1 New in Slash release 6! (March 29, 1996)
3 NOTE: Saved games are not compatible with previous versions, and delete
4 any bones files you've got collected so far (bones*.*).
8 * valkyries and Barbarians were unable to read the Book of the Dead. Oops.
9 * fixed specific warning from some artifacts
10 * the "it doesn't seem to harm" message appears only if the creature is seen
11 * wishing for an artifact could cause a crash later on. Urp...
12 * added damage amount display to explosions
13 * fixed bugs with explosion damage: polymorphed players and invulnerability
14 wasn't working right with fireballs, gas spores, etc.
15 * changed // comments to /* */ to help other platforms out... :)
16 * also put lots of the Watcom stuff in #ifdefs
17 * fixed reflection message... again....
18 * fixed conflict & god-given pets
19 * fixed "You return to human form" for Gnomes
20 * crash bug with archeologists falling in trapdoors fixed.
21 * added message when necromancers gain gain undead warning
25 * id wands of healing if you zap yourself
26 * healing/extra-healing potions give you more permanent hit points
27 * weapons can be enchanted from +5 now (was +3)
28 * removed the "steps reluctantly" message from god-given pets... it was
29 annoying and misleading
30 * angels don't show up unless you're in deep trouble.
34 * weapon swap command - 'x' -- list spells is now 'X'
35 * added dark elven equipment -- chaotic elves are now dark elves
36 * invisible objects (invisible weapons get a +3 to hit monsters who can't
37 see invisible; nymphs, etc. won't steal invisible objects they can't see;
38 1 in 1250 random objects are now invisible)
39 * made a makefile for Watcom
40 * added/enhanced some wizard mode commands
41 * put in four Neutral weapons from Nehwon: Graywand, Heartseeker, Scalpel,
44 Many people have given lots of helpful suggestions, but several have
45 been especially helpful and have sent me huge lists of bugs.
46 They are Wolfe, David Robertson, and Kentaro Shirakata.
48 Thanks to everyone for their help in squashing bugs. No one likes to
49 lose a character to a bug, and the more bugs that are found, the fewer
52 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
53 Fixed in Slash release 5 (3/17/96)
57 * fixed bug that locked up Priest, Ice Mage, and Monk quests... gulp!
58 * fixed bug with attacking a tame monster that needed a magic weapon to hit
59 * fixed another bug with undead/special creature warning
60 * made firing mjollnir return to quiver rather than readied weapon slot
61 * killer rations now leave "bodies" like they're supposed to
62 * corrected message for silver dragon scale mail
63 * made kamadans sleep resistant
64 * corrected message for strength-draining creatures that touch you
65 * fixed crash bug with quiver -- crashed if you put an item in the
66 quiver, manually threw it (not 'f'ire), dropped it, and picked it up.
67 * fixed a bug with throwing a potion of sleeping
68 * fixed a bug with Hand of Elbereth & Excalibur
69 * put the history, license, etc. files in the binary zip (whoops)
73 * stretched out the pre-castle dungeon a bit
74 * put the original Gnome Mines back in, with some adjustments... heh heh...
75 * made the Giant Caves & Spider Caves actual levels, not minefill-ish
76 * made altars and graves rarer because of increased dungeon length
77 * toilets only appear in rooms with sinks
78 * made silver dragons actually reflect stuff & breathe cold instead
80 * made Lawful gods sometimes send you an angel if you pray (gotta be some
81 reason to be Lawful...)
82 * 'W'izards can now only be neutral... after all, their patron is
83 the Wizard of Balance... :<
84 * 'L'ycanthropes stats changed, and they sometimes go berserk.
85 * put gnolls on Yeenoghu's level
86 * ghouls & ghasts eat old, decaying bodies
87 * made getting a pet from sacrificing even rarer
88 * made dragons do more damage
89 * went through and fixed up the plus-weapon-to-hit monsters
90 * enemy characters in the dungeon now have appropriate equipment & are rarer
91 * because of the new life-drain protection items, made level draining a
92 little nastier (magic resistance is down to 50% protection from 90%)
93 * put in a message for wand of speed monster
94 * made lightsabers one-handed & able to engrave
95 * made gas spore explosions neater -- chain reactions possible!
96 * made rings of gain strength, etc., go up to +5/-5
97 * fixed up the special levels a little more
98 * priests of Moloch are always hostile
99 * made gauntlets of swimming work right
100 * adjusted the item probabilities a little
101 * if you get touched by green slime, you don't drop dead quite so fast
102 * the studly classes -- Barbarians, Cavemen, Samurai, and Valkyries,
103 have a little more trouble with some magic items
104 * put some more monsters in the data file to look up during the game
105 * put in a message when monsters flee
106 * undead and demonic pets will step on cursed items
110 * new classes! 'N'ecromancers and 'G'nomes!
111 * new spells: summon undead & command undead (for necromancers, of course)
112 * added deep dragons, deep dragon scale mail; cloaks, rings & amulets of
114 * added devas, Planetars, made Solars harder
115 * added spined & bearded devils
116 * added babau, bar-lgura, chasme, and nabassu demons
117 * added giant badgers (gnome pet)
118 * added the Temple of Moloch & Sunless Sea, new special levels
119 * made traps & altars color-coded
120 * added abandoned food shops gone wild & cockatrice nests
121 * made some more interesting results to human sacrifice by Chaotics
122 * added a couple of more Gauntlet messages
124 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
125 Things that were fixed in release #4 (3/8/96)
129 * Fixed crash caused by a god-given angelic pet
130 * Fixed a bug that kept soldiers & shopkeepers from having armor & K-rations
131 * Eating a master mind flayer increases intelligence.
132 * Fixed a crash bug with kicking (only happened in UNIX... :<)
133 * Fixed a bug with monks getting artifacts from sacrificing.
137 * You gain hit points faster -- 1.5 as fast as in release 3 for a 25
138 constitution, and the lower constitution doesn't drop the speed as fast
140 * Fixed a bug with hp regeneration rounding.
141 * Artifacts hit as magical weapons 2 plusses better than listed.
142 * Made monsters that need magic weapons to hit strike as those magic weapons.
143 * Lightsabers can hit anything.
144 * Made candles more common and cheaper.
145 * Made getting pets less likely and artifacts more likely from sacrificing.
146 * Made low level bones files (levels 2, 3, etc.) less common.
147 * Made altars a lot more common, because they won't appear on special
149 * Made level draining less likely to work, and magic resistance helps
150 to protect from it (not 100%, though)
151 * Made the nethack directory in nethack.cnf default to '.'
153 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
154 Things that were fixed in release #3: (2/26/96)
158 * Fixed a bug with regeneration.
159 * Won't allow you to put worn items into the quiver.
160 * Fireballs will burn away slime.
161 * The beholder and catoblepas's death gazes do not affect undead creatures.
165 * Added release number to intro screen.
166 * Added "Levitate" to bottom line when levitating.
167 * Fixed up some of the special levels a little.
168 * Made monster-carried items a little rarer.
170 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
171 Things that were fixed in release #2: (2/18/96)
173 * The source is available, and named slashsrc.zip.
175 * If there are more bugs uncovered, the exes will continue as slash3, slash4,
176 slash 5, etc. The source will consist of the affected files only, though,
177 and will be named slashsr2, slashsr3, etc.
179 Important things (bugs)
180 -----------------------
181 * Would crash (divide by zero) after level 24... now fixed.
182 * Special warnings (like with Sting or Undead Slayers) fixed to show
184 * The beholder had a "head". Not now...
185 * Engraving with a wand of fireballs gave the wrong message --
186 "this is a wand of fire!"
187 * Included dos4gw.exe in zip file.
190 Less important things (adjustments)
191 -----------------------------------
192 * Pets won't attack gas spores very often.
193 * Quicklings armor class worsened considerably. (easier to hit them)
194 * Changed the container interface back to standard NH 3.1.1.
195 * Confirmed that Magicbane seems to work ok.
196 * Made a message for the wand of slow monster.
202 -----------------------------------------------------------------
203 Welcome to SLASH, the ridiculously bloated successor to Nethack++!
205 But first, a short history of the life of Nethack++ and SLASH-Hack:
207 One day, a long long time ago (~1991 or 92, I forget...), nobody played
208 NetHack 3.11, because it hadn't been released. Us Nethack-Junkies (tm)
209 played NetHack 3.0j, which had been out for a Very Long Time, and
210 we were getting good at the game. Good enough, in fact that two of us,
211 me (Tom) and my roommate (Yuval) decided one day to download the source
212 and start messing around with it, adding monsters, items, and all sorts of
215 After a while, we decided that we Really Had Something here and decided to
216 upload it to an ftp site, and told everyone on rec.games.nethack about
217 our bloated creation, henceforth called NetHack++!
219 We were immediately swamped with mail demanding Our Secrets, for many people
220 thought we had miraculously ported NetHack 3.0j to C++!
222 In a flash, we re-named our creation NetHack--.
224 Meanwhile, the elusive DevTeam must have been chuckling up a storm, for not
225 one month later, NetHack 3.1 appeared, and our moment of glory was gone.
228 You feel a yearning for your distant homeland...
230 Eventually, however, some people ascended in Nethack 3.11, and people were
231 getting restless again, and someone named Chris decided to port the changes
232 Yuval and I made to Nethack 3.0j to Nethack 3.11, creating Nethack--
233 all over again, but better, because monsters could now use stuff and so
236 Then Nethack-The Next Generation appeared, and it was cool.
238 Meanwhile, I was busy puttering away on my personal version of Nethack 3.11,
239 adding things here and there, such as Firemen, Musicians, and wands of
240 fireballs -- you know.
242 Then Nethack Plus, by some guy named Stephen White, appeared, and it was
243 cool. And it had neat new classes, like Monks, and Lycanthropes,
246 So I downloaded the source and changed it all over again (a third time)
249 Then the second version of Nethack Plus appeared, with weapon skills, and
252 And this time, I said "Screw it!", and I was not about to change everything
255 So SLASH-Hack progressed, and time passed, and it was soon April of 1995.
256 And I decided to use Watcom C, because it was neat. And one day, just
257 as the Last Bug had been fixed, and I was about to do the final compile,
258 instead of typing 'del *.obj', I typed 'del *.c'.
260 And there was much gnashing of teeth.
262 I whipped out ol' trusty Norton Unerase and got almost everything back,
263 except for mhitu.c, uhitm.c, zap.c, and do.c
265 So I gave up changing things, not about to re-create everything that was
268 And I played the Right Before the Final Compile for a few months.
270 And I said to myself, "Hey, this is actually sorta cool."
272 And I thought, "Maybe I _could_ recreate the last few changes."
274 So, I did. Eventually.
276 From memory, here is the new stuff:
277 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
281 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
282 The changes from Nethack Plus, except for:
283 * you _can_ wish for artifacts, except there is a chance it doesn't work
284 * the hit point regeneration is completely changed, and is now
285 based on your Con and Max Hp. A side affect of this is a ring/amulet
286 of regeneration is not so easily identified, because it doubles your
287 healing rate, and that may or may not be 1 point/turn.
288 * the magic-weapon-to-hit-a-monster thing is still in there, but
289 significantly toned down
290 * the Doppelganger no longer prompts you "want to change (y/n)?" every
291 couple of dozen turns. This drove me up the wall! If you want to
292 polymorph, use alt-Y and 10 energy.
294 About 150 new monsters. Some of the more, um, interesting ones:
295 * rot worm -- Causes sickness, and is a low level monster. Fortunately,
296 it's kinda slow. Unfortunately, it hides under things.
297 * rhambusun -- Has a paralyzation gaze (lasts for only a couple of turns)
298 * pyrolisk -- Has a fire-damage gaze
299 * green slime -- Touch causes you to slowly turn into slime unless you
303 a: snow ant, yellow jacket, tsetse fly, giant wasp, black wasp,
304 army ant, spitting beetle, assassin bug, killer beetle
305 b: jiggling blob, lava blob, crackling blob, burbling blob
306 c: chickatrice, pyrolisk
307 d: dingo, fox, coyote, pit bull, rabid wolf, hyena, wolverine,
308 shadow wolf, mist wolf, death dog
309 e: glowing eye, flaming sphere, shocking sphere, bloodshot eye,
310 blinking eye, beholder, gas spore
311 f: lynx, panther, werepanther, weretiger, sabre-toothed cat,
312 displacer beast, hellcat, caterwaul, kamadan
313 g: galltrit, jermlaine
314 h: dwarf thief, duergar, master mind flayer, gnoll
315 i: dretch, rutterkin, nupperibo, blood imp, larva
316 j: red jelly, orange jelly, black jelly
317 k: swamp kobold, rock kobold, kobold wizard, kobold warrior, Kroo
318 l: leprechaun wizard, brownie, quickling, pixie
320 o: orc, war orc, great orc, Grund, snow orc, demon orc
321 p: glass piercer, roper
322 q: scramper, squealer, mangler, mastodon, Jumbo, juggernaut, catoblepas
323 r: rabbit, black rat, pack rat, rabid rabbit, hellrat, the Rat King
324 s: centipede, recluse spider, barking spider, nickelpede,
325 giant scorpion, Girtab, Shelob, werespider, carrion crawler,
328 w: maggot, dung worm, acid worm, tunnel worm, rot worm, bloodworm
329 x: arc bug, spark bug, lightning bug
330 y: red light, blue light
332 B: rhumbat, athol, hellbat, mongbat, mobat, harpy
333 D: shimmering dragon, silver dragon, wyvern, hydra
334 F: disgusting mold, black mold
335 G: gnome thief, deep gnome, gnome warrior, Ruggo
336 H: storm giant, the Largest Giant
341 O: ogre mage, shadow ogre
342 P: moldy pudding, green slime
343 S: king cobra, weresnake, asphynx
344 T: black troll, two-headed troll
351 @: mugger, thief, character classes (at all different levels),
352 jackalwere, gibberling, grimlock, drow
354 &: efreeti, dao, marid
356 :: gila monster, salamander, rhaumbusun, basilisk, komodo dragon
358 There are new spells for the monsters to cast, and they will use a lot of the
359 new items, so be careful of the original monsters as well!
361 I tried to color the new monsters appropriately, and colored people
362 according to their clothing. There are some duplicated colors, now, though,
365 The characters are colored now, according to their preferred dress, so
366 the Tourist is purple, Elf green, Rogue black, Wizard blue, and so on.
367 Call me stupid, but this helps remind me which class I am, since I die
370 Pets only pick up 5 gold pieces out of a pile, and won't pick up a whole
373 New terrain types: graves (you can 'r'ead the headstone, or dig it up)
374 toilets (um, you can sit, kick, drink, all sorts of stuff)
376 New artifacts, like the Eye/Hand of Vecna. I wouldn't use either one of
377 these too often, if I were you. There's also Mirrorbright the silver shield,
378 Whisperfeet the speed boots, and Deluder the displacement cloak. Also,
379 a bunch of weapons, which I don't remember too well.
381 Buncha special levels, like the Rat King level, the Kobold King level, Orc
382 level, Giant level, spider level, etc. Some are side-dungeons, others
385 New rooms, like a Real Zoo (with zoo-like monsters), Leprechaun Throne Room,
386 Giant Throne Room, and stuff like that.
388 Buncha items. I remember these:
390 armor: silver dragon scale mail (reflection)
391 shimmering dragon scale mail (displacement)
392 gauntlets of swimming
393 cloak of poisonousness (don't wear this)
394 lab coat (poison res)
395 asbestos jacket, fire helmet (left over from my Fireman class)
398 amulets: regeneration
402 rings: free action (no paralyzing! cool item!)
406 potions: full healing
407 invulnerability (for a few turns, anyway)
416 create horde (don't use this, unless you're studly)
417 fireball (fortunately, monsters won't zap this one because I
418 couldn't get it to work right)
420 Good luck, and try not to get killed by a horde of snow orcs!