Sil-quirk (now at v1.5.0!)

[getter77]

https://github.com/sil-quirk/sil-q/releases
http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=8583

There are Windows binaries as well as Linux. No Mac, sorry, and I haven't committed my changes to the Windows makefiles to get mingw working.

CHANGELOG:

    Throwing Mastery and Momentum are gone.
    Knock Back now lives where Throwing Mastery used to. If people like it there it stays as is. If they don't I'll consider how it may be buffed.
    Impale, which lets you impale through two aligned enemies at once with a polearm or greatsword, is where Momentum was. I like this. It's staying.
    Smashing Blow is where Knock Back was; it helps weapons to break through armor. This isn't super exciting. If people find it useful it stays.
    Whirlwind Attack is no longer restricted by walls.
    This may be too good. We'll have to find out. If it is too good, there are ways of weakening it from here which should make it still be playable e.g. diminishing accuracy as the player attacks more enemies, or having it stop on the first hit. As it was though it was more fun than useful.
    Cruel Blow and Crippling Shot have been rebalanced to connect more at lower critical levels and less at higher critical levels. More work may be needed.
    Filthy rags are gone.
    Strength and Song of Freedom prerequisites are gone.
    On early levels monsters are a little less alert.
    Forges should now appear at 100, 300, 500, 700 and 900 feet. Other forges may be generated as well.
    Quarterstaffs are now 2d4.
    Quarterstaffs of Vaulting, Warhammers of Crushing, polearms of Piercing all added. Rings of Damage are now Rings of Archery (these are an actual thing, google thumb ring). Daggers of Murder are stealthy.
    Channeling now auto-identifies staves and lets you get 2x as many charges out of them.
    Non-unique monsters scared from the level net you experience.
    THIS BREAKS SAVEFILE COMPATIBILITY! SORRY!
    I will try to break savefiles as seldom as possible - but this boosts fear-based gameplay too much to not include.
    Lorien and Mastery slightly boosted (effect is about +2 Song).
    Slow Poison is now Antidote, and cures you.

Good to see a bit of rumbling in Sil while the base has been a fixed target for awhile now.   

[getter77]

Release 4

Lots going on in this update.

Smithing has had a substantial reworking. Artistry is gone. You can now modify item stats simply from having Weaponsmith or Armoursmith. It's not quite as cheap as it was. Slays are cheaper, sustains are cheaper, resistances are cheaper; sharpness is more expensive. Abilities cost less experience at the lower end and more at the higher end; they're very slightly cheaper to add. There have been a lot of little tweaks, please play around and see what you think.

Expertise is the new smithing skill. It reduces your costs by half, rounding down. A lot of things that you'd otherwise only craft with a Herb of Restoration handy are now more easily available once you have the skill.

Smashing Blow is gone for something more interesting: Coup de Grace. It's now possible to satisfyingly murder enemies whose health is less than your combined strength and dexterity without any prospect of them escaping. You can use this to finish off almost dead enemies or swat a fragile evasive thing. At the moment there are no prerequisites; I rely on your feedback to let me know how much balancing it will need.

Lorekeeper and Loremaster are gone. Alchemy takes up the slack for identifying potions and herbs and staves, and tells you when things are cursed. Someone capable of enchanting items with Enchantment can tell precisely what enchantments are present on an item. Forewarned tells you all about enemy stats, and adds a hefty bonus of 1/4 your Perception to your Evasion - provided you've invested more into the former than the latter.

Skeletons are searchable. Orc skeletons will give you fairly terrible stuff which will probably still be worth considering at 50 feet. Other skeletons may do better for you.

Light levels give bonuses to perception for traps and secret doors. The worst traps (acid and false floors) are easier to disarm than before.

Horns have been overhauled. They now work like breath weapons. In particular Horns of Force behave quite differently (and IMO more usefully) than they did.

Daggers and sceptres and crowns are now more likely to have enchantments on. Longswords and bastard swords will be a little rarer early on.

Artifact rarity has been rebalanced a bit. Some non-broken artifacts have been made less rare, but artifacts are rarer in general.

Rog's hammer is in. It is suitably powerful, but is not without dangers.

Various other bugfixes are in: monster protection is applied to earthquakes, !a inscription no longer lets you spot invisible monsters, Gorthaur is back to summoning Oathwraiths.

Broken swords are out. A new artifact spear is in.

Enjoy.


Blunt weapons do bonus damage against armour. Armour only absorbs 3/4 of the damage the blunt weapon deals - this is better than 25% Sharpness where the amount of damage you would do is less than the armour roll. Damage dice remain low to compensate.

Whirlwind attack tweaked further; it now has a 50% chance of halting every time you deal damage.

Careful Shot is now replaced by Rout, aim with +5 to hit against fleeing enemies. This gives casual archers a good tool particularly in the early game, but is unlikely to be overpowered late on.

Merged Clarity, Mind over Body and Resist Fear into a new skill, Indomitable.

Moved Strength in Adversity to Mind over Body's slot. It now boosts Dex as well.

New skill - Defiance - saves you from a death-blow and sets your current and max HP equal to your Will.

256-colour terminal support.

mpa-sil screen centering fix merged.

Gorged status is gone. Eating more than you can stomach only spurs your digestion to new heights (you still shouldn't eat all your food at once, but you'll manage to get that herb or potion in when full).

Artifact with Throwing Mastery replaced.

Concentration prerequisite removed.

Song of Este prerequisite removed. Song of Este boosted a little. Now sustains stats as well. This is a temporary fix until the Song tree can be more properly reworked.

Deathblades gone, two new orc uniques added.

[getter77]

Release 5

Morgoth is still killable. But probably not by you.

Morgoth is much tougher, and gets harder to kill as he gets more damaged. Someone will doubtless manage to kill him sooner or later, but a three-sil victory with Morgoth alive is probably easier than a Morgoth kill now. Getting a Sil and getting out is definitely easier. The throne room enemies crowd you less at the start, Morgoth's crown takes less to knock off, and the Sils yield themselves up to three different tests, only one of which is helped by Sharpness. When fleeing to the surface, all the stairs are upshafts and downshafts, going 100 ft at a time and there are twice as many of them.

Song of Slaying has gone away. Song of Sharpness has gone away. Song of Este has gone away (this I was more torn on, but I don't think I've heard of anyone using it since it was last buffed).

What's new?

Song of Challenge makes enemies too aggressive to think straight. This means archers and scouts will close to melee range, and enemies will pile into corridors after you without waiting to flank you. Of course, making everyone who can hear you upset and aggressive probably has some downsides, but I can't think what they might be.

Song of Thresholds lets you turn every door into a Glyph of Warding. The better you sing, the better your ward. The best warding is nearly unbreakable. You also gain a bonus to Evasion when defending a threshold.

Song of Delvings slowly reveals the permanent features of the map around you, along with any creatures of stone that might be slinking through those rocky passages.

Song of Aule has more of a forge flavour, and also grants resist fire.

Vengeance is a skill that replaces Defiance on the Will tree; it grants you an extra damage die when you get injured in melee. It goes away when you score a successful hit, and I'm afraid you can't stack damage dice by getting hit a lot; my testing confirmed that that got very broken very fast.

Leaping now jumps all traps except roosts and webs.

Mewlips no longer have map rot. They should still present some challenge.

Horns of Blasting damage creatures of stone.

Lug is a bit less lethal again.

There are other minor bugfixes but probably not in areas many people noticed.

Savefiles are broken between version and now save as 1.3.2 - this is so anyone actually killing Morgoth now has their bragging rights visible from the version.

[getter77]

Release 7

A few bugfixes, a few tweaks, some new toys.

Perhaps the most exciting new toy for some will be the addition of the [ and ] key bindings - these show all objects and monsters within line of sight or on screen.

Smithing has lost Song of Aule, but has gained more abilities to put on artefacts, cheaper slays, resists, damage and protection, and negative effects now act to discount standard ego items. This is a further attempt at making Smithing more viable in the mid-game and less broken in the end-game.

Coup de Grace has moved to Stealth; given the first Morgoth kill was a stealth character, it could be seen as odd that this is effectively powering up Stealth. I suspect though that the larger factors in that victory were the Smithing and the Songs and the new skill would not have made a huge difference; this may make more combat-oriented stealth more viable.

Melee characters have a couple of powerful new toys in Anticipate and Song of Valour. Morgoth has been buffed a little to compensate.

There are new artefacts, a new curse and a new effect. Also a new spider.

Bugfixes:

    Recharging staff exploit fixed.
    Morgoth angering now processes before mastery or Lorien effects.
    Whirlwind Attack works with Follow-Through (and also Rapid Attack).
    Super-tunneling gone from kemenrauko and nameless ones - they now tunnel more slowly than you walk.


Tweaks:

    Mewlip blind is weakened, Balcmeg and Lug will and perception are toned down.
    Made giants throw boulders a little more often.
    Monster perception adjustment for early levels tweaked slightly - it was +3 for the first 5 levels down to +0 for the last 5, now it runs +2 to -1. I felt after making pacifism runs in original Sil that +3 was a lot.
    Various smithing changes. Weaponsmithing has gained from cheaper damage sides and slays. The major resists have got cheaper, and many more abilities are now available in places that better match artifacts.
    Negative effects on non-artefact items now reduce smithing costs, so e.g. a Shadow Cloak of Winter's Chill is worth making.
    The prerequisites on Forewarned were removed.
    Ring of Venom's End drops earlier, and Daggers of Accompaniment now grant +EV (they're parrying daggers after all).


New toys:

    Song of Delvings drops to 6, replacing Song of Aule. It works faster, detects secret doors and traps, and reduces tunneling difficulty.
    Song of Valour comes in at 10 (I wanted to call it Song of Breathless Deeds but the name wouldn't fit). It increases Strength and Dexterity by 3, may stun enemies with Will below your Song score, and drains health as well as voice.
    Coup de Grace moved to Stealth, costing 11 points and moving the Dex point to 12. It now provides guaranteed kills on enemies with HP under your stealth score.
    New melee skill: Anticipate, requires 12 Melee - rerolls misses up to twice against aggressive opponents. Requires Power or Song of Challenge.
    New spider quite early on.
    [ and ] show lists of monsters and objects; pressed twice they toggle between viewing line-of-sight and everything on screen.
    New effect: cheat death. Saves you from a fatal blow at 1 HP, curing negative status effects and giving you the next move. Amulets of Adornment are now Amulets of Last Chances.
    New curse: betrayal. New artefacts added. Swords and shields grow heavy and lay you open to maximum damage from a blow, helms fall over your eyes and blind you, rings and amulets slip from your finger and neck and alert all your surrounding enemies. They're all primed to pick the worst moment for this, though the curse will not kill you by itself and is triggered rarely.

Subtlety now makes Crits an extra point cheaper. Rings of Archery have become Rings of Cowardice. Robes of Permanence have gone, armour of Nogrod has arrived (I renamed the great axe). Regeneration no longer costs hunger when you're not healing.

Sils are very much easier to cut. Morgoth is easier to hurt, but gets angrier and more dangerous. He also gets angrier and more dangerous the more Sils you take. The new songs have all been upgraded a little bit and Rout has been weakened some.

Bugfixes and convenience:

    weird and random earthquakes should be gone now
    guaranteed forges should be always guaranteed
    mithril smelting in used forges is in
    recognise healing potions when healthy
    broken door glyph is changed to a grey ' as per mpa-sil
    passive identification is much faster
    forges are guaranteed to have 3 uses minimum
    smithing menu fixed
    Song of Aule mentions that it grants rFire
    mpa-sil dump additions are in
    using empty staves or failing to pick things up no longer wastes a turn

[getter77]

v1.4.1

A new release, just in time for the holidays!

Archery has been overhauled. Dedication and Deadly Hail made it from the beta. Running Shot and Steady Hands didn't. Two new skills replace them, Blessing of Orome and Fletchery. I have wavered back and forth on how powerful Blessing of Orome is. Currently it's placed quite close to the start, skills-wise, because it's easier to get people to investigate it if it only takes a small investment.

The first level has also been overhauled, and has a new enemy and new terrain which both feed into Sil's light-matters theme. The new terrain may occur occasionally a little deeper in the dungeon, becoming rarer the deeper you get.

There are a number of quality of life improvements - starting with a sword equipped, staircases not falling through if you take them too fast on the ascent, staves no longer require a Will check, it's less likely to lose loot dropped on a crowded floor. There are many little bugfixes including level generation trying harder to generate a route downward that isn't blocked by a chasm and Song of Oaths not crashing the game.

Morgoth will be a little more challenging on the ascent - he arrives on the level a little closer to you than he did before. The more Sils you have the more closely he will pursue you.

Play. Enjoy. Have a merry Christmas.

[getter77]

v1.4.2

In short:

    Feedback from Scatha's review of Sil-Q has been incorporated.
    The Songs tree has been substantially overhauled, some new songs have been added, and some existing songs are cheaper.
    Melee has a new skill replacing Anticipate - Smite - and the order of the skills has been adjusted so less powerful skills such as Impale and Whirlwind Attack come earlier in the tree.
    Archery has a number of skill changes as it remained somewhat overpowered, and bow dice have also been changed for longbows and dragon-horn bows. Arrows are found in smaller quantities, but break less often than before. This should make inventory a little less tight for archers.
    Items have undergone a number of changes.
    Various smithing tweaks have been made. Among these, damage sides have been removed from rings and gloves and abilities are cheaper to smith onto artifacts than before.
    Morgoth is easier to kill. His regeneration and HP have been greatly reduced, but he has more protection than he did previously and hits more accurately and harder.
    Elves now get a free song skill and a bonus to archery instead of a free archery skill and a bonus to swordfighting.

- Feedback from Scatha incorporated
   - XP for scaring monsters removed
      - this breaks savefiles
      - it wasn't a lot of XP, but it wasn't very elegant either
   - Expertise and Artifice swap places
   - Song of Overwhelming retired
   - Stealth/perception tweak for the player removed. Monsters have been tweaked individually.
   - Anticipate removed for inelegance, replaced by Smite
   - Whirlwind attack now works like attacking while enraged
   - Blunt weapon bonus removed
   - Phantoms and brood spiders now a little stronger and deeper, Mewlips weakened, may appear at 50'

- Songs revised substantially
   - new songs: Whetting and Staunching
   - costs and prerequisites much overhauled
   - Mastery slightly weakened to balance being cheaper

- Elves now get song affinity and bow proficiency, losing blade proficiency and bow affinity

- Melee skills updated
   - Whirlwind Attack and Impale made cheaper
   - Zone of Control, Rapid Attack and Two Weapon Fighting now are more expensive

- Archery updated again
   - Rout boosted
   - Blessing of Orome replaced by Puncture, which moves further up the tree
   - Dedication replaced by Ambush
   - Bow damage reduced for longbows
   - Dragon-horn bows now 4 dice
   - Arrows now break half as often
   - Arrow drops reduced

- Items tweaked
   - Staffs improved in damage, reduced in weight
   - Warhammer accuracy improved
   - Sceptres gone
   - Crowns are now artefact only
   - Mithril greatswords gain 1 damage side and lose 1 accuracy
   - Throwing axes are replaced by handaxes
   - Majesty and Slumber staves have an improved Will bonus
   - Many weapon weights changed

- Smithing changes
   - Smithing now cannot make a weapon heavier or lighter than the normal drop range
   - Adding accuracy to weapons cheaper, damage a little more expensive
   - Damage sides on rings and gloves are no longer smithable
   - Damage sides can be smithed onto shields now
   - Smithing arrows now yields half as many
   - Poison and sharpness on arrows tweaked since damage drop has made sharpness more valuable
   - Abilities cheaper to smith, need only half as much experience

- New egos and new effects
   - Standfast - resist being moved by enemies
   - Accuracy - reroll missed attacks

- Morgoth weakened
   - Regeneration reduced
   - HP reduced
   - Almost killing him makes him maximally angry whether you grab Sils or not
   - He is more dangerous - he hits for more damage and has more armour

- Gender field removed from character sheet

- Chest jewellery variety improved

- Various bugfixes

[getter77]

v1.5.0

Some highlights are:

    Sil-Q now has an excellent new tileset designed by MicroChasm
    Much improved Mac support thanks to backwardsEric
    Smithing has been rebalanced to reduce the need for smithing items to help with later smithing
    Guaranteed forges now exist at 100', 300' and 500'
    The Will tree has seen some reworking to replace passive protective skills with more interesting choices
    New egos, enemies, and effects added
    Score now takes into account the increased difficulty of playing as Naugrim, Sindar or Edain

It is not advised to use savefiles from the previous betas with the stable version. This may result in strange things happening with minimum depth.


- Tiles are now supported on Linux, Windows and Mac
    - This uses a new tileset designed by MicroChasm

- New manual by MicroChasm

- Ability changes
    - Melee
        - Smite now shows main attack in red to make it clear it is active
    - Archery
        - Puncture buffed from 3 to 5
        - Crippling Shot buffed
    - Evasion
        - Blocking changed, buffed
    - Stealth
        - Cruel Blow buffed
    - Perception
        - Forewarned replaced with Outwit (Scatha feedback)
        - Master Hunter buffed - bonus doubled
    - Will
        - Tree rearranged, Curse Breaking at bottom
        - Hardiness and Critical Resistance removed
        - Oath and Formidable added
        - Inner Light buffed - bonus doubled
    - Song
        - Song of Whetting removed
        - Song of Slaying added
            - This is mechanically different to the old Song of Slaying
        - Song of Mastery buffed, wider range of outcomes
        - Song of Staying Will bonus halved

Smithing changes
    - +Smithing items removed
    - Curses removed from artifact creation
    - Smithing costs reduced to compensate
    - Guaranteed forges now at the first entrance to or below:
        100', 300', 500'

- New egos and new effects
   - Resist Bleeding - as it says
    - Medic - increases health gained from healing items
    - Avoid Traps - avoids traps (but not webs, roosts or pits)
    - Cumbersome - the weapon does not get critical hits
    - Many new egos
    - Egos now conform better to weapon types e.g. curved swords have
      Angband rather than elven egos
    - Horn of Force can remove a certain crown
    - Staff of Earthquakes replaced by Staff of Dismay

- Objects tweaked
    - Handaxes now 4d2 instead of 5d1

- Lights
    - Mallorn torches added
    - Feanorian lamps buffed
    - Items on the floor no longer shed light by themselves
        - this is to avoid the behaviour where experienced players carried
          many lamps to debuff light sensitive foes

- New enemies
    - Attercops, spectres, wraiths
    - Unmourned removed
    - Human and elven thralls added as well as orcish thrallmasters
    - Human and elven thralls may request player character aid
    - Several enemies can now rally their escort, boosting morale

- Depth clock tweaked
    - Slightly more aggressive in the endgame
    - Responds to player - laggards get more time, divers a little less

- Score mechanism updated
    - Extra column in score between turn count and sils
    - 1 point for 5K start
    - 2 points for following iron man rules (formally or not)
    - 3 points for playing Naugrim or Sindar
    - 5 points for playing Edain

- Tutorial updated for Sil-Q abilities

- Many many bugfixes