harmon_c@h-sc1.UUCP (david harmon) (03/15/85)
Various items and features of the game of hack.
WEAPONS:
Stickeycurses: many items, including most cursed (negative bonus) armor
and almost everything gained from ghost hoards, are stickeycursed. This means
that having worn or wielded the item, you cannot unwield/wear it. Weapons
weld themselves to your hand immediately, but other such items are discovered
only when you try to take them off. Good magic items can be stickeycursed, but
upgrading or changing needs are then prevented. Ie, your -2 plate is still AC
4 with elven cloak (which can still be changed, since you don't need to remove
the plate first), but if you find +3 banded mail, tough luck. Similarly, a
welded-on ring of regeneration can kill you through starvation. A remove
curse scroll will remove the stickeycurse permanently, a destroy armor scroll
will remove the armor permanently (if your elven cloak isn't affected instead,
so you take everything else off), and enchant armor/weapon will cancel the
stickeycurse on the affected item.
Enchant scrolls and weapons: we know too little about these, except
that if any item is enchanted above +3, there is a random chance at each
improvement above +3 or so that the object being improved will evaporate.
I've heard tell of +8 two-handed swords, though.
Crysknives: Kill a worm, get the worm tooth (you may have to look
under the body), wield the worm tooth, and read a scroll of enchant weapon.
Result: a crysknife, one of the more powerful weapons in the dungeon.
(Rumor has it that only the ball and chain are more deadly.) You can also get
crysknifes from a ghost's hoard and with a wand of wishing. Once you do
get a cryskife, though, don't ever unwield it. I unwielded my crysknife
once to throw crossbow bolts at a xan, and the crysknife turned back into
a worm tooth!
Crysknives are good, but not necessarily (in the word of lucius)
"nuclear"; it takes an improved crysknife before you have any chance of,
say, killing dragons in one shot.
ARMOR:
Elven Cloaks: Elven cloaks are magic cloaks which increase your
armor class by one. Rumor also has it that elven cloaks protect you
from enchantments. Elven cloaks do protect your armor from being
dissolved by rust monsters or acid blobs. They can be enchanted.
Helmets: Helmets are prone to being digested by rust monsters,
but they protect you from piercers and from rocks dropping on you
in mazes (if you get that far).
Gloves: Gloves normally improve your armor class by one, but
their greatest advantage is in preventing you from getting stoned by cockatrice
cadavers. If you have a wand of wishing, ask for "a pair of +3 gloves".
Gloves allow you to pick up and even wield cockatrice cadavers, turning mon-
sters to stone right and left until the corpse rots away. However, if you
subsequently fall down the stairs, as is usual when heavily loaded, you will
touch the cadaver and die. Note also that this is very inconsiderate of other
players, as if you become a ghost, any player takng your hoard will encounter
the cockatrice cadaver before they reach the gloves you were using. If you
have a second pair of gloves, please put them at the bottom of your inventory,
and the cockatrice at the top, except of course for the gloves you are
actually wearing. (drop items above it, then pick them up again).
Any grave-robber will hopefully reach your spare pair and be overloaded before
he hits the cadaver, allowing him to put on the gloves. Note that the cadaver
will eventually rot away, so don't throw away your +3 mace.
Armor: various types of armor have different basic armor classes, and
any given suit may have a plus or minus in addition. Minused armor (including
the other items under this heading) is almost always stickeycursed. Note that
most armor takes some time to put on or take off, and that once you start
either process, you will follow through no matter what is attacking you.
Armor Class values:
none 10
leather 8
ring 7 (?)
studded 7 (?)
chain 5
splint 4
banded 4
plate mail(") 3
sheild +1
helmet +1
gloves +1
elven cloak +1
And add in the bonuses of all items worn.
USEFUL ITEMS:
Whistles: When you blow a ordinary whistle (syntax is 'a whistle',
you produce a 'high' whistling sound and your dog, (?if within a certain
range?) immediately heads in your direction. particularly useful if you are
teleporting randomly with a dead lep. Magic whistles (syntax is 'magic
whistle') produce a 'strange' whistling sound, and teleport your dog to you.
Be careful, whistling may also wake up other denizens of the level whom you
would rather not see awake (Leperchauns, Nymphs, ...).
Icebox: This is the box which a spelologist starts out with. Corpses
promptly placed in it will not spoil. It is, however, incredibly heavy, and
you must be carrying both the box and the corpse to use it. You may want to
leave it on the first level and go back for it when you've had some spinach.
Camera: Tourists start out with this one. Flash in the direction of a
monster to temporarily dazzle the monster.
Keys: we have never seen these. Presumably they may be wished for,
(syntax unknown) and rumors indicate they are used for locking and unlocking
doors.
Rope: We've never seen one. Keys and ropes are mentioned in the help
(? command) file in our version.
SPECIAL ROOMS
Assorted shops: Shops add much of the spice to hack. Shops
are rooms filled with goodies which are guarded by a shopkeeper. Shops
may specialize in a particular object (armor, weapons, scrolls,wands,rings) or
they may be general (antiques).
There are three things you can do in a shop:
you can buy things, sell things, or steal.
Buying things is simple. You pick up items and p)ay your shopping bill.
(Note: prices for magic items are high, but you often may want to buy food or
a weapon if you aren't equipped to steal)
Selling things is almost as simple. You drop (not throw) the items, and if
the shopkeeper is interested, he will buy it from you. Warning: if not
interested, he may take the item without paying.
Stealing is harder. You must kill or sleep the shopkeeper or get out past
him. A nasty but lucrative tactic is to enter a shop, sell everything you can
to him, including extra rings, cursed items, and/or dead monsters, then take
(not buy) back everything you want to keep, anything of his you can carry, and
steal it all, including the gold he paid you. At the level which you find the
shops, the shopkeepers are probably too much for you to kill easily. You will
have to rely on your brains, not your brawn. Note that the shopkeeper usually
has some treasure of his own, which may not appear until he is dead.
Strategies for dealing with shopkeepers:
1) teleport out: this is the simplest and safest method of getting away
clean. The shopkeeper would love to chase you, but luckily for you he has to
stay and take care of his shop. Take care! Many a time, to my despair, I have
been teleported across the shop.
2) dig your way out: this method is marvelous, provided that you
have a wand of digging.
3) teleport the shopkeeper away with a wand of teleportation: just
don't meet him on the way out! (This is risky. He WILL be heading straight
toward the shop from the moment he is teleported.
4) avoid the shopkeeper: lure the shopkeeper away from the door, then
zap him with a wand of sleep. Tiptoe around him and you're home free.
5) kill the shopkeeper: Hope you have a wand! This may have some bad
effects- see @ (human) in monsters file. These guys are, in the words of R.
Thau, retired barbarians who will wipe up the floor with you if they catch you.
They are faster than you and THEY IGNORE ELBERETH!!! I once, at 8th level,
managed, by quaffing a potion of speed and zapping him with a wand of slow
monster, managed to get out of the shop with 12 (out of 88) hit points left.
Oddly, when I came back (timidly) he didn't hold more than the usual grudge of
refusing to let me out. If you quaff a potion of invisibility, he will stand
in front of the door no matter what you shoot or throw at him. However, he
knows who's attacking him, and if you get too close, he'll get you.
6) train your dog: your dog may steal items from a shop for your
but this is likely to be a tedious method.
7) if by some chance you have a shop with a bunch of orcs in the back,
Elbereth one step *behind* the door, and kill the orcs as they exit the room.
(You may have to take a step into the room or throw something to wake up the
orcs). The orcs will carry many items outside the shop for you, and you will
not be charged for them. The shopkeeper may not even declare his shop
'pillaged'!
Shopkeepers have long memories. They will refuse to let you out
of a shop if you have stolen any items from it, even if you are not trying
to steal anything on this visit. Shopkeepers are also crafty enough to
stay out of your line of fire, unless you are within 2 spaces of the door.
Make sure you have a means of escape *before* trying anything, since you will
have to pay for or steal anything you use up or get stickeycursed by! If you
know which scroll is teleportation, then you can use one of his, but if trying
his scrolls out to find a teleport scroll (don't even try it except in a book-
store) you run a risk of being stranded. Trying wands out in a walking-cane
shop will avoid that problem (since wands are not used up in one shot) but
if any wand is fired at, or any ray hits (look out for rebounds) the shop-
keeper, he will get mad! If you really wipe out a shop, the storekeeper
will declare it pillaged, and instead of buying, he will accept contributions.
The Magical Memory Vault: This little 2x2 room holds the current
balance of the Magical Memory Bank. It has no doors connecting it to any
room or corridor on the level. You may locate it in three ways. 1)
read a scroll of gold detection. The four piles of gold are unmistakable.
2) read a scroll of magic mapping. Any 2x2 rooms on the level not
connected to any other rooms will be a Magic Memory vault. 3) get there.
There are two ways of actally getting to a Magical Memory vault.
1) teleport in. This is the fastest way in, but I hope you can get out
again! 2) use a wand of digging. Occasionally when I have a wand of
digging to spare I dig around at random, hoping to hit a vault.
If you stay in a vault too long, a guard will come by and ask you
to drop all your gold. So far, my reaction has been to teleport out
(with a weak character) or kill the guard (with a strong character).
The one time I killed the guard, I did it in one blow. (I had 18/** str
and was wielding a +3 crysknife). I (a different one) was never attacked by
the guard - he just stands there and waits until you teleport out.
To deal with the guard, follow this procedure:
1) drop your gold, and move one step toward the guard (once he
gives you room). He will move a step down the corridor.
2) take a step back to pick up the gold; the guard will stay put.
3) step toward the guard again, till you are next to him (Don't
hit him!). Drop gold again. He will advance again.
4) Repeat until guard reaches end of corridor, where he will dissapear.
David's Treasure Zoo: The zoo is what corresponds to a monster
room in Rogue. There are some differences: A zoo is packed with monsters,
except for the row facing the door. There are no magic items, (except for
what materializes when you kill a monster) but a pile of gold is under
every monster. Monsters in a zoo are best dealt with with a ring of
conflict, but zapping a missile wand (fire, cold, magic missile, death,
etc.) will kill a lot of monsters. Otherwise, you better run as fast as
you can away from the zoo and come back when you are better prepared.
Best thing is to use Elbereth and a strong wand. If a lep is in the zoo,
when you use a wand or a ring of conflict, he will go around picking up the
gold left by dead monsters. When he has all the gold, he will teleport, which
is wise of him, because he is carrying a heck of a lot of gold!
Orcs will also pick up gold but won't teleport.
The Maze: The maze is what you find on the lowest levels of the
dungeon. The exact level may vary depending on your version of hack.
The maze takes up the entire level, and is inhabited by a variety of
strong monsters. One peculiarity of the maze is that there are no
staircases down. All staircases in mazes lead up, even if you had just
ascended the staircase from a lower level. The only way to get to the second
or greater maze levels is to fall several levels through a trapdoor. Even
then, you will have to repeat the fall if you want to return. You may wish to
save a scroll of mapping for the maze, especially if you possess a ring of
teleport control. Also useful are potions of object detection (see the Amulet),
monster detection, and blindness (if you have telepathy).
Every maze is inhabitted by a minotaur (m) who carries a wand of digging.
Useful for getting the Amulet out from under an immovable rock,
crashing through maze walls, and ripping out of trappers' bellies.
Minotaur, by the time you get there, isn't such a tough bugger.
There is an Amulet on each maze level. This amulet is always under a rock in
a dead end, so that the rock cannot be pushed off said amulet.
VALUBLE ITEMS:
Amulet: This is generally the big part of your final score (if you
have one, that is!). There is an amulet on the lowest maze level, hidden
under an immovable (but diggable) boulder. Other amulets can be gotten from
ghosts. When leaving the dungeon, the first Amulet scores 5000, and each
sucessive amulet you have doubles your score. There are rumors that amulets
cut down on your need for food. You can wish for an amulet, but you will get
a cheap imitation amulet instead.
Gems: these, the Amulet(s) and your gold seemto be the only thing that
count once you get out of the dungeon. There are valuble gems and pieces of
worthless glass. You can trade a gem (but not glass) to a unicorn for 5
points of luck. Varieties of gems:
glass: 0 zorkmids
jasper: 500 zorkmids
topaz: 900 zorkmids
agate: 600 zorkmids
opal:
turquoise: 2000 zorkmids
diamond:
Shopkeepers will buy all gems, including glass from you at trinket prices,
sell them back at a 300% markup.
You may read scrolls of identify on gems to find out what they are worth.
I recommend you postpone this until you are on the way back up and have no
better things to identify.
TRAPS:
There are various types of traps, designed to injure, incapacitate,
or relocate you. In the first category are arrow traps and dart traps.
Dart traps are occasonally poisioned, but these are otherwise unremarkable.
Pit traps combine the first and second categories, doing a few points of
damage (very few) and requiring many turns of moving in a direction to get
off the square. Bear traps are similar in effects. In both cases, you can
attack, throw thngs, or write Elbereth, you just take a while to get out.
A shortcut if your dog is unlikely to get in the way is just hit a shifted
move. Sleeping gas traps are potentially more dangerous. While they are
shorter in duration, you can do nothing until you awaken. Teleport traps
send you to a random spot on the level (potentially useful). Trap doors
send you to the level immediately or up to 4 levels below your own. This
is usually unwanted, except in the lowest levels, where it can help you drop
faster and even reach more than one maze level.
All traps can be discovered by searching, or by passing near with a ring of
searching. A wand of secret door detection may also find them.