, so it's a good idea to start eating those when you do get stuck with teleportitis.

Unless you are of the Caveman profession or the Orc race, you are not a cannibal. This means that eating a member of your own race will give you a penalty in the form of the "Aggravate Monster" intrinsic (which is as bad as it sounds) and a penalty to your Luck.


For specific exceptions, off the top of my head: Bats cause stunning. Wraiths are safe to eat despite being undead. All adult Dragons are safe to eat, as well as most babies, but baby green dragons are poisonous unlike their adult counterpart. Lichen and Lizards do not rot over time and carry no negative effects that some other members of the same creature class might, so they make excellent backup food.


The rotting process is a little bit complicated and based on luck more than anything. Every 10 to 29 turns, (+2 for cursed, -2 for blessed) a corpse gains a degree of rottenness.

When it reaches a rottenness of 4, it is considered old. When you eat an old corpse, there's a 20% chance you will lose 1-8 hp, and a 1/7 chance of it being rotten (as in rotten food, not deadly.) When it reaches a rottenness of 6, it will give you fatal food poisoning, killing you in 11-19 turns.

So, put more simply, a corpse is definitely safe to eat in all cases for 32 turns, and it can cause food poisoning after a minimum of 48. Everything beyond that is just random chance.

Undead corpses start out with an age of 100 turns, which is why they are almost always already rotten.


Attributions for information provided within comments to:

  • WillfulWizard for reminding about teleporting monsters.
  • ire_and_curses for corrections on non-rotting lizards and poisonous baby green dragons.
  • Kaestur Hakarl, who investigated and discovered the safe measures for cannibalism.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

My pet is a public menace, what did I do wrong?

Question

In my current attempt at nethack I'm playing a dwarven samurai with a dog pet, so most dwarves I've encountered are peaceful. However, for some reason, my dog has been going beserk on every friendly dwarf we meet and I'd like to know why.

Since this doesn't really incur penalties on me, not to mention he was getting experience, I didn't mind it while going down the gnomish mines, but now it's becoming a problem. I've just reached Minetown and imagine my surprise when my pet decides to attack the owner of the first shop I visit. Though this still incurs no penalties, I'm afraid he's going to get zapped to death, so I have to lock him out of every shop I visit.

Now I wonder, did I do something wrong that is causing this?
I didn't catch any message like "Rex is confused with hunger." or something (plus, I almost starved because he was pouncing on every single corpse we made).
I've heard you can train your pet to steal by feeding him when he drops you stuff, is it somehow possible that I have accidentally trained him to be aggressive?

Answer

As far as I know, there's no way to train or otherwise cause your pet to be more aggressive. In general, pets don't much care if a monster is friendly to you or not - they'll go ahead and attack anyway, as long as the monster is close to their level.

It's quite possible that your dog has reached max level by this point in the game, especially if he's been getting a lot of kills. However, dogs don't normally attack shopkeepers, even at max level.

I can think of a couple possible explanations for your situation:

  • You're wearing a ring of conflict. (Unlikely, since you'd be getting attacked too.)
  • Your pet was at maximum level and ate a wraith corpse. This would put him within a level of the shopkeepers and liable to attack.

Some pertinent info from the wiki article on pets:

They say discretion is the better part of valor. Pets don't always possess such discretion, and often find themselves overpowered by opponents they take on. Although a pet will not attack a monster which could kill it in one round, this calculation takes no account of the monster's weapon or passive attack. Be especially careful about bringing dogs or cats into the Gnomish Mines, or horses into shops, especially in the deeper levels. Horses seem especially vulnerable to mimics, and have also been known to attack shopkeepers, as they reach a higher level than dogs or cats. (A pet will not attack a monster which is two or more levels higher than itself. A fully grown large cat or dog is level 9, a fully grown warhorse is level 10, and a shopkeeper is level 11.)

also

Carnivorous and omnivorous pets will eat wraith corpses and gain one level for each, capped at 15 over base level. (There is no cap for gains from engulfing live wraiths.)