PosChengband (now at beta v7.0.2)

[getter77]

https://sites.google.com/site/poschengband/
http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=5848

PosChengband is a roguelike dungeon adventure game.

The purpose of the game is to defeat the dreaded Serpent of Chaos. You may play a variety of races including elves, hobbits, dwarves, half giants, half trolls and even various monster races. You may play a variety of classes including hack and slash warriors or spell wielding mages. The game is littered with powerful and rare artifacts to assist you on your challenging quest. But the road is long. The enemy's forces have grown numerous and fester in the deep. Perhaps death awaits you? Perhaps glory? Are you up for the challenge?

As the name implies, PosChengband attempts a merger Chengband with ideas from Posband and RePosBand.  However, many of the features, races and classes of Chengband have been extensively modified and quite a few of the new Chengband classes have been redesigned from scratch. So it seemed like a completely new variant was in order.


So, what is it? First and foremost it is a Chengband derivative, though with rather extensive changes. Enough to warrant it being a completely new variant in my opinion. Most races and classes have been altered in at least minor ways and quite a few classes were completely redesigned. Dual wielding has been completely redesigned. There is a new resistance system. Player hitpoint evolution has changed and ... I've made too many changes to remember them all at the moment!

But the big change is the addition of Posband style monster races. Have you ever wanted to play as a Gelatinous Cube? As a Dragon? As a Phase Spider? If you are like me, then the answer is a resounding Yes! At the moment I've added 10 new monster races (Angel, Beholder, Demon, Dragon, Giant, Hound, Jelly, Lich, Spider and Xorn) and a few more will be coming shortly. Like Posband, each monster race (excepting Xorn) has a boss monster which will drop a special racial artifact.

[getter77]

v1.0.4

I keep telling myself to wait until I clean up the help files ... someday.

Some of the changes include:
* Munchkin personality is less of a munchkin
* Touch of Confusion no longer confuses a dead foe for innate attacks.
* Cunning Strike (Clubmaster) now always has a chance to stun.
* Knockback is now 2 sqaures for each hit (Polearm master).
* Fleet of Foot is marginally improved (Still not as good as Chengband, though).
* Monster races get permanent heroism after slaying their boss.
* Armageddon damage amounts dialed down for Inertia and Disintegration breaths.
* Kamikaze Warrior's weaponmastery now works.
* Invulnerability and Berserk Rage now give total immunity to fear.
* Weird Mind no longer lies in the player dump (i.e., you don't get resist confusion).
* Jellies are now invulnerable to hunger based attacks.
* Player is far less likely to be insta-knocked out by monster criticals (i.e., going from no stun status to knocked out from a single blow).
* New Demigod Talent: Black Marketeer.
* When choosing a demigod talent, there is now a browse feature. The descriptions should be accurate. You won't get any powers that aren't at least hinted at in the descriptions.
* Added a prompt for the store buyout option. You are only prompted if "Disturb Minor" is turned on, though.
* Demigod parentage descriptions should now be accurate. You won't get any powers that aren't at least hinted at in the descriptions.
* Ego items of Power Throwing now enhance Club Toss and Dagger Toss.
* Jellies can now get up to 7 blows. They get a more favorable multiplier for calculating number of blows since they cannot use two "hands" to wield weapons.
* Demigods always get their family artifact from slaying their parent.
* Fixed bug with wielding heavy weapons described above.

[getter77]

v1.0.5

* Added new class: The Mystic. (Available under the Martial Arts birth option).
* Monks and Forcetrainers now get their correct number of blows.
* Monks and Forcetrainers now get the two-handed martial arts bonus.
* Maulers should be working now

[getter77]

v1.0.8

* Fixed a nasty bug for Shadow-Fairy light vulnerability.
* Added Hydras as a player monster race just so this release would have some heft. Hydras can get up to 5 helmet and amulet equipment slots, and up to 11 attacks per round. Getting enough speed for the endgame might be problematic, though. The boss is The Lernean Hydra and the reward was suggested by Djabanete a long time ago.

* Capture Balls should now be working. Note: Capture Balls go in your shield slot, so if you play a monster race that cannot use shields, then you cannot use Capture Balls either.

* Rebalanced the Hydra monster race.

* Added a new monster race: The Leprechaun. Leprechauns start the game with a pot of gold, possess the luck of the Irish, are fast and stealthy. Many of their powers are influenced by how much gold they have on hand. But they are rather small and weak. If the leprechaun does not wield a normal weapon, then they have low damage innate attacks that pilfer items and gold from their foes.

[getter77]

v1.0.9

* Crimson now gives Shards resistance rather than Nether
* Olympians are now more common (since they are confined to Mt. Olympus)
* Weaponmaster Old Castle rewards were all reversed, so you got the high reward 80% of the time rather than 20%. Fixed.
* Subtle Casting and Peerless Sniper now never trigger monster retaliation.
* New demigod powers: Speed Reader and Fell Sorcery.
* Snotlings are now only -5 Chr (and 45% xp rather than 35%)
* Fear is less difficult early on.
* Artifact rings are now (slightly) more powerful
* Vanilla Town gets no random quests.
* Vanilla Town now restocks stores normally.

[getter77]

v1.0.17

* Weapon Info now displays stats required for your next attack (if possible). This works for both normal melee characters and for monster races with innate attacks. It does not yet work for monks and martial arts.
* Hounds can now where helmets. If you are upgrading an existing hound, you may find your boots in the helmet slot. Just take them off and re-equip them.
* Adjusted Hound speed bonuses down a bit.
* Added new Dog Collar artifacts: Wolf, Fang and Grip. Only Hounds may wear dog collars.
* I made a few changes to Hounds giving them extra speed per evolution (starting with Fire/Cold/etc) as well as a smidgen more melee damage.
* This release fleshes out the Demon monster race adding new 3 new forms: Tanar'ri, Cyberdemon, and Servant of Khorne.
* Brought back offensive scrolls (cf the Speed Reader demigod power for a combo).
* Added a new uber-rare, uber-powerful amulet type.
* Added rods of escaping.
* The Trump Card now activates for teleport every turn.
* The Armageddon Stone now activates for destruction (Perhaps jellies now have a chance?)
* Cyberdemon playtest changes.
* All monster races have had their skills redone. Skills are generally class based while monster races are race based, so I recoded the skill system to accommodate the monster races. In the process, I think many monster races had too much fighting prowess, so they have been suitably adjusted.
This release adds trolls to the list of player monster races. Another strong melee race, trolls have amazing powers of regeneration. In addition, players may choose from the following subtypes:
* Ettin: Two headed trolls that get extra amulet and helmet slots.
* Storm Troll: A fast troll with access to elemental attack spells.
* Spirit Troll: A passwall troll.
* Troll King: A fast troll with an extra damage bonus in melee.
The boss monster for trolls is Ulik the Troll, of course!

Also, I toned down Death Scythes a bit, but they are still best avoided.

Jellies have been redone. Please do not upgrade existing jellies from older releases!
* Jellies can now read scrolls (Suspend you disbelief ... Nobody has ever heard a jelly, so its hard to understand how they do it). Of course, their device skills are really bad.
* Jellies lose 2 equipment slots and 1 max attack.
* Jellies lose 10% of their hp.
* Trolls start more quickly. Their starting club is now only 10 lbs, they get a bite attack, and they also start with a ring of damage +7. So, they kick butt early on
* Trolls now get a small AC bonus.
* (Defender) weapons are now bipolar. Sometimes they cover resist base. Sometimes, they offer multiple high resistances.
* Slaying weapons are now (Armageddon). Instead of only offering poison brands, they now may offer any elemental brand.
* Weapons of sharpness are now more useful.
* Added Rings of Extra Might (for shooting).
* Fixed Rage-Mage encumbrance.
* Removed the Virtue system
* Golems regain Stone Skin
* Mindcrafter Precognition no longer so costly
* Fixed Extra Might display bug
* Slaying weapons (Armageddon) are no longer heavier than normal.
* Fixed character dump for pets. Riding mount is now displayed properly.
* Leprechauns lose a bit of stealth
* Ares demigods now prorate their damage boost when dual wielding
* Equipment *identifies* at birth
* Fixed major bug with Troll AC.
* Fixed equipment bug when restarting a Servant of Khorne.

[getter77]

v1.0.19

I added a new class: The Devicemaster

The Devicemaster is the absolute best class when using magical devices (wands, rods and staves). In addition they choose to specialize in a particular class of devices and gain extra powers for their speciality. These include extra damage, increased speed of activation, the ability to power the device without using charges, the ability to move charges from one device to another and the ability to use multiple charges at once in an act of desperation.

Other changes include some minor game balance tweaks. For example, many monster races now have slightly less hitpoints.

* Race/Class stat bonuses restored to Hengband/Chengband values. Helpfiles regenerated to reflect changes.
* Everybody gets extra starting hitpoints, just like in Hengband. Added a "BHP" column to the helpfiles (Base Hitpoints).
* Massively changed the hitpoint calculation. Hitpoints are no longer so backloaded, but the progression is still heavily non-linear.
* Devicemaster starting equipment nerfed. Offensive wands replaced with a single device depending on their speciality. They also start with a wand of magic missiles.
* Rodmasters buffed. They get double the device power of other devicemasters (up to +50%).
* Added Rods of Mana Bolts.
* Made Rods of Mana Balls more shallow.
* Decreased costs of Gamble Shop for Scrolls, Staves, Wands and Rods
* Sleep Monster is now more powerful.

[getter77]

v1.0.21

-This release adds 2 new specialities for the Devicemaster: Potions and Scrolls. Both of these subclasses can get 5 blows max instead of the normal 4 for this class since their aren't many offensive scrolls, and aren't any offensive potions (other than chucking death or detonations, but you don't want to risk carrying those in your inventory!). The standard devicemaster adjustments apply: enhanced power with potions/scrolls, the ability to use these objects much more quickly, the ability to preserve the objects so they are not always consumed, the ability to transfer "charges" from one object type to another and the ability to consume multiple items in a stack in an act of desperation for increased effectiveness.

The rules on transfer (which is hard to balance, obviously) are that you can only transfer from source objects of a greater or equal depth from the destination objects. Also, you can't choose worthless source objects (like the relatively deep scrolls of curse weapon/armor).

Anyway, I've playtested the potion speciality a bit and the scroll speciality not at all, so I'm sure these will need some adjustments down the road.

-This release fixes a serious bug with potions of polymorph causing the program to hang!

In addition, I brought back the virtue system.
*It is now optional with a birth option (enable_virtues).
*If you upgrade a savefile from before the version where I removed the virtue system, the game should keep your virtues intact and leave the virtue system enabled, but you might want to try to upgrade with a backup of your save file just in case.
* If you upgrade a savefile from a version that did not have virtues, then the virtue system should be turned off.
* If you start a new savefile, virtues will be on by default, but you can turn them off by pressing '='.
* The player now receives messages whenever they perform actions that affect one of their virtues. Messages are displayed as long as the disturb_minor option is turned on. Otherwise they are suppressed.
* All of the virtues now have minor gameplay effects. I can provide spoilers if desired, but none of the effects are very strong so all may be safely ignored if desired.

Finally, I did some minor work on improving the helpfiles, especially MonsterRaces.txt. This file now gives stat and skill breakdowns for each evolutionary step, but there are still a few problems with the file. For example, hounds evolve randomly so the races listed are random ones in each given tier. But it is still an improvement over the last release

[getter77]

v1.0.22

[1] Tweaked Berserker dual wielding. Normally, dual wielding effectiveness is extremely sensitive to weapon weight. But forcing a berserker to dual wield daggers is just plain silly. They may even dual wield very heavy weapons quite effectively now.

[2] Compiling on Linux: I removed some duplicate typedefs that were causing compile errors on some versions of gcc.

[3] Object Inspection Changes
[3.1] Inspecting unidentified armors, weapons and ammo now gives the description.
[3.2] Inspecting any identified object always gives the description. For ego items, it also tells you "known powers" but hints that there might be some hidden powers as well.
[3.3] Of course, inspecting *identified* objects works as before.

[4] Stone of Lore no longer activates. Instead, it auto identifies objects underfoot.

[5] Pseudo-Identify changes. These are experimental, so I'm looking for feedback.
[5.1] Pack/Equipment pseudo-id now speeds up exponentially with level. It becomes twice as fast for every 5 experience levels. At CL35, it is automatic (except for the 1 in 5 pack check), but this is somewhat unnecessary since
[5.2] All players get strong pseudo-id underfoot at CL35.

[getter77]

v1.0.24

* Sorcerers use Charisma for Eat Magic power.
* Options for leave_excellent and leave_good removed.
* Fixed bug with Cult of Personality (Level generation was using summon monster code to build certain packs)
* Travel command (`) now respects delay option.
* Monsters now pursue the player more aggressively (i.e., I increased the flow depth for monsters pursuing the player by 'sound').
* Death Beasts no longer show up in nests (hounds or animals).
* Monster regeneration caps at 400hp (was 600hp).
* Liches gain Ice Bolt.
* Player monster races now start with one flavorful virtue.
* New normal player race: The Centaur. They are half human and half horse, of course. I decided that while they may wear body armor, they get reduced AC bonus since they may only equip the breast plate (upper body part). They do gain full resists and other bonuses. Also, they are unable to wear any boots, so effectively lose an equipment slot. To compensate, they gain extra attacks with their hooves and move with extra speed as they gain experience. They also have a Jump power that acts as a short range, line of sight Dimension Door.

[getter77]

v1.0.25

* Fixed monk retaliation bug. Players with innate attacks (from mutations or racial bonuses) would get extra blows whenever a retaliation was triggered.

* Fixed bug inspecting town items that the player is not yet aware of (i.e., that the player has not yet found in the dungeon).

* Fixed display bug in weapon info screen. When listing stats needed for the next attack, the display was not counting any extra blows from the weapon itself. So, if you had 5 current blows you would be told that you could increase your attacks to 4 with better stats

* And the big change: Added Fame and Artifact Reforging from Posband. This is liable to affect game balance in a big way. Also, if you upgrade an existing character you will still start out with no fame, meaning that the reforge option might be blocked for some time. The player may increase their fame by killing uniques, completing quests, completing dungeons and returning wanted corpses. Of course, failing quests is very bad for your reputation. Ask about at the Inn if the Inn Keeper has heard of you and you will get some idea as to how you are progressing. Once you have enough fame (and enough gold), you may reforge an existing artifact at the Warrior's Guild in Morivant.

.26

For this version, I added a new monster race: Elementals. They have humanoid bodies and powers and abilities that I tried to make as flavorful as possible. For example, Earth Elementals are slow, have high AC, are strong, are good fighters, have poor dex, can attack with shard based powers (think hurling clods of earth), gain powers like stoneskin, earthquake, stone to mud and sense surroundings. Air Elementals are lightning based, incredibly fast, etc. Its all new, so feedback and ideas for flavorful racial powers are always welcome.

[getter77]

v1.0.32

* Elementals now start with better equipment (In particular, they no longer start with stuff that gets insta-ruined!).

* Added more Elemental flavor: Water, Fire and Earth get a "healing" type spell, provided they are in their element.

* Added more Elemental flavor: Water, Fire and Earth now move quickly in their element.

* Winning/Losing in the Arena now affects player fame. Really, there is no longer any excuse for players being unable to reforge artifacts rather early on, unless they habitually fail quests!

* Reforging is now much cheaper. Minimum cost is 250,000gp rather than 1,000,000gp. But target scoring is tighter, so you are unlikely to get something significantly better than what you start with, and are likely to be considerably poorer to boot!

* Fixed bug when attacking monsters inside a wall.
* Monsters with innate attacks can now benefit from extra attacks.
* Added new monster race: The Death Sword. (Thanks to Arjen). This particular monster race is unable to wear any equipment. Instead, they simply are an animated weapon of a particular form, and they evolve to better weapons over time. To gain abilities, they need to absorb magical essences from the weapons they find, destroying these in the process (Use the Extra Information Screen to display your essences: Press '~' then 'x').

Any more crazy ideas for monster races? How about a fishy (kraken) that needs to stay in water?

Death-Sword only release
[1] FA/SI only require 1 essence.
[2] Tengu and Death-Sword reward is Dagger of Westernesse
[3] High Resistances require 2 or even 3 essences rather than 1.
[4] Stormbringer is not cursed for Death-Swords.
[5] Death-Sword innate Hold Life wasn't working. Fixed.
[6] Death-Scythe blows reduced from 4 to 3. (I figure they will get +1 blow from Extra Blows essences).
[7] Player no longer displayed as "Cursed"
[8] Death-Swords may now increase their light radius.
[9] Wild and Order weapons no longer grant Slaying essences.

This is a big gameplay change for the Death-Swords, and a bit of display cleanup. If you have a substantial character running in 1.0.30, you might be disappointed if you upgrade. Here is why:

The essences required to enhance your current body (weapon) are dependent on that form. Generally, as you evolve, the number of essences required increase (perhaps doubling). As an example, Slay Evil requires the following:

Broken Death Sword: 2
Death Sword: 4
Poleaxe of Animated Attack: 8
Hellblade: 16
Death Scythe: 32

As another example, Slay Orc requires:
Broken Death Sword: 1
Death Sword: 1
Poleaxe of Animated Attack: 1
Hellblade: 2
Death Scythe: 4

You should be able to get at least some good slays in every form (except perhaps the first which is over too quickly), but then you *should* lose most of them when you evolve. If I got the numbers right, that is. I really wanted to play a character thru while designing, but something just came up and I need to be away for a bit.

Sorry Hugo, I didn't get time to address you last list of bugs. But I did fix the shop bug when selling or dropping equipped items.

* Quylthulgs! These are obviously everyone's absolute favorite monster, and now you too can enjoy their quivering, pulsating power! Consider this a beta release, though, as I haven't done too much balancing. I suspect they will be powerful, yet fragile throughout the game, especially in the early going. Their powers are lifted with very little change from Posband, though I did tweak the flavors of summoning slightly and adjusted resistances a bit. Hat tip to Posband!

As for the Hengband pet system, I had to make some changes. Quylthulgs get full experience whenever their pets kill something (Hengband is 0% and Chengband is only 20%) as well as getting full drops (Hengband is no drops). Finally, your pets can kill uniques and I really, really hope I found all the places in the code to make this happen. If you notice an invincible unique, please let me know.

* Thanks to everybody for helping me playtest the Deathsword. I made a few small tweaks. They keep their impressive melee power, of course, as it is hard to imagine a Death Scythe being anything other than ... well, deadly! But they lose their uber-high AC. In fact, the Death Scythe object grants -50 AC so the final form gets that "bonus" too! In addition, I changed the way both speed and AC essences calculate so that the cost per increment increases just like everything else. Expect speed to top out around 27 to 30 and AC at about 150 to 160.

[getter77]

v1.0.33

* Added new player monster race: The Golem. Yet another melee build, golems possess the awesome power of "Slow Walk". In fact they are so slow, that they never can get more than just a single attack per round. They prefer to fight with their massive golem fists, and strike powerfully enough despite their limited attacks. Another unique golem attribute is the presence of magic resistance, which reduces the effectiveness (damage) of their opponent's spells. The golem race has 3 subraces: Colossus (biggest and hardest hitter, but the slowest), Sky Golem (Resist Time, Breathe Time, weakest in melee) and the Spellwarp Automaton (Middle of the road, but very high magic resistance).

* Added new options to highlight pets when playing in ASCII mode

* Added new giant monsters, new giant evolutions, new giant powers and a whole new giant subrace: The Hru.

* Added new troll powers.

.34  Giants can throw foes around at each other, walls, etc

[getter77]

v1.0.35

.35  The big change this time is to move blows calculations to a system of fractional blows. It is a big change, affecting every class in the system as well as all the monster innate attacks and monk attacks. Obviously, I didn't test everything, but I did run thru my vast array of "characters on hold", about 20 or so.

First, how does it work? Well, instead of starting with say 1 attack, and having to wait until you receive the correct combination of stat boosts to click into 2 attacks, you might get 1.75 attacks. Improve your dex a bit, and maybe now you get 1.83 attacks. Of course, each time you attack a monster you either get 1 blow, or 2 blows. But you have a 75% or 83% chance of getting those 2 blows, and this is rolled each time you attack. It is best to think of this as a bonus since the old system would just round down those fractional blows to 1.

Second, why the change? Well, the early game can be rather frustrating to get melee going, especially for characters with poor starting dex. Also, characters that should be favoring heavy weapons often switch to light weapons simply to chase extra blows.

Also, I went ahead and bumped the max blows numbers for many classes and monsters. I've always been bothered by the 5 attacks for melee characters, except warriors who get 7 blows. Now, some of the strong melee hybrid classes (Paladins, Samurai, Chaos Warriors, Cavalry) get 5.5 max blows. Weaker melee classes (Priests, Rangers) stay with just 5.0 blows.

Anyway, this is a big change, and I hope you will like it. You might give monks a whirl to really notice the difference, since now they get blows in .25 attack increments

Other changes this release include some rebalancing to giants, including adding penalties for wielding tiny weapons and bonuses for wielding favored weapons. Also, there is a slight monster surprise in store awaiting the unwary!

[getter77]

v1.0.37

* 1.0.36 fixed a bug with Quylthulgs entering the town Arena. Normally, the town Arena blocks character and monster summoning rendering our poor Q hero defenseless. But now, I enabled both player and monster summoning whenever the player is a Quylthulg.

* 1.0.36 fixed a bug with new virtue effects causing any monster to become friendly. The monster selection is supposed to be themed to the virtue in question (e.g. Unlife influences undead, Faith influences angels, etc).

* 1.0.37 fixes a stupid coder error for the reforging service. Reforging is supposed to limit the maximum object creation depth to 100, and did so by applying the MAX function. Of course, when you want to set a max, you need to use MIN.

* 1.0.37 also adjusts the reforge power down a bit. Fame is more important and you should probably try for at least 100 fame before doing anything big. The town service now tells you your numeric fame value.

* 1.0.37 improves the in game helpfiles, adding more information on some new monster races (Quylthulg, Elemental, Golem, new Giant evolutions).