**************************************************************************** Our story so far... It is the time of the Conjunction of a Million Spheres. Your Earth is composed almost entirely of cave-riddled mountains (which have their own dark inhabitants, known mostly by rumour), with villages in the few fertile valleys that exist. Except for high summer, movement and trade between the villages is almost impossible. Fresh rumour begins infiltrating the villages. Rumours about the strange, otherworldly beings that have begun to concentrate in the vast system of caves under the mountains. Rumours that the forces of Chaos are gathering in unheard of numbers (led by three Chaos Lords referred to only as "The Sword Rulers"), somewhere deep within the Earth, preparing for a great battle with Law, upsetting the rule of the Cosmic Balance on your plane. Something needs to be done. The Balance must be restored. Someone must journey to the bowels of the Earth and attempt to banish these Sword Rulers from your plane... **************************************************************************** ============================================================================ = Gumband 2.1.2b: Changes from ZAngband 2.1.1c = Last Update: 23-Jan-2001 = ============================================================================ Changes from Gumband 2.1.2a are marked with '##'. Only the most major changes are listed here, to keep things short... ============================================================================ Send any and all complaints (or praise ;) to aa343@chebucto.ns.ca or gumby@gwar.net. Do *NOT* send patches and suchlike to my Chebucto account - I've almost no disk quota there for storing mail, and the INBOX overflows easily. :( ============================================================================ PLEASE NOTE: Back to 2 files [DOS distribution and source code] for this version since they both will now fit again on a standard 1.44Mb MS-DOS disk. ============================================================================ PLEASE NOTE: Preserving savefile compatability is *NOT* important to me. I *highly* suggest you finish up your current character with your current version before moving to this one. At the very least, Monster Memory could be severely messed up between versions... ============================================================================ My plans for this variant? Well, I plan to remove the Amber elements and replace them with things that extend the already existing elements of Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion cycle (represented in ZAngband by the Chaos Patrons, the Sword (and Legion) of the Dawn and Stormbringer). Stuff other than the Amber elements will disappear, of course, if I find I need the room. :) ============================================================================ I've only ever compiled this under MS-DOS with DJGPP. Your milage may vary for other platforms and compilers... :) If you've had problems compiling ZAngband v2.1.1c, then you'll probably have problems compiling Gumband. NOTE: I hear that there are major problems running the DOS version, and compiling a Windows version with LCC, under Windows ME. I'm sorry, but since I have no familiarity with either, there's nothing I can do. :( If someone manages to get things working for that platform and/or compiler, could they please mail me the makefile they used and any source files they needed to update? [with explanatory notes, of course, so that I can add them without breaking things for everyone else :] ============================================================================ Thanks to Bablos for compiling the Amiga version. ============================================================================ Deeming it no longer worth the bother, nor the time it adds to the upload and download of the game, I've removed the graphic and sound files from this distribution... I dislike graphics and sounds in Roguelike games, so I will not do anything to support them. ============================================================================ Thanks to all the folks in #angband and rec.games.roguelike.angband who've put up with me, and even helped me in many cases, while I was plundering their knowledge of C for this little project. :) So, if you've responded to any of my posts dealing with Gumband, or C programming in general, consider yourself thanked. :) [individual thanks will be down there in the entries that apply] ============================================================================ There have been other minor changes than those listed here that aren't worth individual mentions. Most changes to the monster, object and artifact lists won't be included here, and some items might drop off the list from time to time, tho that won't mean that the change has been reversed. ============================================================================ ##01) Bumped Sauron to level 96 and replaced Oberon, and the Serpent of Chaos with the three Sword Rulers (Arioch, Xiombarg and Mabelrode), all three of which must be now be defeated to win. ##02) If you're a Chaos Warrior and you kill your patron (one of those three above), then you've been a naughty boy (or girl) and deserve the thumping you'll get from multiple TY Curses. :) ##03) Did a major reorganization of r_info.txt to spread things out to make adding new monsters (specifically at those dungeon levels that are under- populated as far as creatures of that depth go) easier. Also did a fair bit of re-colouring, and reorganizing of the letters used, so I suggest that you 'l'ook often! ##04) Monster flags added or enabled: HURT_FIRE & HURT_COLD (+50% damage from those sources), S_HELLBLADES, S_ANIMALS (as opposed to specific species), S_ELEMENTAL & ELEMENTAL, S_SCUMDOG & SCUMDOG (for GWAR), and EXPLOSIVE (monster blows up when killed - a formalization of the Unmaker's death effect). Thanks to Eric Bock and Antimatter (of #angband) for helping me get the summonings working properly. ##05) New monster blow method: TONGUE (like a frog) and TENTACLE. No special effects from the types, just added for flavor. ##06) New monster blow effect: RBE_VAMP. A creature that hits (or bites, or whatever) to 'VAMP' drains the player's XP as if it were RBE_EXP_60, but also heals a number of hit points equal to the XP drained in that attack. If the player has hold life and makes the saving throw, then the VAMP creature only heals an amount equal to the damage dealt in the attack. VAMP grants nothing if the player is a Golem or one of the Undead races, though it will still drain the experience points. 07) High resistances for players use the formula "dam = (dam * 2) / 3;", ie, 67% (approx) of the unresisted damage. This is the average amount of damage from the old resistance formula of "dam *= 6; dam /= (randint(6) + 6);". I just didn't like resisting the attacks so randomly... Note that the damage caps for those 'high' types of monster breaths will be set at 600 in compensation - which means about 400 damage when resisted. :) 08) Monsters use "dam /= 3;" for most of their resistances, mostly so that Nature spellcasters can have a chance if they don't happen to have a bow... 09) The damage from most objects, spells and racial/mutation activations have been increased by 50% or so. IMHO, they're usually so weak that there's no incentive to use the offensive abilities of these objects, except for the occasional blast with a ball-spell against weak breeders or to wake group monsters to get them moving towards you... ##10) Potions of Cure Critical Wounds now heals 8d8 damage (was 6d8) and Curing heals 16d8 damage (was 50), in addition to its other effects, making the latter actually worthwhile. Curing also increased in price. Cure Light and Serious Wounds have remained unchanged. 11) Chaotic weapons now deal extra damage (x2 base) against creatures that have the RES_CHAO flag (weapons of Chaos, like Stormbringer, were created specifically to fight Chaos - the damage from Chaos Bolts and suchlike are reduced, tho) and/or breathe Chaos, plus a few others. ##12) Most of the mutations from Eric Bock's ZAngband 2.1.1ce have been cheerfully stolen by me for use here. :) Hope ya don't mind, Eric. :) Oh, I made some alterations to them - the non-dangerous randomly activating ones, like Berserk Rage, won't disturb you while resting, unless you've got 'disturb_minor' set, for example. ##13) Altered the amount of XP gained by Warriors (and Paladins) for destroying the dungeon spellbooks. They now gain ((book_cost / 50) * plev) for their efforts, which makes destroying the books a valid option instead of selling them. ##14) Due to popular demand, monsters can no longer steal wielded items. ##15) The various object-mimics, monsters with a symbol of "<>$*,!=?|", are no longer detected as monsters, only as their object type. [eg, Creeping Coins will only show up with Detect Treasure, and won't trigger a "You sense the presence of monsters!" message] ##16) Critical hit calculations have been evened out a bit (melee goes x2, x3, x4, x5, x6 to damage, with missiles doing x2, x3 and x4 damage, on a critical hit). Weapon weight is figured at +50% for both the chance for and the quality of a critical hit. Big weapons might be useful now even when you don't get extra blows with them. :) ##17) Altered the Dexterity governing the chance of having something stolen from your backpack. There is no more immunity: the table tops out at 98% at DEX:18/220 or higher. ##18) Evened out the table of Strength adjustments to digging a bit. ##19) Implemented an 'only_small' levels option. Defaults to Off. ##20) NEW RACE: The Gambolt. It directly replaces the Amberite race. See the race/class section below and also lib/help/birth.txt for details. [FYI, I took the race name and basic genotype (humanoid feline) from Robert Lynn Asprin's "Phule's Company" series. All other details are different, however, since I couldn't be bothered to go find the four PC books at the library again. :] ##21) In removing Amberites, I found that there was no one left to wreck the Pattern, so I've set it so that *anyone* who is cut, regardless of race, has a chance to have things go boom. :) ##22) NEW CLASS: The Weaponmaster. See the race/class section below and also /lib/help/birth.txt for details. Specialist in a single weapon type. Rather munchkinish, until you find that your Polearms specialist can't use Ringil at all well. :) ##23) Removed the axes from TV_POLEARM. TV_AXE now includes all the old axes and adds Hatchets, Cleavers, Light War Axes, and Axes of Slaughtering. ##24) Major changes to the shopkeepers, mainly so that most of the races will be represented, and also major changes to race relations (ie, price inflation in stores based on race). -*-*-*- Altered Races and Classes -*-*-*- Beastmen: ## In addition to the chance of gaining mutations as they increase in level, Beastmen now randomly gain and lose a bunch of mutations (all of one of the three mutation classes, since that was easiest) every once in a while as they move around or rest... Beastmen weren't chaotic enough for my tastes. :) Chaos Warriors: Gain bonus abilities based on their patron. Bonus melee attack at level 25. Bonus missile shot at level 35. +1 to hit and to damage every 10 levels. Elves: Racial activation is Detect Animals at level 10. ##Gambolts: ## Exceptional DEX & CHR (both sustained), Saving Throw and Stealth, decent Searching and great Perception, all other stats and skills are unremarkable. ## Permanent speed +2. ## Hit Dice of 8, 60' infravision, and an XP penalty of +50% (which is open to negotiation). ## Racial activation is Charm Monster at level 20. ## Cannot 'legally' choose to be Priests, Paladins, Chaos Warriors or Monks. [ie, they're not very religious] Golems: XP required is at +150% (up from +100%). They have 13 hit dice (up from 12 HD). Magic Devices skill at +5 (up from -5). [being magical devices themselves, Golems have an instinctive understanding of these things] ## They now resist Nexus and Shards. They no longer get intrinsic See Invisible, Free Action or their level 35 Hold Life. ## Intrinsic Armour Class has been reduced to (plev / 2), down from (20 + (plev / 5)). Half-Elves: Racial activation is Detect Animals at level 15. Half-Trolls: All Half-Trolls, not just Warriors, get Slow Digestion with their level 15 Regeneration. Humans: Racial activation is Self Knowledge at level 15. Mindcrafters: XP required is at +30% (up from +25%). Various changes to their powers, noted in the Altered Spells section. Monks: The 'Monk Hack' has been enabled, allowing the intrinsic speed of Monks to be cumulative with that of Klackons and Sprites. With the amount of speed in ZAngband, I fail to see how this would be unbalancing. Nibelungs: Their racial activation information has been corrected. Paladins: Bonus melee attack at level 25. Bonus missile shot at level 35. +1 to hit and to damage every 10 levels. Priests: ## The penalty for using edged weapons (ie, Polearms, Axes or Swords) is now a *real* penalty of (-15,-15) instead of the (-2,-2) that no one ever really noticed. No more wielding Ringil for the final battle. :) Rangers: Bonus melee attack at level 25. Bonus shots with Short and Long Bows at levels 15, 30 and 45, instead of just at levels 20 and 40. +1 to hit and to damage every 10 levels. Nature magic only, no secondary realm. Begins with Short Bow instead of second spellbook. Rogues: All Rogues now start with a Dagger of Poisoning, not just those who choose the Death magical realm. ## Rogues gain 1 XP for successfully searching out a secret door or trap via the 's'earch command. Others gain nothing. Yes, Rogues should be rewarded for practicing what they're trained to do. ## Only Rogues gain XP for picking the locks on doors and chests. ## Other classes only get 1/2 of the normal XP gained for disarming traps. Skeletons: ## Begins the game at nightfall. Spectres: ## Begins the game at nightfall. ## No longer gains telepathy at level 35. ## Has permanent light. (ghostly creatures, as you know, tend to glow - I'll be looking at ways to have monsters generate light as well) ## Has Levitation. Sprites: Sprites now gain their 'sleeping dust' activation at level 8, with no change in cost. Vampires: ## No longer start with scrolls of Light, and start with a higher number of scrolls of Darkness. ## Begins the game at nightfall. ## Takes damage when wielding a torch or lantern, just like when wielding an artifact light - remember, no matter how many torches a movie vampire might have in their castle, they react rather negatively to having them close to their bodies. :) ## Gains Levitation at level 10. Warriors: ## When wearing body armour, Warriors gain an AC bonus equal to %50 of the armour's bace AC, rounded down. [think of it as being used to wearing armour, knowing how to best fit it on your body (lotsa straps and such, you know), and knowing the best ways to angle yourself when taking a blow to get the most out of your armour's protection - the type of thing that spellcasters never really had time to learn :] (took this idea from the Tunnels & Trolls RPG) Warrior-Magi: Bonus melee attacks at levels 25 and 50. 6 blows with same weight and multiplier restrictions as Warriors. Bonus missile shot at level 35. +1 to hit and to damage every 5 levels. Arcane magic only, no secondary realm. Begins with Hard Leather Armour instead of second spellbook. ##Weaponmasters: ## Weaponmasters are equal to Warriors, except for Strength (one less), a bit less in a couple of skills - except for Bows/Throw, wich is equal to that of a Warrior-Mage, and don't get a bonus for killing the dungeon-only spellbooks. ## Weaponmasters have chosen for them, at birth, one of the four melee weapon types (Hafted (blunt), Polearms, Axes, or Swords) and start out with a weapon of the proper type. ## Weaponmasters gain a bonus to-hit and to-dam equal to the player's level only when using a weapon of the type they specialize in. (see xtra1.c - if anyone can come up with a better system, mail me! :) [thanks to GSN for the suggestion on how to keep this from affecting bows & throwing - I probably never would've spotted something so simple on my own :] ## Weaponmasters gain extra blows when wielding a weapon in their specialty class (extra blows at levels 15, 30 and 45), but never have more than one blow when wielding other weapons. ## Gains Fear Resistance at level 35. ## No spellcasting. ## XP penalty of 30%. Yeeks: Their racial activation, Scare Monster, has been moved to level 5 and now has a cost of 10. Zombies: ## Begins the game at nightfall. -*-*-*- Altered Spells -*-*-*- The biggest change of all to a spell effect: Invulnerability does *NOT* prevent all damage, nor does it have a chance of being penetrated. Instead, Invulnerability reduces *all* damage to 1/9th of normal (cumulative with resistances and such, if I'm reading things right). Hate me yet? :) ##Priests who use non-blessed edged weapons, and characters who are stunned, can no longer get a 0% spell failure, no matter how high their spell-stat or level is. IE, Priests can no longer get away with using Ringil (or other kick-ass edged weapon) during the final battle - or any time before that, actually. :) The various branding spells can now be used on non-stacked items in the inventory and on the floor. Arcane: Has been fairly heavily re-written and is, I personally think, too good now to be paired with another realm. The new spell list is: Book 1 Book 3 ------ ------ Zap Teleport Detect Invisibility Stone to Mud Detect Monsters Ray of Light Blink Satisfy Hunger Light Area Magic Mapping Trap/Door Destruction Recharging Stinking Cloud Remove Curse Cure Light Wounds Cure Critical Wounds Book 2 Book 4 ------ ------ Detect Doors/Traps Elemental Protection (resist Fire/Cold/Elec/Acid) Phlogiston Prismatic Bolt (fires a random elemental bolt) Confuse Monster Identify Sleep Monster Teleport Away Detect Objects/Treasure Elemental Ball Cure Poison Detection See Invisible Word of Recall Cure Medium Wounds Clairvoyance Chaos: 'Mana Burst' now has a plev% chance of being a ball of *real* mana (GF_MANA instead of the normal GF_MISSILE). 'Touch of Confusion' becomes 'Demon Detection'. Level, cost and fail are unchanged. Life: ## 'Remove Fear' has been replaced by 'Spiritual Hammer', an early bolt of Holy Fire, with the same level, cost and fail as 'Remove Fear'. It begins at 3d4 damage and tops out at 12d4. Mindcraft: 'Precognition' now detects doors and stairs at level 5, with detect traps bumped to level 10, and full detection moves to level 35, up from 30. 'Minor Displacement' has moved its dimension door (targeted, short-ranged teleportation) effect to level 30 (from level 25). 'Major Displacement' now gives Teleport Other at level 50, instead of its original 'Banish' (teleport away all creatures in line of sight) effect. ## 'Psychometry' now gives Identify at level 30 and *Identify* at level 40. ## 'Mind Wave' now becomes a line-of-sight effect at level 40 (up from 25). Nature: 'Detect Creatures' has become 'Animal Detection'. ## 'Nature Awareness' also is reduced to detecting animals, but at player level 20 Elementals are detected as well. Sorcery: ## 'Detect Objects/Treasure' and 'Detect Enchantment' have been moved to the first two books, with costs, levels and fail rates remaining about the same. ## 'Detection True' has been moved to book 3 and dropped the 'True'. ## 'Identify True' has been renamed 'Insight' and also moved to book 3. Trump: 'Reset Recall' becomes 'Minor Divination' which detects traps, doors, stairs and normal monsters. -*-*-*- Other People's Work -*-*-*- (NOTE: I might have missed one or two, but no biggie. :) 1) Kieron Dunbar's Stormbringer patch, to put Stormy in the a_info & k_info text files instead of creating it on the fly. 2) Kieron's self-cursing items patch - items with the "AUTO_CURSE" flag will curse themselves when worn, and after a few turns, when uncursed. The type of curse [heavy or normal] depends on what other Cursed flags the item has - Stormbringer is now *very* expensive to swap out when you need to. :) 3) Kieron's store-quantity patch - shopkeepers will tell you they're full *before* you get asked how many items you want to sell. -*-*-*- Bugs -*-*-*- 01) There are too many potions in the game at the moment, so Potions of Clumsiness and Sickness cannot be generated via debug mode's item creation menus since the list runs out of symbols fairly quickly. :) It is not a priority to fix. 02) I still can't figure out why "b) dismiss pets" is being displayed as "b) ", ie, blanked out... 03) If you look t the entire monster list ['/' then CTRL-a] while the 'know all monster info' cheat is active, you will see the occasional blank monster (ie, The ('')/(''): [(r)ecall, ESC]). This is because there are still empty slots in r_info.txt, which I will eventually fill. 04) Like with Chaos Patrons, when you go to a 'p'revious character, the current Weaponmaster specialty remains, instead of restoring the older character's specialty. If you then continue rolling, a new specialty will be randomly chosen, of course. Not worth the effort to fix, IMHO.