Any complex Roguelikes?

[jetex1911]

I've been playing roguelikes ever since I found Dwarf Fortress, and currently play Dwarf Fortress and Cataclysm. I have a question, Are there any Complex Roguelikes, like Dwarf Fortress is? I would prefer to attack my enemies by stabbing their heads with my iron dagger, impaling their brain, instead of just attacking them with it. The more complex and immersive it is, the better.

[Rabiat]

Depending on what you mean by complex, I'd suggest you try NetHack, ADOM, or Incursion.

[corremn]

Complex combat is not really done that much.  You might like IVANs limb system or the internal complexity of the aforementioned Incursion.  While Crawls combat is not complex it excels at providing unique combat experience depending on what play-style you go for, i.e stealthy assassins, berzerking warriors etc. (it is also one of the less forgiving RLs around).

Incursion has a high overall complexity, but you wont recieve text saying "You *stab* the orc in his right eye with your rusty iron dagger. The orc is blinded. The orc goes berzerk! The orc *wildly misses* your right leg with his hand axe. The orc *smashes* your left arm with his bloody hand axe.  Your arm flies off! You are bleeding!"

[getter77]

Descension is probably one to keep tabs on, as it is much inspired by Dwarf Fortress on the front of combat and others.

http://descensionthegame.com/pages/news.html

[Psiweapon]

If with "complex" you mean "gore masochism by the player" definitely go for Ivan.

[Vanguard]

IVAN is the only one I know of that has locational damage, other than Dwarf Fortress.  If it's just general complexity you want, ADOM and Nethack are both good choices.  Both are packed full of crazy obscura that most players will never find without using spoilers.

[Z]

Well, speaking of bodyparts, GearHead should be mentioned too. You could attach whatever body parts you wanted to your mecha.

[jetex1911]

IVAN is the only one I know of that has locational damage, other than Dwarf Fortress.  If it's just general complexity you want, ADOM and Nethack are both good choices.  Both are packed full of crazy obscura that most players will never find without using spoilers.

Actually, Roguelikes like this are the kinds i like.

[Z]

Actually, Roguelikes like this are the kinds i like.

Of IVAN kind or of ADOM kind?

Yet another kind of complexity is emergent complexity, where rules are (ideally) quite simple and known to the player, but they can interact in complex ways, and the player has to find out the best way of combining things. The classical board games like Chess or Go would be a good example of such emergent complexity. I think my Hydra Slayer ranks quite high in this category. Other good games that I think are good in this are ChessRogue, UNSTOPPABLE, Mage Guild, Desktop Dungeons (semi-roguelike), possibly IVAN, ADOM, Spelunky, DCSS...

[Skeletor]

ADOM and Nethack [..] are packed full of crazy obscura that most players will never find without using spoilers.

Absolutely true for Nethack, but I wouldn't say spoilers are necessary to win Adom.

[Darren Grey]

That's not what he said either.  It is true that there are many hidden things in ADOM that you're unlikely to easily find without spoilers, though they're certainly not all needed to play the game.  Due to the source being closed there are still new things people are finding out to this day, even though the game hasn't been updated in 10 years.