[net.games.hack] Of wands and spells

andrew@orca.UUCP (Andrew Klossner) (07/10/85)

>> No doubt everyone knows that you can use a wand of digging to dig holes
>> in the floor.  And a wand of polymorph can be used to polymorph corpses
>> into food rations.  A wand of polymorph doesn't seem to polymorph inanimate
>> objects like rings and potions, however.  Is this true?

> The wand of polymorph doesn't seem to have much effect on things like gold
> (I haven't peeked at the code yet though).  However...
> If you ever had a hankering for NINE long swords whilst staring at a common
> pile of nine rocks.  I hope I don't have to say any more.

Please don't.  When you polymorph a pile of rocks, you get a pile of
gems.  Not swords.  For any object other than a rock or boulder,
polymorphing will turn it into a random object with the same symbol
(the character that you see on the floor), so you can polymorph a pile
of arrows into swords.  Or a potion into a random potion.  Of course,
the "random" object may be the same as the original.

> Does reading a scroll of gold detection when you are confused do really
> bad things?  Like remove any gold from the dungeon that might be lying
> around?

If you read a scroll of gold detection while confused, it acts as a
scroll of trap detection ... but each trap will be marked with '$',
making it look like a pot of gold!  If there are no traps, you get
"Your toes stop itching."  If there is only one trap but you're
standing on it, you get "Your toes itch!".  (But if you have fewer than
2000 experience points, you get the generic "You have a strange
feeling.")

> Has anyone tried teleporting to a level below level 30?

The lowest level in the universe is level 39.  If you ask for a lower
level, you get 39.

> What does it mean when the wizard chants spells?  

The wizard is fighting back!

All of this is true of hack version 1.0.2.

  -=- Andrew Klossner   (decvax!tektronix!orca!andrew)       [UUCP]
                        (orca!andrew.tektronix@csnet-relay)  [ARPA]

ccrdan@ucdavis.UUCP (Dan Gold) (07/16/85)

> >> No doubt everyone knows that you can use a wand of digging to dig holes
> >> in the floor.  And a wand of polymorph can be used to polymorph corpses
> >> into food rations.  A wand of polymorph doesn't seem to polymorph inanimate
> >> objects like rings and potions, however.  Is this true?
> 
> > The wand of polymorph doesn't seem to have much effect on things like gold
> > (I haven't peeked at the code yet though).  However...
> > If you ever had a hankering for NINE long swords whilst staring at a common
> > pile of nine rocks.  I hope I don't have to say any more.
> 
> Please don't.  When you polymorph a pile of rocks, you get a pile of
> gems.  Not swords.  For any object other than a rock or boulder,
> polymorphing will turn it into a random object with the same symbol
> (the character that you see on the floor), so you can polymorph a pile
> of arrows into swords.  Or a potion into a random potion.  Of course,
> the "random" object may be the same as the original.

Whoops.  Sorry about that.  You are correct about the pile of rocks. 
One more note, and this one I am fairly sure about.  For those who do get
greedy and start polymorphing rocks, and weapons and the such, just beware:
if you start polymorphing the object like crazy you may end up with a low-
value object like a whistle or worthless gems.  Once the item reaches this
state you cannot turn it to something else.  It seems the game will only let
you change the object to something that can be found normally in the dungeon,
and not something like a pick-axe.  Again, I don't get a cheap thrill out of 
reading the source, so I have just surmised this through experiment.