1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 A Guide to the Mazes of Menace 12 (Guidebook for NetHack) 13 14 15 Eric S. Raymond 16 (Extensively edited and expanded for 3.4) 17 18 19 20 1. Introduction 21 22 Recently, you have begun to find yourself unfulfilled and distant 23 in your daily occupation. Strange dreams of prospecting, steal- 24 ing, crusading, and combat have haunted you in your sleep for 25 many months, but you aren't sure of the reason. You wonder 26 whether you have in fact been having those dreams all your life, 27 and somehow managed to forget about them until now. Some nights 28 you awaken suddenly and cry out, terrified at the vivid recollec- 29 tion of the strange and powerful creatures that seem to be lurk- 30 ing behind every corner of the dungeon in your dream. Could 31 these details haunting your dreams be real? As each night pass- 32 es, you feel the desire to enter the mysterious caverns near the 33 ruins grow stronger. Each morning, however, you quickly put the 34 idea out of your head as you recall the tales of those who en- 35 tered the caverns before you and did not return. Eventually you 36 can resist the yearning to seek out the fantastic place in your 37 dreams no longer. After all, when other adventurers came back 38 this way after spending time in the caverns, they usually seemed 39 better off than when they passed through the first time. And who 40 was to say that all of those who did not return had not just kept 41 going? 42 43 44 Asking around, you hear about a bauble, called the Amulet of 45 Yendor by some, which, if you can find it, will bring you great 46 wealth. One legend you were told even mentioned that the one who 47 finds the amulet will be granted immortality by the gods. The 48 amulet is rumored to be somewhere beyond the Valley of Gehennom, 49 deep within the Mazes of Menace. Upon hearing the legends, you 50 immediately realize that there is some profound and undiscovered 51 reason that you are to descend into the caverns and seek out that 52 amulet of which they spoke. Even if the rumors of the amulet's 53 powers are untrue, you decide that you should at least be able to 54 sell the tales of your adventures to the local minstrels for a 55 tidy sum, especially if you encounter any of the terrifying and 56 magical creatures of your dreams along the way. You spend one 57 last night fortifying yourself at the local inn, becoming more 58 and more depressed as you watch the odds of your success being 59 posted on the inn's walls getting lower and lower. 60 61 62 63 NetHack Guidebook 1 64 65 66 67 68 69 NetHack Guidebook 2 70 71 72 73 In the morning you awake, collect your belongings, and set 74 off for the dungeon. After several days of uneventful travel, 75 you see the ancient ruins that mark the entrance to the Mazes of 76 Menace. It is late at night, so you make camp at the entrance 77 and spend the night sleeping under the open skies. In the morn- 78 ing, you gather your gear, eat what may be your last meal out- 79 side, and enter the dungeon... 80 81 82 2. What is going on here? 83 84 You have just begun a game of NetHack. Your goal is to grab 85 as much treasure as you can, retrieve the Amulet of Yendor, and 86 escape the Mazes of Menace alive. 87 88 Your abilities and strengths for dealing with the hazards of 89 adventure will vary with your background and training: 90 91 Archeologists understand dungeons pretty well; this enables 92 them to move quickly and sneak up on the local nasties. They 93 start equipped with the tools for a proper scientific expedition. 94 95 Barbarians are warriors out of the hinterland, hardened to 96 battle. They begin their quests with naught but uncommon 97 strength, a trusty hauberk, and a great two-handed sword. 98 99 Cavemen and Cavewomen start with exceptional strength but, 100 unfortunately, with neolithic weapons. 101 102 Healers are wise in medicine and apothecary. They know the 103 herbs and simples that can restore vitality, ease pain, anes- 104 thetize, and neutralize poisons; and with their instruments, they 105 can divine a being's state of health or sickness. Their medical 106 practice earns them quite reasonable amounts of money, with which 107 they enter the dungeon. 108 109 Knights are distinguished from the common skirmisher by 110 their devotion to the ideals of chivalry and by the surpassing 111 excellence of their armor. 112 113 Monks are ascetics, who by rigorous practice of physical and 114 mental disciplines have become capable of fighting as effectively 115 without weapons as with. They wear no armor but make up for it 116 with increased mobility. 117 118 Priests and Priestesses are clerics militant, crusaders ad- 119 vancing the cause of righteousness with arms, armor, and arts 120 thaumaturgic. Their ability to commune with deities via prayer 121 occasionally extricates them from peril, but can also put them in 122 it. 123 124 Rangers are most at home in the woods, and some say slightly 125 out of place in a dungeon. They are, however, experts in archery 126 as well as tracking and stealthy movement. 127 128 129 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 130 131 132 133 134 135 NetHack Guidebook 3 136 137 138 139 Rogues are agile and stealthy thieves, with knowledge of 140 locks, traps, and poisons. Their advantage lies in surprise, 141 which they employ to great advantage. 142 143 Samurai are the elite warriors of feudal Nippon. They are 144 lightly armored and quick, and wear the dai-sho, two swords of 145 the deadliest keenness. 146 147 Tourists start out with lots of gold (suitable for shopping 148 with), a credit card, lots of food, some maps, and an expensive 149 camera. Most monsters don't like being photographed. 150 151 Valkyries are hardy warrior women. Their upbringing in the 152 harsh Northlands makes them strong, inures them to extremes of 153 cold, and instills in them stealth and cunning. 154 155 Wizards start out with a knowledge of magic, a selection of 156 magical items, and a particular affinity for dweomercraft. Al- 157 though seemingly weak and easy to overcome at first sight, an ex- 158 perienced Wizard is a deadly foe. 159 160 You may also choose the race of your character: 161 162 Dwarves are smaller than humans or elves, but are stocky and 163 solid individuals. Dwarves' most notable trait is their great 164 expertise in mining and metalwork. Dwarvish armor is said to be 165 second in quality not even to the mithril armor of the Elves. 166 167 Elves are agile, quick, and perceptive; very little of what 168 goes on will escape an Elf. The quality of Elven craftsmanship 169 often gives them an advantage in arms and armor. 170 171 Gnomes are smaller than but generally similar to dwarves. 172 Gnomes are known to be expert miners, and it is known that a se- 173 cret underground mine complex built by this race exists within 174 the Mazes of Menace, filled with both riches and danger. 175 176 Humans are by far the most common race of the surface world, 177 and are thus the norm by which other races are often compared. 178 Although they have no special abilities, they can succeed in any 179 role. 180 181 Orcs are a cruel and barbaric race that hate every living 182 thing (including other orcs). Above all others, Orcs hate Elves 183 with a passion unequalled, and will go out of their way to kill 184 one at any opportunity. The armor and weapons fashioned by the 185 Orcs are typically of inferior quality. 186 187 3. What do all those things on the screen mean? 188 189 On the screen is kept a map of where you have been and what 190 you have seen on the current dungeon level; as you explore more 191 of the level, it appears on the screen in front of you. 192 193 194 195 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 196 197 198 199 200 201 NetHack Guidebook 4 202 203 204 205 When NetHack's ancestor rogue first appeared, its screen 206 orientation was almost unique among computer fantasy games. 207 Since then, screen orientation has become the norm rather than 208 the exception; NetHack continues this fine tradition. Unlike 209 text adventure games that accept commands in pseudo-English sen- 210 tences and explain the results in words, NetHack commands are all 211 one or two keystrokes and the results are displayed graphically 212 on the screen. A minimum screen size of 24 lines by 80 columns 213 is recommended; if the screen is larger, only a 21x80 section 214 will be used for the map. 215 216 NetHack can even be played by blind players, with the assis- 217 tance of Braille readers or speech synthesisers. Instructions 218 for configuring NetHack for the blind are included later in this 219 document. 220 221 NetHack generates a new dungeon every time you play it; even 222 the authors still find it an entertaining and exciting game de- 223 spite having won several times. 224 225 NetHack offers a variety of display options. The options 226 available to you will vary from port to port, depending on the 227 capabilities of your hardware and software, and whether various 228 compile-time options were enabled when your executable was creat- 229 ed. The three possible display options are: a monochrome charac- 230 ter interface, a color character interface, and a graphical in- 231 terface using small pictures called tiles. The two character in- 232 terfaces allow fonts with other characters to be substituted, but 233 the default assignments use standard ASCII characters to repre- 234 sent everything. There is no difference between the various dis- 235 play options with respect to game play. Because we cannot repro- 236 duce the tiles or colors in the Guidebook, and because it is com- 237 mon to all ports, we will use the default ASCII characters from 238 the monochrome character display when referring to things you 239 might see on the screen during your game. 240 241 In order to understand what is going on in NetHack, first 242 you must understand what NetHack is doing with the screen. The 243 NetHack screen replaces the ``You see ...'' descriptions of text 244 adventure games. Figure 1 is a sample of what a NetHack screen 245 might look like. The way the screen looks for you depends on 246 your platform. 247 248 -------------------------------------------------------------------- 249 The bat bites! 250 251 ------ 252 |....| ---------- 253 |.<..|####...@...$.| 254 |....-# |...B....+ 255 |....| |.d......| 256 ------ -------|-- 257 258 259 260 261 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 262 263 264 265 266 267 NetHack Guidebook 5 268 269 270 271 272 273 Player the Rambler St:12 Dx:7 Co:18 In:11 Wi:9 Ch:15 Neutral 274 Dlvl:1 $:0 HP:9(12) Pw:3(3) AC:10 Exp:1/19 T:257 Weak 275 276 -------------------------------------------------------------------- 277 Figure 1 278 279 280 3.1. The status lines (bottom) 281 282 The bottom two lines of the screen contain several cryptic 283 pieces of information describing your current status. If either 284 status line becomes longer than the width of the screen, you 285 might not see all of it. Here are explanations of what the vari- 286 ous status items mean (though your configuration may not have all 287 the status items listed below): 288 289 Rank 290 Your character's name and professional ranking (based on the 291 experience level, see below). 292 293 Strength 294 A measure of your character's strength; one of your six ba- 295 sic attributes. A human character's attributes can range 296 from 3 to 18 inclusive; non-humans may exceed these limits 297 (occasionally you may get super-strengths of the form 18/xx, 298 and magic can also cause attributes to exceed the normal 299 limits). The higher your strength, the stronger you are. 300 Strength affects how successfully you perform physical 301 tasks, how much damage you do in combat, and how much loot 302 you can carry. 303 304 Dexterity 305 Dexterity affects your chances to hit in combat, to avoid 306 traps, and do other tasks requiring agility or manipulation 307 of objects. 308 309 Constitution 310 Constitution affects your ability to recover from injuries 311 and other strains on your stamina. 312 313 Intelligence 314 Intelligence affects your ability to cast spells and read 315 spellbooks. 316 317 Wisdom 318 Wisdom comes from your practical experience (especially when 319 dealing with magic). It affects your magical energy. 320 321 Charisma 322 Charisma affects how certain creatures react toward you. In 323 particular, it can affect the prices shopkeepers offer you. 324 325 326 327 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 328 329 330 331 332 333 NetHack Guidebook 6 334 335 336 337 Alignment 338 Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic. Often, Lawful is taken as good 339 and Chaotic as evil, but legal and ethical do not always co- 340 incide. Your alignment influences how other monsters react 341 toward you. Monsters of a like alignment are more likely to 342 be non-aggressive, while those of an opposing alignment are 343 more likely to be seriously offended at your presence. 344 345 Dungeon Level 346 How deep you are in the dungeon. You start at level one and 347 the number increases as you go deeper into the dungeon. 348 Some levels are special, and are identified by a name and 349 not a number. The Amulet of Yendor is reputed to be some- 350 where beneath the twentieth level. 351 352 Gold 353 The number of gold pieces you are openly carrying. Gold 354 which you have concealed in containers is not counted. 355 356 Hit Points 357 Your current and maximum hit points. Hit points indicate 358 how much damage you can take before you die. The more you 359 get hit in a fight, the lower they get. You can regain hit 360 points by resting, or by using certain magical items or 361 spells. The number in parentheses is the maximum number 362 your hit points can reach. 363 364 Power 365 Spell points. This tells you how much mystic energy (mana) 366 you have available for spell casting. Again, resting will 367 regenerate the amount available. 368 369 Armor Class 370 A measure of how effectively your armor stops blows from un- 371 friendly creatures. The lower this number is, the more ef- 372 fective the armor; it is quite possible to have negative ar- 373 mor class. 374 375 Experience 376 Your current experience level and experience points. As you 377 adventure, you gain experience points. At certain experi- 378 ence point totals, you gain an experience level. The more 379 experienced you are, the better you fight and withstand mag- 380 ical attacks. Many dungeons show only your experience level 381 here. 382 383 Time 384 The number of turns elapsed so far, displayed if you have 385 the time option set. 386 387 Hunger status 388 Your current hunger status, ranging from Satiated down to 389 Fainting. If your hunger status is normal, it is not dis- 390 played. 391 392 393 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 394 395 396 397 398 399 NetHack Guidebook 7 400 401 402 403 Additional status flags may appear after the hunger status: 404 Conf when you're confused, FoodPois or Ill when sick, Blind when 405 you can't see, Stun when stunned, and Hallu when hallucinating. 406 407 3.2. The message line (top) 408 409 The top line of the screen is reserved for messages that de- 410 scribe things that are impossible to represent visually. If you 411 see a ``--More--'' on the top line, this means that NetHack has 412 another message to display on the screen, but it wants to make 413 certain that you've read the one that is there first. To read 414 the next message, just press the space bar. 415 416 3.3. The map (rest of the screen) 417 418 The rest of the screen is the map of the level as you have 419 explored it so far. Each symbol on the screen represents some- 420 thing. You can set various graphics options to change some of 421 the symbols the game uses; otherwise, the game will use default 422 symbols. Here is a list of what the default symbols mean: 423 424 - and | 425 The walls of a room, or an open door. Or a grave (|). 426 427 . The floor of a room, ice, or a doorless doorway. 428 429 # A corridor, or iron bars, or a tree, or possibly a kitchen 430 sink (if your dungeon has sinks), or a drawbridge. 431 432 > Stairs down: a way to the next level. 433 434 < Stairs up: a way to the previous level. 435 436 + A closed door, or a spellbook containing a spell you may be 437 able to learn. 438 439 @ Your character or a human. 440 441 $ A pile of gold. 442 443 ^ A trap (once you have detected it). 444 445 ) A weapon. 446 447 [ A suit or piece of armor. 448 449 % Something edible (not necessarily healthy). 450 451 ? A scroll. 452 453 / A wand. 454 455 = A ring. 456 457 458 459 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 460 461 462 463 464 465 NetHack Guidebook 8 466 467 468 469 ! A potion. 470 471 ( A useful item (pick-axe, key, lamp...). 472 473 " An amulet or a spider web. 474 475 * A gem or rock (possibly valuable, possibly worthless). 476 477 ` A boulder or statue. 478 479 0 An iron ball. 480 481 _ An altar, or an iron chain. 482 483 { A fountain. 484 485 } A pool of water or moat or a pool of lava. 486 487 \ An opulent throne. 488 489 a-zA-Z and other symbols 490 Letters and certain other symbols represent the various in- 491 habitants of the Mazes of Menace. Watch out, they can be 492 nasty and vicious. Sometimes, however, they can be helpful. 493 494 I This marks the last known location of an invisible or other- 495 wise unseen monster. Note that the monster could have 496 moved. The 'F' and 'm' commands may be useful here. 497 498 You need not memorize all these symbols; you can ask the 499 game what any symbol represents with the `/' command (see the 500 next section for more info). 501 502 503 4. Commands 504 505 Commands are initiated by typing one or two characters. 506 Some commands, like ``search'', do not require that any more in- 507 formation be collected by NetHack. Other commands might require 508 additional information, for example a direction, or an object to 509 be used. For those commands that require additional information, 510 NetHack will present you with either a menu of choices or with a 511 command line prompt requesting information. Which you are pre- 512 sented with will depend chiefly on how you have set the menustyle 513 option. 514 515 For example, a common question, in the form ``What do you 516 want to use? [a-zA-Z ?*]'', asks you to choose an object you are 517 carrying. Here, ``a-zA-Z'' are the inventory letters of your 518 possible choices. Typing `?' gives you an inventory list of 519 these items, so you can see what each letter refers to. In this 520 example, there is also a `*' indicating that you may choose an 521 object not on the list, if you wanted to use something unexpect- 522 ed. Typing a `*' lists your entire inventory, so you can see the 523 524 525 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 526 527 528 529 530 531 NetHack Guidebook 9 532 533 534 535 inventory letters of every object you're carrying. Finally, if 536 you change your mind and decide you don't want to do this command 537 after all, you can press the ESC key to abort the command. 538 539 You can put a number before some commands to repeat them 540 that many times; for example, ``10s'' will search ten times. If 541 you have the number_pad option set, you must type `n' to prefix a 542 count, so the example above would be typed ``n10s'' instead. 543 Commands for which counts make no sense ignore them. In addi- 544 tion, movement commands can be prefixed for greater control (see 545 below). To cancel a count or a prefix, press the ESC key. 546 547 The list of commands is rather long, but it can be read at 548 any time during the game through the `?' command, which accesses 549 a menu of helpful texts. Here are the commands for your refer- 550 ence: 551 552 ? Help menu: display one of several help texts available. 553 554 / Tell what a symbol represents. You may choose to specify a 555 location or type a symbol (or even a whole word) to explain. 556 Specifying a location is done by moving the cursor to a par- 557 ticular spot on the map and then pressing one of `.', `,', 558 `;', or `:'. `.' will explain the symbol at the chosen lo- 559 cation, conditionally check for ``More info?'' depending up- 560 on whether the help option is on, and then you will be asked 561 to pick another location; `,' will explain the symbol but 562 skip any additional information; `;' will skip additional 563 info and also not bother asking you to choose another loca- 564 tion to examine; `:' will show additional info, if any, 565 without asking for confirmation. When picking a location, 566 pressing the ESC key will terminate this command, or press- 567 ing `?' will give a brief reminder about how it works. 568 569 Specifying a name rather than a location always gives any 570 additional information available about that name. 571 572 & Tell what a command does. 573 574 < Go up to the previous level (if you are on a staircase or 575 ladder). 576 577 > Go down to the next level (if you are on a staircase or lad- 578 der). 579 580 [yuhjklbn] 581 Go one step in the direction indicated (see Figure 2). If 582 you sense or remember a monster there, you will fight the 583 monster instead. Only these one-step movement commands 584 cause you to fight monsters; the others (below) are 585 ``safe.'' 586 587 588 589 590 591 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 592 593 594 595 596 597 NetHack Guidebook 10 598 599 600 601 y k u 7 8 9 602 \ | / \ | / 603 h- . -l 4- . -6 604 / | \ / | \ 605 b j n 1 2 3 606 (if number_pad is set) 607 608 Figure 2 609 610 611 [YUHJKLBN] 612 Go in that direction until you hit a wall or run into some- 613 thing. 614 615 m[yuhjklbn] 616 Prefix: move without picking up objects or fighting (even 617 if you remember a monster there) 618 619 F[yuhjklbn] 620 Prefix: fight a monster (even if you only guess one is 621 there) 622 623 M[yuhjklbn] 624 Prefix: move far, no pickup. 625 626 g[yuhjklbn] 627 Prefix: move until something interesting is found. 628 629 G[yuhjklbn] or <CONTROL->[yuhjklbn] 630 Prefix: same as `g', but forking of corridors is not con- 631 sidered interesting. 632 633 _ Travel to a map location via a shortest-path algorithm. The 634 shortest path is computed over map locations the hero knows 635 about (e.g. seen or previously traversed). If there is no 636 known path, a guess is made instead. Stops on most of the 637 same conditions as the `G' command, but without picking up 638 objects, similar to the `M' command. For ports with mouse 639 support, the command is also invoked when a mouse-click 640 takes place on a location other than the current position. 641 642 . Rest, do nothing for one turn. 643 644 a Apply (use) a tool (pick-axe, key, lamp...). 645 646 A Remove one or more worn items, such as armor. Use `T' (take 647 off) to take off only one piece of armor or `R' (remove) to 648 take off only one accessory. 649 650 ^A Redo the previous command. 651 652 c Close a door. 653 654 655 656 657 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 658 659 660 661 662 663 NetHack Guidebook 11 664 665 666 667 C Call (name) an individual monster. 668 669 ^C Panic button. Quit the game. 670 671 d Drop something. Ex. ``d7a'' means drop seven items of ob- 672 ject a. 673 674 D Drop several things. In answer to the question ``What kinds 675 of things do you want to drop? [!%= BUCXaium]'' you should 676 type zero or more object symbols possibly followed by `a' 677 and/or `i' and/or `u' and/or `m'. In addition, one or more 678 of the blessed/uncursed/cursed groups may be typed. 679 680 DB - drop all objects known to be blessed. 681 DU - drop all objects known to be uncursed. 682 DC - drop all objects known to be cursed. 683 DX - drop all objects of unknown B/U/C status. 684 Da - drop all objects, without asking for confirmation. 685 Di - examine your inventory before dropping anything. 686 Du - drop only unpaid objects (when in a shop). 687 Dm - use a menu to pick which object(s) to drop. 688 D%u - drop only unpaid food. 689 690 ^D Kick something (usually a door). 691 692 e Eat food. 693 694 E Engrave a message on the floor. Engraving the word 695 ``Elbereth'' will cause most monsters to not attack you 696 hand-to-hand (but if you attack, you will rub it out); this 697 is often useful to give yourself a breather. (This feature 698 may be compiled out of the game, so your version might not 699 have it.) 700 701 E- - write in the dust with your fingers. 702 703 f Fire one of the objects placed in your quiver. You may se- 704 lect ammunition with a previous `Q' command, or let the com- 705 puter pick something appropriate if autoquiver is true. 706 707 i List your inventory (everything you're carrying). 708 709 I List selected parts of your inventory. 710 711 I* - list all gems in inventory; 712 Iu - list all unpaid items; 713 Ix - list all used up items that are on your shopping bill; 714 I$ - count your money. 715 716 o Open a door. 717 718 O Set options. A menu showing the current option values will 719 be displayed. You can change most values simply by select- 720 ing the menu entry for the given option (ie, by typing its 721 722 723 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 724 725 726 727 728 729 NetHack Guidebook 12 730 731 732 733 letter or clicking upon it, depending on your user inter- 734 face). For the non-boolean choices, a further menu or 735 prompt will appear once you've closed this menu. The avail- 736 able options are listed later in this Guidebook. Options 737 are usually set before the game rather than with the `O' 738 command; see the section on options below. 739 740 p Pay your shopping bill. 741 742 P Put on a ring or other accessory (amulet, blindfold). 743 744 ^P Repeat previous message. Subsequent ^P's repeat earlier 745 messages. The behavior can be varied via the msg_window op- 746 tion. 747 748 q Quaff (drink) something (potion, water, etc). 749 750 Q Select an object for your quiver. You can then throw this 751 using the `f' command. (In versions prior to 3.3 this was 752 the command to quit the game, which has now been moved to 753 `#quit'.) 754 755 r Read a scroll or spellbook. 756 757 R Remove an accessory (ring, amulet, etc). 758 759 ^R Redraw the screen. 760 761 s Search for secret doors and traps around you. It usually 762 takes several tries to find something. 763 764 S Save (and suspend) the game. The game will be restored au- 765 tomatically the next time you play. 766 767 t Throw an object or shoot a projectile. 768 769 T Take off armor. 770 771 ^T Teleport, if you have the ability. 772 773 v Display version number. 774 775 V Display the game history. 776 777 w Wield weapon. 778 779 w- - wield nothing, use your bare hands. 780 781 W Wear armor. 782 783 x Exchange your wielded weapon with the item in your alternate 784 weapon slot. The latter is used as your secondary weapon 785 when engaging in two-weapon combat. Note that if one of 786 these slots is empty, the exchange still takes place. 787 788 789 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 790 791 792 793 794 795 NetHack Guidebook 13 796 797 798 799 X Enter explore (discovery) mode, explained in its own section 800 later. 801 802 ^X Display your name, role, race, gender, and alignment as well 803 as the various deities in your game. 804 805 z Zap a wand. To aim at yourself, use `.' for the direction. 806 807 Z Zap (cast) a spell. To cast at yourself, use `.' for the 808 direction. 809 810 ^Z Suspend the game (UNIX(R) versions with job control only). 811 812 : Look at what is here. 813 814 ; Show what type of thing a visible symbol corresponds to. 815 816 , Pick up some things. May be preceded by `m' to force a se- 817 lection menu. 818 819 @ Toggle the autopickup option on and off. 820 821 ^ Ask for the type of a trap you found earlier. 822 823 ) Tell what weapon you are wielding. 824 825 [ Tell what armor you are wearing. 826 827 = Tell what rings you are wearing. 828 829 " Tell what amulet you are wearing. 830 831 ( Tell what tools you are using. 832 833 * Tell what equipment you are using; combines the preceding 834 five type-specific commands into one. 835 836 $ Count your gold pieces. 837 838 + List the spells you know. Using this command, you can also 839 rearrange the order in which your spells are listed. They 840 are shown via a menu, and if you select a spell in that 841 menu, you'll be re-prompted for another spell to swap places 842 with it, and then have opportunity to make further ex- 843 changes. 844 845 \ Show what types of objects have been discovered. 846 847 ! Escape to a shell. 848 849 850 851 __________ 852 (R)UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T. 853 854 855 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 856 857 858 859 860 861 NetHack Guidebook 14 862 863 864 865 # Perform an extended command. As you can see, the authors of 866 NetHack used up all the letters, so this is a way to intro- 867 duce the less frequently used commands. What extended com- 868 mands are available depends on what features the game was 869 compiled with. 870 871 #adjust 872 Adjust inventory letters (most useful when the fixinv option 873 is ``on''). 874 875 #chat 876 Talk to someone. 877 878 #conduct 879 List which challenges you have adhered to. See the section 880 below entitled ``Conduct'' for details. 881 882 #dip Dip an object into something. 883 884 #enhance 885 Advance or check weapons and spell skills. 886 887 #force 888 Force a lock. 889 890 #invoke 891 Invoke an object's special powers. 892 893 #jump 894 Jump to another location. 895 896 #loot 897 Loot a box or bag on the floor beneath you, or the saddle 898 from a horse standing next to you. 899 900 #monster 901 Use a monster's special ability (when polymorphed into mon- 902 ster form). 903 904 #name 905 Name an item or type of object. 906 907 #offer 908 Offer a sacrifice to the gods. 909 910 #pray 911 Pray to the gods for help. 912 913 #quit 914 Quit the program without saving your game. 915 916 #ride 917 Ride (or stop riding) a monster. 918 919 920 921 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 922 923 924 925 926 927 NetHack Guidebook 15 928 929 930 931 #rub Rub a lamp or a stone. 932 933 #sit Sit down. 934 935 #turn 936 Turn undead. 937 938 #twoweapon 939 Toggle two-weapon combat on or off. Note that you must use 940 suitable weapons for this type of combat, or it will be au- 941 tomatically turned off. 942 943 #untrap 944 Untrap something (trap, door, or chest). 945 946 #version 947 Print compile time options for this version of NetHack. 948 949 #wipe 950 Wipe off your face. 951 952 #? Help menu: get the list of available extended commands. 953 954 If your keyboard has a meta key (which, when pressed in com- 955 bination with another key, modifies it by setting the `meta' 956 [8th, or `high'] bit), you can invoke many extended commands by 957 meta-ing the first letter of the command. In NT, OS/2, and PC 958 NetHack, the `Alt' key can be used in this fashion. 959 960 M-? #? (not supported by all platforms) 961 962 M-2 #twoweapon (unless the number_pad option is enabled) 963 964 M-a #adjust 965 966 M-c #chat 967 968 M-d #dip 969 970 M-e #enhance 971 972 M-f #force 973 974 M-i #invoke 975 976 M-j #jump 977 978 M-l #loot 979 980 M-m #monster 981 982 M-n #name 983 984 985 986 987 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 988 989 990 991 992 993 NetHack Guidebook 16 994 995 996 997 M-o #offer 998 999 M-p #pray 1000 1001 M-q #quit 1002 1003 M-r #rub 1004 1005 M-s #sit 1006 1007 M-t #turn 1008 1009 M-u #untrap 1010 1011 M-v #version 1012 1013 M-w #wipe 1014 1015 If the number_pad option is on, some additional letter com- 1016 mands are available: 1017 1018 h Help menu: display one of several help texts available, 1019 like ``?''. 1020 1021 j Jump to another location. Same as ``#jump'' or ``M-j''. 1022 1023 k Kick something (usually a door). Same as `^D'. 1024 1025 l Loot a box or bag on the floor beneath you, or the saddle 1026 from a horse standing next to you. Same as ``#loot'' or 1027 ``M-l''. 1028 1029 N Name an item or type of object. Same as ``#name'' or ``M- 1030 n''. 1031 1032 u Untrap a trap, door, or chest. Same as ``#untrap'' or ``M- 1033 u''. 1034 1035 1036 5. Rooms and corridors 1037 1038 Rooms and corridors in the dungeon are either lit or dark. 1039 Any lit areas within your line of sight will be displayed; dark 1040 areas are only displayed if they are within one space of you. 1041 Walls and corridors remain on the map as you explore them. 1042 1043 Secret corridors are hidden. You can find them with the `s' 1044 (search) command. 1045 1046 5.1. Doorways 1047 1048 Doorways connect rooms and corridors. Some doorways have no 1049 doors; you can walk right through. Others have doors in them, 1050 which may be open, closed, or locked. To open a closed door, use 1051 1052 1053 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 1054 1055 1056 1057 1058 1059 NetHack Guidebook 17 1060 1061 1062 1063 the `o' (open) command; to close it again, use the `c' (close) 1064 command. 1065 1066 You can get through a locked door by using a tool to pick 1067 the lock with the `a' (apply) command, or by kicking it open with 1068 the `^D' (kick) command. 1069 1070 Open doors cannot be entered diagonally; you must approach 1071 them straight on, horizontally or vertically. Doorways without 1072 doors are not restricted in this fashion. 1073 1074 Doors can be useful for shutting out monsters. Most mon- 1075 sters cannot open doors, although a few don't need to (ex. ghosts 1076 can walk through doors). 1077 1078 Secret doors are hidden. You can find them with the `s' 1079 (search) command. Once found they are in all ways equivalent to 1080 normal doors. 1081 1082 5.2. Traps (`^') 1083 1084 There are traps throughout the dungeon to snare the unwary 1085 delver. For example, you may suddenly fall into a pit and be 1086 stuck for a few turns trying to climb out. Traps don't appear on 1087 your map until you see one triggered by moving onto it, see some- 1088 thing fall into it, or you discover it with the `s' (search) com- 1089 mand. Monsters can fall prey to traps, too, which can be a very 1090 useful defensive strategy. 1091 1092 There is a special pre-mapped branch of the dungeon based on 1093 the classic computer game ``Sokoban.'' The goal is to push the 1094 boulders into the pits or holes. With careful foresight, it is 1095 possible to complete all of the levels according to the tradi- 1096 tional rules of Sokoban. Some allowances are permitted in case 1097 the player gets stuck; however, they will lower your luck. 1098 1099 5.3. Stairs (`<', `>') 1100 1101 In general, each level in the dungeon will have a staircase 1102 going up (`<') to the previous level and another going down (`>') 1103 to the next level. There are some exceptions though. For in- 1104 stance, fairly early in the dungeon you will find a level with 1105 two down staircases, one continuing into the dungeon and the oth- 1106 er branching into an area known as the Gnomish Mines. Those 1107 mines eventually hit a dead end, so after exploring them (if you 1108 choose to do so), you'll need to climb back up to the main dun- 1109 geon. 1110 1111 When you traverse a set of stairs, or trigger a trap which 1112 sends you to another level, the level you're leaving will be de- 1113 activated and stored in a file on disk. If you're moving to a 1114 previously visited level, it will be loaded from its file on disk 1115 and reactivated. If you're moving to a level which has not yet 1116 been visited, it will be created (from scratch for most random 1117 1118 1119 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 1120 1121 1122 1123 1124 1125 NetHack Guidebook 18 1126 1127 1128 1129 levels, from a template for some ``special'' levels, or loaded 1130 from the remains of an earlier game for a ``bones'' level as 1131 briefly described below). Monsters are only active on the cur- 1132 rent level; those on other levels are essentially placed into 1133 stasis. 1134 1135 Ordinarily when you climb a set of stairs, you will arrive 1136 on the corresponding staircase at your destination. However, 1137 pets (see below) and some other monsters will follow along if 1138 they're close enough when you travel up or down stairs, and occa- 1139 sionally one of these creatures will displace you during the 1140 climb. When that occurs, the pet or other monster will arrive on 1141 the staircase and you will end up nearby. 1142 1143 5.4. Ladders (`<', `>') 1144 1145 Ladders serve the same purpose as staircases, and the two 1146 types of inter-level connections are nearly indistinguishable 1147 during game play. 1148 1149 5.5. Shops and shopping 1150 1151 Occasionally you will run across a room with a shopkeeper 1152 near the door and many items lying on the floor. You can buy 1153 items by picking them up and then using the `p' command. You can 1154 inquire about the price of an item prior to picking it up by us- 1155 ing the ``#chat'' command while standing on it. Using an item 1156 prior to paying for it will incur a charge, and the shopkeeper 1157 won't allow you to leave the shop until you have paid any debt 1158 you owe. 1159 1160 You can sell items to a shopkeeper by dropping them to the 1161 floor while inside a shop. You will either be offered an amount 1162 of gold and asked whether you're willing to sell, or you'll be 1163 told that the shopkeeper isn't interested (generally, your item 1164 needs to be compatible with the type of merchandise carried by 1165 the shop). 1166 1167 If you drop something in a shop by accident, the shopkeeper 1168 will usually claim ownership without offering any compensation. 1169 You'll have to buy it back if you want to reclaim it. 1170 1171 Shopkeepers sometimes run out of money. When that happens, 1172 you'll be offered credit instead of gold when you try to sell 1173 something. Credit can be used to pay for purchases, but it is 1174 only good in the shop where it was obtained; other shopkeepers 1175 won't honor it. (If you happen to find a "credit card" in the 1176 dungeon, don't bother trying to use it in shops; shopkeepers will 1177 not accept it.) 1178 1179 The `$' command, which reports the amount of gold you are 1180 carrying (in inventory, not inside bags or boxes), will also show 1181 current shop debt or credit, if any. The `Iu' command lists un- 1182 paid items (those which still belong to the shop) if you are 1183 1184 1185 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 1186 1187 1188 1189 1190 1191 NetHack Guidebook 19 1192 1193 1194 1195 carrying any. The `Ix' command shows an inventory-like display 1196 of any unpaid items which have been used up, along with other 1197 shop fees, if any. 1198 1199 5.5.1. Shop idiosyncracies 1200 1201 Several aspects of shop behavior might be unexpected. 1202 1203 * The price of a given item can vary due to a variety of factors. 1204 1205 * A shopkeeper treats the spot immediately inside the door as if 1206 it were outside the shop. 1207 1208 * While the shopkeeper watches you like a hawk, he will generally 1209 ignore any other customers. 1210 1211 * If a shop is "closed for inventory", it will not open of its 1212 own accord. 1213 1214 * Shops do not get restocked with new items, regardless of inven- 1215 tory depletion. 1216 1217 1218 6. Monsters 1219 1220 Monsters you cannot see are not displayed on the screen. 1221 Beware! You may suddenly come upon one in a dark place. Some 1222 magic items can help you locate them before they locate you 1223 (which some monsters can do very well). 1224 1225 The commands `/' and `;' may be used to obtain information 1226 about those monsters who are displayed on the screen. The com- 1227 mand `C' allows you to assign a name to a monster, which may be 1228 useful to help distinguish one from another when multiple mon- 1229 sters are present. Assigning a name which is just a space will 1230 remove any prior name. 1231 1232 The extended command ``#chat'' can be used to interact with 1233 an adjacent monster. There is no actual dialog (in other words, 1234 you don't get to choose what you'll say), but chatting with some 1235 monsters such as a shopkeeper or the Oracle of Delphi can produce 1236 useful results. 1237 1238 6.1. Fighting 1239 1240 If you see a monster and you wish to fight it, just attempt 1241 to walk into it. Many monsters you find will mind their own 1242 business unless you attack them. Some of them are very dangerous 1243 when angered. Remember: discretion is the better part of valor. 1244 1245 If you can't see a monster (if it is invisible, or if you 1246 are blinded), the symbol `I' will be shown when you learn of its 1247 presence. If you attempt to walk into it, you will try to fight 1248 it just like a monster that you can see; of course, if the 1249 1250 1251 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 1252 1253 1254 1255 1256 1257 NetHack Guidebook 20 1258 1259 1260 1261 monster has moved, you will attack empty air. If you guess that 1262 the monster has moved and you don't wish to fight, you can use 1263 the `m' command to move without fighting; likewise, if you don't 1264 remember a monster but want to try fighting anyway, you can use 1265 the `F' command. 1266 1267 6.2. Your pet 1268 1269 You start the game with a little dog (`d'), cat (`f'), or 1270 pony (`u'), which follows you about the dungeon and fights mon- 1271 sters with you. Like you, your pet needs food to survive. It 1272 usually feeds itself on fresh carrion and other meats. If you're 1273 worried about it or want to train it, you can feed it, too, by 1274 throwing it food. A properly trained pet can be very useful un- 1275 der certain circumstances. 1276 1277 Your pet also gains experience from killing monsters, and 1278 can grow over time, gaining hit points and doing more damage. 1279 Initially, your pet may even be better at killing things than 1280 you, which makes pets useful for low-level characters. 1281 1282 Your pet will follow you up and down staircases if it is 1283 next to you when you move. Otherwise your pet will be stranded 1284 and may become wild. Similarly, when you trigger certain types 1285 of traps which alter your location (for instance, a trap door 1286 which drops you to a lower dungeon level), any adjacent pet will 1287 accompany you and any non-adjacent pet will be left behind. Your 1288 pet may trigger such traps itself; you will not be carried along 1289 with it even if adjacent at the time. 1290 1291 6.3. Steeds 1292 1293 Some types of creatures in the dungeon can actually be rid- 1294 den if you have the right equipment and skill. Convincing a wild 1295 beast to let you saddle it up is difficult to say the least. 1296 Many a dungeoneer has had to resort to magic and wizardry in or- 1297 der to forge the alliance. Once you do have the beast under your 1298 control however, you can easily climb in and out of the saddle 1299 with the `#ride' command. Lead the beast around the dungeon when 1300 riding, in the same manner as you would move yourself. It is the 1301 beast that you will see displayed on the map. 1302 1303 Riding skill is managed by the `#enhance' command. See the 1304 section on Weapon proficiency for more information about that. 1305 1306 6.4. Bones levels 1307 1308 You may encounter the shades and corpses of other adventur- 1309 ers (or even former incarnations of yourself!) and their personal 1310 effects. Ghosts are hard to kill, but easy to avoid, since 1311 they're slow and do little damage. You can plunder the deceased 1312 adventurer's possessions; however, they are likely to be cursed. 1313 Beware of whatever killed the former player; it is probably still 1314 lurking around, gloating over its last victory. 1315 1316 1317 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 1318 1319 1320 1321 1322 1323 NetHack Guidebook 21 1324 1325 1326 1327 7. Objects 1328 1329 When you find something in the dungeon, it is common to want 1330 to pick it up. In NetHack, this is accomplished automatically by 1331 walking over the object (unless you turn off the autopickup op- 1332 tion (see below), or move with the `m' prefix (see above)), or 1333 manually by using the `,' command. 1334 1335 If you're carrying too many items, NetHack will tell you so 1336 and you won't be able to pick up anything more. Otherwise, it 1337 will add the object(s) to your pack and tell you what you just 1338 picked up. 1339 1340 As you add items to your inventory, you also add the weight 1341 of that object to your load. The amount that you can carry de- 1342 pends on your strength and your constitution. The stronger you 1343 are, the less the additional load will affect you. There comes a 1344 point, though, when the weight of all of that stuff you are car- 1345 rying around with you through the dungeon will encumber you. 1346 Your reactions will get slower and you'll burn calories faster, 1347 requiring food more frequently to cope with it. Eventually, 1348 you'll be so overloaded that you'll either have to discard some 1349 of what you're carrying or collapse under its weight. 1350 1351 NetHack will tell you how badly you have loaded yourself. 1352 The symbols `Burdened', `Stressed', `Strained', `Overtaxed' and 1353 `Overloaded' are displayed on the bottom line display to indicate 1354 your condition. 1355 1356 When you pick up an object, it is assigned an inventory let- 1357 ter. Many commands that operate on objects must ask you to find 1358 out which object you want to use. When NetHack asks you to 1359 choose a particular object you are carrying, you are usually pre- 1360 sented with a list of inventory letters to choose from (see Com- 1361 mands, above). 1362 1363 Some objects, such as weapons, are easily differentiated. 1364 Others, like scrolls and potions, are given descriptions which 1365 vary according to type. During a game, any two objects with the 1366 same description are the same type. However, the descriptions 1367 will vary from game to game. 1368 1369 When you use one of these objects, if its effect is obvious, 1370 NetHack will remember what it is for you. If its effect isn't 1371 extremely obvious, you will be asked what you want to call this 1372 type of object so you will recognize it later. You can also use 1373 the ``#name'' command for the same purpose at any time, to name 1374 all objects of a particular type or just an individual object. 1375 When you use ``#name'' on an object which has already been named, 1376 specifying a space as the value will remove the prior name in- 1377 stead of assigning a new one. 1378 1379 1380 1381 1382 1383 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 1384 1385 1386 1387 1388 1389 NetHack Guidebook 22 1390 1391 1392 1393 7.1. Curses and Blessings 1394 1395 Any object that you find may be cursed, even if the object 1396 is otherwise helpful. The most common effect of a curse is being 1397 stuck with (and to) the item. Cursed weapons weld themselves to 1398 your hand when wielded, so you cannot unwield them. Any cursed 1399 item you wear is not removable by ordinary means. In addition, 1400 cursed arms and armor usually, but not always, bear negative en- 1401 chantments that make them less effective in combat. Other cursed 1402 objects may act poorly or detrimentally in other ways. 1403 1404 Objects can also be blessed. Blessed items usually work 1405 better or more beneficially than normal uncursed items. For ex- 1406 ample, a blessed weapon will do more damage against demons. 1407 1408 There are magical means of bestowing or removing curses upon 1409 objects, so even if you are stuck with one, you can still have 1410 the curse lifted and the item removed. Priests and Priestesses 1411 have an innate sensitivity to this property in any object, so 1412 they can more easily avoid cursed objects than other character 1413 roles. 1414 1415 An item with unknown status will be reported in your inven- 1416 tory with no prefix. An item which you know the state of will be 1417 distinguished in your inventory by the presence of the word 1418 ``cursed'', ``uncursed'' or ``blessed'' in the description of the 1419 item. 1420 1421 7.2. Weapons (`)') 1422 1423 Given a chance, most monsters in the Mazes of Menace will 1424 gratuitously try to kill you. You need weapons for self-defense 1425 (killing them first). Without a weapon, you do only 1-2 hit 1426 points of damage (plus bonuses, if any). Monk characters are an 1427 exception; they normally do much more damage with bare hands than 1428 they do with weapons. 1429 1430 There are wielded weapons, like maces and swords, and thrown 1431 weapons, like arrows and spears. To hit monsters with a weapon, 1432 you must wield it and attack them, or throw it at them. You can 1433 simply elect to throw a spear. To shoot an arrow, you should 1434 first wield a bow, then throw the arrow. Crossbows shoot cross- 1435 bow bolts. Slings hurl rocks and (other) stones (like gems). 1436 1437 Enchanted weapons have a ``plus'' (or ``to hit enhancement'' 1438 which can be either positive or negative) that adds to your 1439 chance to hit and the damage you do to a monster. The only way 1440 to determine a weapon's enchantment is to have it magically iden- 1441 tified somehow. Most weapons are subject to some type of damage 1442 like rust. Such ``erosion'' damage can be repaired. 1443 1444 The chance that an attack will successfully hit a monster, 1445 and the amount of damage such a hit will do, depends upon many 1446 factors. Among them are: type of weapon, quality of weapon 1447 1448 1449 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 1450 1451 1452 1453 1454 1455 NetHack Guidebook 23 1456 1457 1458 1459 (enchantment and/or erosion), experience level, strength, dexter- 1460 ity, encumbrance, and proficiency (see below). The monster's ar- 1461 mor class - a general defense rating, not necessarily due to 1462 wearing of armor - is a factor too; also, some monsters are par- 1463 ticularly vulnerable to certain types of weapons. 1464 1465 Many weapons can be wielded in one hand; some require both 1466 hands. When wielding a two-handed weapon, you can not wear a 1467 shield, and vice versa. When wielding a one-handed weapon, you 1468 can have another weapon ready to use by setting things up with 1469 the `x' command, which exchanges your primary (the one being 1470 wielded) and alternate weapons. And if you have proficiency in 1471 the ``two weapon combat'' skill, you may wield both weapons si- 1472 multaneously as primary and secondary; use the `#twoweapon' ex- 1473 tended command to engage or disengage that. Only some types of 1474 characters (barbarians, for instance) have the necessary skill 1475 available. Even with that skill, using two weapons at once in- 1476 curs a penalty in the chance to hit your target compared to using 1477 just one weapon at a time. 1478 1479 There might be times when you'd rather not wield any weapon 1480 at all. To accomplish that, wield `-', or else use the `A' com- 1481 mand which allows you to unwield the current weapon in addition 1482 to taking off other worn items. 1483 1484 Those of you in the audience who are AD&D players, be aware 1485 that each weapon which existed in AD&D does roughly the same dam- 1486 age to monsters in NetHack. Some of the more obscure weapons 1487 (such as the aklys, lucern hammer, and bec-de-corbin) are defined 1488 in an appendix to Unearthed Arcana, an AD&D supplement. 1489 1490 The commands to use weapons are `w' (wield), `t' (throw), 1491 `f' (fire, an alternative way of throwing), `Q' (quiver), `x' 1492 (exchange), `#twoweapon', and `#enhance' (see below). 1493 1494 7.2.1. Throwing and shooting 1495 1496 You can throw just about anything via the `t' command. It 1497 will prompt for the item to throw; picking `?' will list things 1498 in your inventory which are considered likely to be thrown, or 1499 picking `*' will list your entire inventory. After you've chosen 1500 what to throw, you will be prompted for a direction rather than 1501 for a specific target. The distance something can be thrown de- 1502 pends mainly on the type of object and your strength. Arrows can 1503 be thrown by hand, but can be thrown much farther and will be 1504 more likely to hit when thrown while you are wielding a bow. 1505 1506 You can simplify the throwing operation by using the `Q' 1507 command to select your preferred ``missile'', then using the `f' 1508 command to throw it. You'll be prompted for a direction as 1509 above, but you don't have to specify which item to throw each 1510 time you use `f'. There is also an option, autoquiver, which has 1511 NetHack choose another item to automatically fill your quiver 1512 when the inventory slot used for `Q' runs out. 1513 1514 1515 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 1516 1517 1518 1519 1520 1521 NetHack Guidebook 24 1522 1523 1524 1525 Some characters have the ability to fire a volley of multi- 1526 ple items in a single turn. Knowing how to load several rounds 1527 of ammunition at once -- or hold several missiles in your hand -- 1528 and still hit a target is not an easy task. Rangers are among 1529 those who are adept at this task, as are those with a high level 1530 of proficiency in the relevant weapon skill (in bow skill if 1531 you're wielding one to shoot arrows, in crossbow skill if you're 1532 wielding one to shoot bolts, or in sling skill if you're wielding 1533 one to shoot stones). The number of items that the character has 1534 a chance to fire varies from turn to turn. You can explicitly 1535 limit the number of shots by using a numeric prefix before the 1536 `t' or `f' command. For example, ``2f'' (or ``n2f'' if using 1537 number_pad mode) would ensure that at most 2 arrows are shot even 1538 if you could have fired 3. If you specify a larger number than 1539 would have been shot (``4f'' in this example), you'll just end up 1540 shooting the same number (3, here) as if no limit had been speci- 1541 fied. Once the volley is in motion, all of the items will travel 1542 in the same direction; if the first ones kill a monster, the oth- 1543 ers can still continue beyond that spot. 1544 1545 7.2.2. Weapon proficiency 1546 1547 You will have varying degrees of skill in the weapons avail- 1548 able. Weapon proficiency, or weapon skills, affect how well you 1549 can use particular types of weapons, and you'll be able to im- 1550 prove your skills as you progress through a game, depending on 1551 your role, your experience level, and use of the weapons. 1552 1553 For the purposes of proficiency, weapons have been divided 1554 up into various groups such as daggers, broadswords, and 1555 polearms. Each role has a limit on what level of proficiency a 1556 character can achieve for each group. For instance, wizards can 1557 become highly skilled in daggers or staves but not in swords or 1558 bows. 1559 1560 The `#enhance' extended command is used to review current 1561 weapons proficiency (also spell proficiency) and to choose which 1562 skill(s) to improve when you've used one or more skills enough to 1563 become eligible to do so. The skill rankings are ``none'' (some- 1564 times also referred to as ``restricted'', because you won't be 1565 able to advance), ``unskilled'', ``basic'', ``skilled'', and 1566 ``expert''. Restricted skills simply will not appear in the list 1567 shown by `#enhance'. (Divine intervention might unrestrict a 1568 particular skill, in which case it will start at unskilled and be 1569 limited to basic.) Some characters can enhance their barehanded 1570 combat or martial arts skill beyond expert to ``master'' or 1571 ``grand master''. 1572 1573 Use of a weapon in which you're restricted or unskilled will 1574 incur a modest penalty in the chance to hit a monster and also in 1575 the amount of damage done when you do hit; at basic level, there 1576 is no penalty or bonus; at skilled level, you receive a modest 1577 bonus in the chance to hit and amount of damage done; at expert 1578 level, the bonus is higher. A successful hit has a chance to 1579 1580 1581 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 1582 1583 1584 1585 1586 1587 NetHack Guidebook 25 1588 1589 1590 1591 boost your training towards the next skill level (unless you've 1592 already reached the limit for this skill). Once such training 1593 reaches the threshold for that next level, you'll be told that 1594 you feel more confident in your skills. At that point you can 1595 use `#enhance' to increase one or more skills. Such skills are 1596 not increased automatically because there is a limit to your to- 1597 tal overall skills, so you need to actively choose which skills 1598 to enhance and which to ignore. 1599 1600 7.3. Armor (`[') 1601 1602 Lots of unfriendly things lurk about; you need armor to pro- 1603 tect yourself from their blows. Some types of armor offer better 1604 protection than others. Your armor class is a measure of this 1605 protection. Armor class (AC) is measured as in AD&D, with 10 be- 1606 ing the equivalent of no armor, and lower numbers meaning better 1607 armor. Each suit of armor which exists in AD&D gives the same 1608 protection in NetHack. Here is an (incomplete) list of the armor 1609 classes provided by various suits of armor: 1610 1611 dragon scale mail 1 1612 plate mail 3 1613 crystal plate mail 3 1614 bronze plate mail 4 1615 splint mail 4 1616 banded mail 4 1617 dwarvish mithril-coat 4 1618 elven mithril-coat 5 1619 chain mail 5 1620 orcish chain mail 6 1621 scale mail 6 1622 studded leather armor 7 1623 ring mail 7 1624 orcish ring mail 8 1625 leather armor 8 1626 leather jacket 9 1627 no armor 10 1628 1629 You can also wear other pieces of armor (ex. helmets, boots, 1630 shields, cloaks) to lower your armor class even further, but you 1631 can only wear one item of each category (one suit of armor, one 1632 cloak, one helmet, one shield, and so on) at a time. 1633 1634 If a piece of armor is enchanted, its armor protection will 1635 be better (or worse) than normal, and its ``plus'' (or minus) 1636 will subtract from your armor class. For example, a +1 chain 1637 mail would give you better protection than normal chain mail, 1638 lowering your armor class one unit further to 4. When you put on 1639 a piece of armor, you immediately find out the armor class and 1640 any ``plusses'' it provides. Cursed pieces of armor usually have 1641 negative enchantments (minuses) in addition to being unremovable. 1642 1643 Many types of armor are subject to some kind of damage like 1644 rust. Such damage can be repaired. Some types of armor may 1645 1646 1647 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 1648 1649 1650 1651 1652 1653 NetHack Guidebook 26 1654 1655 1656 1657 inhibit spell casting. 1658 1659 The commands to use armor are `W' (wear) and `T' (take off). 1660 The `A' command can also be used to take off armor as well as 1661 other worn items. 1662 1663 7.4. Food (`%') 1664 1665 Food is necessary to survive. If you go too long without 1666 eating you will faint, and eventually die of starvation. Some 1667 types of food will spoil, and become unhealthy to eat, if not 1668 protected. Food stored in ice boxes or tins (``cans'') will usu- 1669 ally stay fresh, but ice boxes are heavy, and tins take a while 1670 to open. 1671 1672 When you kill monsters, they usually leave corpses which are 1673 also ``food.'' Many, but not all, of these are edible; some also 1674 give you special powers when you eat them. A good rule of thumb 1675 is ``you are what you eat.'' 1676 1677 Some character roles and some monsters are vegetarian. Veg- 1678 etarian monsters will typically never eat animal corpses, while 1679 vegetarian players can, but with some rather unpleasant side-ef- 1680 fects. 1681 1682 You can name one food item after something you like to eat 1683 with the fruit option. 1684 1685 The command to eat food is `e'. 1686 1687 7.5. Scrolls (`?') 1688 1689 Scrolls are labeled with various titles, probably chosen by 1690 ancient wizards for their amusement value (ex. ``READ ME,'' or 1691 ``THANX MAUD'' backwards). Scrolls disappear after you read them 1692 (except for blank ones, without magic spells on them). 1693 1694 One of the most useful of these is the scroll of identify, 1695 which can be used to determine what another object is, whether it 1696 is cursed or blessed, and how many uses it has left. Some ob- 1697 jects of subtle enchantment are difficult to identify without 1698 these. 1699 1700 A mail daemon may run up and deliver mail to you as a scroll 1701 of mail (on versions compiled with this feature). To use this 1702 feature on versions where NetHack mail delivery is triggered by 1703 electronic mail appearing in your system mailbox, you must let 1704 NetHack know where to look for new mail by setting the ``MAIL'' 1705 environment variable to the file name of your mailbox. You may 1706 also want to set the ``MAILREADER'' environment variable to the 1707 file name of your favorite reader, so NetHack can shell to it 1708 when you read the scroll. On versions of NetHack where mail is 1709 randomly generated internal to the game, these environment vari- 1710 ables are ignored. You can disable the mail daemon by turning 1711 1712 1713 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 1714 1715 1716 1717 1718 1719 NetHack Guidebook 27 1720 1721 1722 1723 off the mail option. 1724 1725 The command to read a scroll is `r'. 1726 1727 7.6. Potions (`!') 1728 1729 Potions are distinguished by the color of the liquid inside 1730 the flask. They disappear after you quaff them. 1731 1732 Clear potions are potions of water. Sometimes these are 1733 blessed or cursed, resulting in holy or unholy water. Holy water 1734 is the bane of the undead, so potions of holy water are good 1735 things to throw (`t') at them. It is also sometimes very useful 1736 to dip (``#dip'') an object into a potion. 1737 1738 The command to drink a potion is `q' (quaff). 1739 1740 7.7. Wands (`/') 1741 1742 Magic wands usually have multiple magical charges. Some 1743 wands are directional--you must give a direction in which to zap 1744 them. You can also zap them at yourself (just give a `.' or `s' 1745 for the direction). Be warned, however, for this is often unwise. 1746 Other wands are nondirectional--they don't require a direction. 1747 The number of charges in a wand is random and decreases by one 1748 whenever you use it. 1749 1750 When the number of charges left in a wand becomes zero, at- 1751 tempts to use the wand will usually result in nothing happening. 1752 Occasionally, however, it may be possible to squeeze the last few 1753 mana points from an otherwise spent wand, destroying it in the 1754 process. A wand may be recharged by using suitable magic, but 1755 doing so runs the risk of causing it to explode. The chance for 1756 such an explosion starts out very small and increases each time 1757 the wand is recharged. 1758 1759 In a truly desperate situation, when your back is up against 1760 the wall, you might decide to go for broke and break your wand. 1761 This is not for the faint of heart. Doing so will almost cer- 1762 tainly cause a catastrophic release of magical energies. 1763 1764 When you have fully identified a particular wand, inventory 1765 display will include additional information in parentheses: the 1766 number of times it has been recharged followed by a colon and 1767 then by its current number of charges. A current charge count of 1768 -1 is a special case indicating that the wand has been cancelled. 1769 1770 The command to use a wand is `z' (zap). To break one, use 1771 the `a' (apply) command. 1772 1773 7.8. Rings (`=') 1774 1775 Rings are very useful items, since they are relatively per- 1776 manent magic, unlike the usually fleeting effects of potions, 1777 1778 1779 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 1780 1781 1782 1783 1784 1785 NetHack Guidebook 28 1786 1787 1788 1789 scrolls, and wands. 1790 1791 Putting on a ring activates its magic. You can wear only 1792 two rings, one on each ring finger. 1793 1794 Most rings also cause you to grow hungry more rapidly, the 1795 rate varying with the type of ring. 1796 1797 The commands to use rings are `P' (put on) and `R' (remove). 1798 1799 7.9. Spellbooks (`+') 1800 1801 Spellbooks are tomes of mighty magic. When studied with the 1802 `r' (read) command, they transfer to the reader the knowledge of 1803 a spell (and therefore eventually become unreadable) -- unless 1804 the attempt backfires. Reading a cursed spellbook or one with 1805 mystic runes beyond your ken can be harmful to your health! 1806 1807 A spell (even when learned) can also backfire when you cast 1808 it. If you attempt to cast a spell well above your experience 1809 level, or if you have little skill with the appropriate spell 1810 type, or cast it at a time when your luck is particularly bad, 1811 you can end up wasting both the energy and the time required in 1812 casting. 1813 1814 Casting a spell calls forth magical energies and focuses 1815 them with your naked mind. Some of the magical energy released 1816 comes from within you, and casting several spells in a row may 1817 tire you. Casting of spells also requires practice. With prac- 1818 tice, your skill in each category of spell casting will improve. 1819 Over time, however, your memory of each spell will dim, and you 1820 will need to relearn it. 1821 1822 Some spells are directional--you must give a direction in 1823 which to cast them. You can also cast them at yourself (just 1824 give a `.' or `s' for the direction). Be warned, however, for 1825 this is often unwise. Other spells are nondirectional--they 1826 don't require a direction. 1827 1828 Just as weapons are divided into groups in which a character 1829 can become proficient (to varying degrees), spells are similarly 1830 grouped. Successfully casting a spell exercises the skill group; 1831 sufficient skill may increase the potency of the spell and reduce 1832 the risk of spell failure. Skill slots are shared with weapons 1833 skills. (See also the section on ``Weapon proficiency''.) 1834 1835 Casting a spell also requires flexible movement, and wearing 1836 various types of armor may interfere with that. 1837 1838 The command to read a spellbook is the same as for scrolls, 1839 `r' (read). The `+' command lists your current spells, their 1840 levels, categories, and chances for failure. The `Z' (cast) com- 1841 mand casts a spell. 1842 1843 1844 1845 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 NetHack Guidebook 29 1852 1853 1854 1855 7.10. Tools (`(') 1856 1857 Tools are miscellaneous objects with various purposes. Some 1858 tools have a limited number of uses, akin to wand charges. For 1859 example, lamps burn out after a while. Other tools are contain- 1860 ers, which objects can be placed into or taken out of. 1861 1862 The command to use tools is `a' (apply). 1863 1864 7.10.1. Containers 1865 1866 You may encounter bags, boxes, and chests in your travels. 1867 A tool of this sort can be opened with the ``#loot'' extended 1868 command when you are standing on top of it (that is, on the same 1869 floor spot), or with the `a' (apply) command when you are carry- 1870 ing it. However, chests are often locked, and are in any case 1871 unwieldy objects. You must set one down before unlocking it by 1872 using a key or lock-picking tool with the `a' (apply) command, by 1873 kicking it with the `^D' command, or by using a weapon to force 1874 the lock with the ``#force'' extended command. 1875 1876 Some chests are trapped, causing nasty things to happen when 1877 you unlock or open them. You can check for and try to deactivate 1878 traps with the ``#untrap'' extended command. 1879 1880 7.11. Amulets (`"') 1881 1882 Amulets are very similar to rings, and often more powerful. 1883 Like rings, amulets have various magical properties, some benefi- 1884 cial, some harmful, which are activated by putting them on. 1885 1886 Only one amulet may be worn at a time, around your neck. 1887 1888 The commands to use amulets are the same as for rings, `P' 1889 (put on) and `R' (remove). 1890 1891 7.12. Gems (`*') 1892 1893 Some gems are valuable, and can be sold for a lot of gold. 1894 They are also a far more efficient way of carrying your riches. 1895 Valuable gems increase your score if you bring them with you when 1896 you exit. 1897 1898 Other small rocks are also categorized as gems, but they are 1899 much less valuable. All rocks, however, can be used as projec- 1900 tile weapons (if you have a sling). In the most desperate of 1901 cases, you can still throw them by hand. 1902 1903 7.13. Large rocks (``') 1904 1905 Statues and boulders are not particularly useful, and are 1906 generally heavy. It is rumored that some statues are not what 1907 they seem. 1908 1909 1910 1911 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 NetHack Guidebook 30 1918 1919 1920 1921 Very large humanoids (giants and their ilk) have been known 1922 to use boulders as weapons. 1923 1924 7.14. Gold (`$') 1925 1926 Gold adds to your score, and you can buy things in shops 1927 with it. There are a number of monsters in the dungeon that may 1928 be influenced by the amount of gold you are carrying (shopkeepers 1929 aside). 1930 1931 1932 8. Conduct 1933 1934 As if winning NetHack were not difficult enough, certain 1935 players seek to challenge themselves by imposing restrictions on 1936 the way they play the game. The game automatically tracks some 1937 of these challenges, which can be checked at any time with the 1938 #conduct command or at the end of the game. When you perform an 1939 action which breaks a challenge, it will no longer be listed. 1940 This gives players extra ``bragging rights'' for winning the game 1941 with these challenges. Note that it is perfectly acceptable to 1942 win the game without resorting to these restrictions and that it 1943 is unusual for players to adhere to challenges the first time 1944 they win the game. 1945 1946 Several of the challenges are related to eating behavior. 1947 The most difficult of these is the foodless challenge. Although 1948 creatures can survive long periods of time without food, there is 1949 a physiological need for water; thus there is no restriction on 1950 drinking beverages, even if they provide some minor food bene- 1951 fits. Calling upon your god for help with starvation does not 1952 violate any food challenges either. 1953 1954 A strict vegan diet is one which avoids any food derived 1955 from animals. The primary source of nutrition is fruits and veg- 1956 etables. The corpses and tins of blobs (`b'), jellies (`j'), and 1957 fungi (`F') are also considered to be vegetable matter. Certain 1958 human food is prepared without animal products; namely, lembas 1959 wafers, cram rations, food rations (gunyoki), K-rations, and C- 1960 rations. Metal or another normally indigestible material eaten 1961 while polymorphed into a creature that can digest it is also con- 1962 sidered vegan food. Note however that eating such items still 1963 counts against foodless conduct. 1964 1965 Vegetarians do not eat animals; however, they are less se- 1966 lective about eating animal byproducts than vegans. In addition 1967 to the vegan items listed above, they may eat any kind of pudding 1968 (`P') other than the black puddings, eggs and food made from eggs 1969 (fortune cookies and pancakes), food made with milk (cream pies 1970 and candy bars), and lumps of royal jelly. Monks are expected to 1971 observe a vegetarian diet. 1972 1973 Eating any kind of meat violates the vegetarian, vegan, and 1974 foodless conducts. This includes tripe rations, the corpses or 1975 1976 1977 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 NetHack Guidebook 31 1984 1985 1986 1987 tins of any monsters not mentioned above, and the various other 1988 chunks of meat found in the dungeon. Swallowing and digesting a 1989 monster while polymorphed is treated as if you ate the creature's 1990 corpse. Eating leather, dragon hide, or bone items while poly- 1991 morphed into a creature that can digest it, or eating monster 1992 brains while polymorphed into a mind flayer, is considered eating 1993 an animal, although wax is only an animal byproduct. 1994 1995 Regardless of conduct, there will be some items which are 1996 indigestible, and others which are hazardous to eat. Using a 1997 swallow-and-digest attack against a monster is equivalent to eat- 1998 ing the monster's corpse. Please note that the term ``vegan'' is 1999 used here only in the context of diet. You are still free to 2000 choose not to use or wear items derived from animals (e.g. 2001 leather, dragon hide, bone, horns, coral), but the game will not 2002 keep track of this for you. Also note that ``milky'' potions may 2003 be a translucent white, but they do not contain milk, so they are 2004 compatible with a vegan diet. Slime molds or player-defined 2005 ``fruits'', although they could be anything from ``cherries'' to 2006 ``pork chops'', are also assumed to be vegan. 2007 2008 An atheist is one who rejects religion. This means that you 2009 cannot #pray, #offer sacrifices to any god, #turn undead, or 2010 #chat with a priest. Particularly selective readers may argue 2011 that playing Monk or Priest characters should violate this con- 2012 duct; that is a choice left to the player. Offering the Amulet 2013 of Yendor to your god is necessary to win the game and is not 2014 counted against this conduct. You are also not penalized for be- 2015 ing spoken to by an angry god, priest(ess), or other religious 2016 figure; a true atheist would hear the words but attach no special 2017 meaning to them. 2018 2019 Most players fight with a wielded weapon (or tool intended 2020 to be wielded as a weapon). Another challenge is to win the game 2021 without using such a wielded weapon. You are still permitted to 2022 throw, fire, and kick weapons; use a wand, spell, or other type 2023 of item; or fight with your hands and feet. 2024 2025 In NetHack, a pacifist refuses to cause the death of any 2026 other monster (i.e. if you would get experience for the death). 2027 This is a particularly difficult challenge, although it is still 2028 possible to gain experience by other means. 2029 2030 An illiterate character cannot read or write. This includes 2031 reading a scroll, spellbook, fortune cookie message, or t-shirt; 2032 writing a scroll; or making an engraving of anything other than a 2033 single ``x'' (the traditional signature of an illiterate person). 2034 Reading an engraving, or any item that is absolutely necessary to 2035 win the game, is not counted against this conduct. The identity 2036 of scrolls and spellbooks (and knowledge of spells) in your 2037 starting inventory is assumed to be learned from your teachers 2038 prior to the start of the game and isn't counted. 2039 2040 2041 2042 2043 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 2044 2045 2046 2047 2048 2049 NetHack Guidebook 32 2050 2051 2052 2053 There are several other challenges tracked by the game. It 2054 is possible to eliminate one or more species of monsters by geno- 2055 cide; playing without this feature is considered a challenge. 2056 When the game offers you an opportunity to genocide monsters, you 2057 may respond with the monster type ``none'' if you want to de- 2058 cline. You can change the form of an item into another item of 2059 the same type (``polypiling'') or the form of your own body into 2060 another creature (``polyself'') by wand, spell, or potion of 2061 polymorph; avoiding these effects are each considered challenges. 2062 Polymorphing monsters, including pets, does not break either of 2063 these challenges. Finally, you may sometimes receive wishes; a 2064 game without an attempt to wish for any items is a challenge, as 2065 is a game without wishing for an artifact (even if the artifact 2066 immediately disappears). When the game offers you an opportunity 2067 to make a wish for an item, you may choose ``nothing'' if you 2068 want to decline. 2069 2070 2071 9. Options 2072 2073 Due to variations in personal tastes and conceptions of how 2074 NetHack should do things, there are options you can set to change 2075 how NetHack behaves. 2076 2077 9.1. Setting the options 2078 2079 Options may be set in a number of ways. Within the game, 2080 the `O' command allows you to view all options and change most of 2081 them. You can also set options automatically by placing them in 2082 the NETHACKOPTIONS environment variable or in a configuration 2083 file. Some versions of NetHack also have front-end programs that 2084 allow you to set options before starting the game. 2085 2086 9.2. Using the NETHACKOPTIONS environment variable 2087 2088 The NETHACKOPTIONS variable is a comma-separated list of 2089 initial values for the various options. Some can only be turned 2090 on or off. You turn one of these on by adding the name of the 2091 option to the list, and turn it off by typing a `!' or ``no'' be- 2092 fore the name. Others take a character string as a value. You 2093 can set string options by typing the option name, a colon or 2094 equals sign, and then the value of the string. The value is ter- 2095 minated by the next comma or the end of string. 2096 2097 For example, to set up an environment variable so that ``au- 2098 toquiver'' is on, ``autopickup'' is off, the name is set to 2099 ``Blue Meanie'', and the fruit is set to ``papaya'', you would 2100 enter the command 2101 2102 % setenv NETHACKOPTIONS "autoquiver,\!autopickup,name:Blue Meanie,fruit:papaya" 2103 2104 in csh (note the need to escape the ! since it's special to the 2105 shell), or 2106 2107 2108 2109 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 2110 2111 2112 2113 2114 2115 NetHack Guidebook 33 2116 2117 2118 2119 $ NETHACKOPTIONS="autoquiver,!autopickup,name:Blue Meanie,fruit:papaya" 2120 $ export NETHACKOPTIONS 2121 2122 in sh or ksh. 2123 2124 9.3. Using a configuration file 2125 2126 Any line in the configuration file starting with `#' is 2127 treated as a comment. Any line in the configuration file start- 2128 ing with ``OPTIONS='' may be filled out with options in the same 2129 syntax as in NETHACKOPTIONS. Any line starting with ``DUN- 2130 GEON='', ``EFFECTS='', ``MONSTERS='', ``OBJECTS='', ``TRAPS='', 2131 or ``BOULDER='' is taken as defining the corresponding dungeon, 2132 effects, monsters, objects traps or boulder option in a different 2133 syntax, a sequence of decimal numbers giving the character posi- 2134 tion in the current font to be used in displaying each entry. A 2135 zero in any entry in such a sequence leaves the display of that 2136 entry unchanged; this feature is not available using the option 2137 syntax. Such a sequence can be continued to multiple lines by 2138 putting a `\' at the end of each line to be continued. 2139 2140 If your copy of the game included the compile time AUTOPICK- 2141 UP_EXCEPTIONS option, then any line starting with ``AUTOPICK- 2142 UP_EXCEPTION='' is taken as defining an exception to the pick- 2143 up_types option. There is a section of this Guidebook that dis- 2144 cusses that. 2145 2146 The default name of the configuration file varies on differ- 2147 ent operating systems, but NETHACKOPTIONS can also be set to the 2148 full name of a file you want to use (possibly preceded by an 2149 `@'). 2150 2151 9.4. Customization options 2152 2153 Here are explanations of what the various options do. Char- 2154 acter strings that are too long may be truncated. Some of the 2155 options listed may be inactive in your dungeon. 2156 2157 align 2158 Your starting alignment (align:lawful, align:neutral, or 2159 align:chaotic). You may specify just the first letter. The 2160 default is to randomly pick an appropriate alignment. Cannot 2161 be set with the `O' command. 2162 2163 autodig 2164 Automatically dig if you are wielding a digging tool and moving 2165 into a place that can be dug (default false). 2166 2167 autopickup 2168 Automatically pick up things onto which you move (default on). 2169 See pickup_types to refine the behavior. 2170 2171 autoquiver 2172 This option controls what happens when you attempt the `f' 2173 2174 2175 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 2176 2177 2178 2179 2180 2181 NetHack Guidebook 34 2182 2183 2184 2185 (fire) command with an empty quiver. When true, the computer 2186 will fill your quiver with some suitable weapon. Note that it 2187 will not take into account the blessed/cursed status, enchant- 2188 ment, damage, or quality of the weapon; you are free to manual- 2189 ly fill your quiver with the `Q' command instead. If no weapon 2190 is found or the option is false, the `t' (throw) command is ex- 2191 ecuted instead. (default false) 2192 2193 boulder 2194 Set the character used to display boulders (default is rock 2195 class symbol). 2196 2197 catname 2198 Name your starting cat (ex. ``catname:Morris''). Cannot be set 2199 with the `O' command. 2200 2201 character 2202 Pick your type of character (ex. ``character:Monk''); synonym 2203 for ``role''. See ``name'' for an alternate method of specify- 2204 ing your role. Normally only the first letter of the value is 2205 examined; the string ``random'' is an exception. 2206 2207 checkpoint 2208 Save game state after each level change, for possible recovery 2209 after program crash (default on). 2210 2211 checkspace 2212 Check free disk space before writing files to disk (default 2213 on). You may have to turn this off if you have more than 2 GB 2214 free space on the partition used for your save and level files. 2215 Only applies when MFLOPPY was defined during compilation. 2216 2217 cmdassist 2218 Have the game provide some additional command assistance for 2219 new players if it detects some anticipated mistakes (default 2220 on). 2221 2222 confirm 2223 Have user confirm attacks on pets, shopkeepers, and other 2224 peaceable creatures (default on). 2225 2226 DECgraphics 2227 Use a predefined selection of characters from the DEC VT- 2228 xxx/DEC Rainbow/ANSI line-drawing character set to display the 2229 dungeon/effects/traps instead of having to define a full graph- 2230 ics set yourself (default off). This option also sets up prop- 2231 er handling of graphics characters for such terminals, so you 2232 should specify it when appropriate even if you override the se- 2233 lections with your own graphics strings. 2234 2235 disclose 2236 Controls options for disclosing various information when the 2237 game ends (defaults to all possibilities being disclosed). The 2238 possibilities are: 2239 2240 2241 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 2242 2243 2244 2245 2246 2247 NetHack Guidebook 35 2248 2249 2250 2251 i - disclose your inventory. 2252 a - disclose your attributes. 2253 v - summarize monsters that have been vanquished. 2254 g - list monster species that have been genocided. 2255 c - display your conduct. 2256 2257 Each disclosure possibility can optionally be preceded by a 2258 prefix which let you refine how it behaves. Here are the valid 2259 prefixes: 2260 2261 y - prompt you and default to yes on the prompt. 2262 n - prompt you and default to no on the prompt. 2263 + - disclose it without prompting. 2264 - - do not disclose it and do not prompt. 2265 2266 (ex. ``disclose:yi na +v -g -c'') The example sets inventory to 2267 prompt and default to yes, attributes to prompt and default to 2268 no, vanquished to disclose without prompting, genocided to not 2269 disclose and not to prompt, conduct to not disclose and not to 2270 prompt. Note that the vanquished monsters list includes all 2271 monsters killed by traps and each other as well as by you. 2272 2273 dogname 2274 Name your starting dog (ex. ``dogname:Fang''). Cannot be set 2275 with the `O' command. 2276 2277 dungeon 2278 Set the graphics symbols for displaying the dungeon (default 2279 `` |--------||.-|++##.##<><>_|\\#{}.}..## #}''). The dungeon 2280 option should be followed by a string of 1-41 characters to be 2281 used instead of the default map-drawing characters. The dun- 2282 geon map will use the characters you specify instead of the de- 2283 fault symbols, and default symbols for any you do not specify. 2284 Remember that you may need to escape some of these characters 2285 on a command line if they are special to your shell. 2286 2287 Note that NetHack escape-processes this option string in con- 2288 ventional C fashion. This means that `\' is a prefix to take 2289 the following character literally. Thus `\' needs to be repre- 2290 sented as `\\'. The special escape form `\m' switches on the 2291 meta bit in the following character, and the `^' prefix causes 2292 the following character to be treated as a control character. 2293 2294 The order of the symbols is: solid rock, vertical wall, hori- 2295 zontal wall, upper left corner, upper right corner, lower left 2296 corner, lower right corner, cross wall, upward T wall, downward 2297 T wall, leftward T wall, rightward T wall, no door, vertical 2298 open door, horizontal open door, vertical closed door, horizon- 2299 tal closed door, iron bars, tree, floor of a room, dark corri- 2300 dor, lit corridor, stairs up, stairs down, ladder up, ladder 2301 down, altar, grave, throne, kitchen sink, fountain, pool or 2302 moat, ice, lava, vertical lowered drawbridge, horizontal low- 2303 ered drawbridge, vertical raised drawbridge, horizontal raised 2304 drawbridge, air, cloud, under water. 2305 2306 2307 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 2308 2309 2310 2311 2312 2313 NetHack Guidebook 36 2314 2315 2316 2317 You might want to use `+' for the corners and T walls for a 2318 more aesthetic, boxier display. Note that in the next release, 2319 new symbols may be added, or the present ones rearranged. 2320 2321 Cannot be set with the `O' command. 2322 2323 effects 2324 Set the graphics symbols for displaying special effects (de- 2325 fault ``|-\\/*!)(0#@*/-\\||\\-//-\\| |\\-/''). The effects op- 2326 tion should be followed by a string of 1-29 characters to be 2327 used instead of the default special-effects characters. This 2328 string is subjected to the same processing as the dungeon op- 2329 tion. 2330 2331 The order of the symbols is: vertical beam, horizontal beam, 2332 left slant, right slant, digging beam, camera flash beam, left 2333 boomerang, right boomerang, four glyphs giving the sequence for 2334 magic resistance displays, the eight surrounding glyphs for 2335 swallowed display, nine glyphs for explosions. An explosion 2336 consists of three rows (top, middle, and bottom) of three char- 2337 acters. The explosion is centered in the center of this 3 by 3 2338 array. 2339 2340 Note that in the next release, new symbols may be added, or the 2341 present ones rearranged. 2342 2343 Cannot be set with the `O' command. 2344 2345 extmenu 2346 Changes the extended commands interface to pop-up a menu of 2347 available commands. It is keystroke compatible with the tradi- 2348 tional interface except that it does not require that you hit 2349 Enter. It is implemented only by the tty port (default off), 2350 when the game has been compiled to support tty graphics. 2351 2352 female 2353 An obsolete synonym for ``gender:female''. Cannot be set with 2354 the `O' command. 2355 2356 fixinv 2357 An object's inventory letter sticks to it when it's dropped 2358 (default on). If this is off, dropping an object shifts all 2359 the remaining inventory letters. 2360 2361 fruit 2362 Name a fruit after something you enjoy eating (ex. ``fruit:man- 2363 go'') (default ``slime mold''). Basically a nostalgic whimsy 2364 that NetHack uses from time to time. You should set this to 2365 something you find more appetizing than slime mold. Apples, 2366 oranges, pears, bananas, and melons already exist in NetHack, 2367 so don't use those. 2368 2369 gender 2370 Your starting gender (gender:male or gender:female). You may 2371 2372 2373 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 2374 2375 2376 2377 2378 2379 NetHack Guidebook 37 2380 2381 2382 2383 specify just the first letter. Although you can still denote 2384 your gender using the ``male'' and ``female'' options, the 2385 ``gender'' option will take precedence. The default is to ran- 2386 domly pick an appropriate gender. Cannot be set with the `O' 2387 command. 2388 2389 help 2390 If more information is available for an object looked at with 2391 the `/' command, ask if you want to see it (default on). Turn- 2392 ing help off makes just looking at things faster, since you 2393 aren't interrupted with the ``More info?'' prompt, but it also 2394 means that you might miss some interesting and/or important in- 2395 formation. 2396 2397 horsename 2398 Name your starting horse (ex. ``horsename:Trigger''). Cannot 2399 be set with the `O' command. 2400 2401 IBMgraphics 2402 Use a predefined selection of IBM extended ASCII characters to 2403 display the dungeon/effects/traps instead of having to define a 2404 full graphics set yourself (default off). This option also 2405 sets up proper handling of graphics characters for such termi- 2406 nals, so you should specify it when appropriate even if you 2407 override the selections with your own graphics strings. 2408 2409 ignintr 2410 Ignore interrupt signals, including breaks (default off). 2411 2412 legacy 2413 Display an introductory message when starting the game (default 2414 on). 2415 2416 lit_corridor 2417 Show corridor squares seen by night vision or a light source 2418 held by your character as lit (default off). 2419 2420 lootabc 2421 Use the old `a', `b', and `c' keyboard shortcuts when looting, 2422 rather than the mnemonics `o', `i', and `b' (default off). 2423 2424 mail 2425 Enable mail delivery during the game (default on). 2426 2427 male 2428 An obsolete synonym for ``gender:male''. Cannot be set with 2429 the `O' command. 2430 2431 menustyle 2432 Controls the interface used when you need to choose various ob- 2433 jects (in response to the Drop command, for instance). The 2434 value specified should be the first letter of one of the fol- 2435 lowing: traditional, combination, partial, or full. Tradi- 2436 tional was the only interface available for earlier versions; 2437 2438 2439 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 2440 2441 2442 2443 2444 2445 NetHack Guidebook 38 2446 2447 2448 2449 it consists of a prompt for object class characters, followed 2450 by an object-by-object prompt for all items matching the se- 2451 lected object class(es). Combination starts with a prompt for 2452 object class(es) of interest, but then displays a menu of 2453 matching objects rather than prompting one-by-one. Partial 2454 skips the object class filtering and immediately displays a 2455 menu of all objects. Full displays a menu of object classes 2456 rather than a character prompt, and then a menu of matching ob- 2457 jects for selection. 2458 2459 menu_deselect_all 2460 Menu character accelerator to deselect all items in a menu. 2461 Implemented by the Amiga, Gem, X11 and tty ports. Default '-'. 2462 2463 menu_deselect_page 2464 Menu character accelerator to deselect all items on this page 2465 of a menu. Implemented by the Amiga, Gem and tty ports. De- 2466 fault '\'. 2467 2468 menu_first_page 2469 Menu character accelerator to jump to the first page in a menu. 2470 Implemented by the Amiga, Gem and tty ports. Default '^'. 2471 2472 menu_headings 2473 Controls how the headings in a menu are highlighted. Values 2474 are 'bold', 'inverse', or 'underline'. Not all ports can actu- 2475 ally display all three types. 2476 2477 menu_invert_all 2478 Menu character accelerator to invert all items in a menu. Im- 2479 plemented by the Amiga, Gem, X11 and tty ports. Default '@'. 2480 2481 menu_invert_page 2482 Menu character accelerator to invert all items on this page of 2483 a menu. Implemented by the Amiga, Gem and tty ports. Default 2484 '~'. 2485 2486 menu_last_page 2487 Menu character accelerator to jump to the last page in a menu. 2488 Implemented by the Amiga, Gem and tty ports. Default '|'. 2489 2490 menu_next_page 2491 Menu character accelerator to goto the next menu page. Imple- 2492 mented by the Amiga, Gem and tty ports. Default '>'. 2493 2494 menu_previous_page 2495 Menu character accelerator to goto the previous menu page. Im- 2496 plemented by the Amiga, Gem and tty ports. Default '<'. 2497 2498 menu_search 2499 Menu character accelerator to search for a menu item. Imple- 2500 mented by the Amiga, Gem and X11 ports. Default ':'. 2501 2502 2503 2504 2505 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 2506 2507 2508 2509 2510 2511 NetHack Guidebook 39 2512 2513 2514 2515 menu_select_all 2516 Menu character accelerator to select all items in a menu. Im- 2517 plemented by the Amiga, Gem, X11 and tty ports. Default '.'. 2518 2519 menu_select_page 2520 Menu character accelerator to select all items on this page of 2521 a menu. Implemented by the Amiga, Gem and tty ports. Default 2522 ','. 2523 2524 monsters 2525 Set the characters used to display monster classes (default 2526 ``abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTU- 2527 VWXYZ@ '&;:~]''). This string is subjected to the same pro- 2528 cessing as the dungeon option. The order of the symbols is ant 2529 or other insect, blob, cockatrice, dog or other canine, eye or 2530 sphere, feline, gremlin, humanoid, imp or minor demon, jelly, 2531 kobold, leprechaun, mimic, nymph, orc, piercer, quadruped, ro- 2532 dent, arachnid or centipede, trapper or lurker above, horse or 2533 unicorn, vortex, worm, xan or other mythical/fantastic insect, 2534 light, zruty, angelic being, bat or bird, centaur, dragon, ele- 2535 mental, fungus or mold, gnome, giant humanoid, invisible mon- 2536 ster, jabberwock, Keystone Kop, lich, mummy, naga, ogre, pud- 2537 ding or ooze, quantum mechanic, rust monster, snake, troll, um- 2538 ber hulk, vampire, wraith, xorn, apelike creature, zombie, hu- 2539 man, ghost, golem, demon, sea monster, lizard, long worm tail, 2540 and mimic. Cannot be set with the `O' command. 2541 2542 msghistory 2543 The number of top line messages to save (and recall with ^P) 2544 (default 20). Cannot be set with the `O' command. 2545 2546 msg_window 2547 Allows you to change the way recalled messages are displayed. 2548 (It is currently implemented for tty only.) The possible val- 2549 ues are: 2550 2551 s - single message (default, this was the behavior before 3.4.0). 2552 c - combination, two messages as `single', then as `full'. 2553 f - full window, oldest message first. 2554 r - full window, newest message first. 2555 2556 For backward compatibility, no value needs to be specified 2557 (which defaults to `full'), or it can be negated (which de- 2558 faults to `single'). 2559 2560 name 2561 Set your character's name (defaults to your user name). You 2562 can also set your character's role by appending a dash and one 2563 or more letters of the role (that is, by suffixing one of -A -B 2564 -C -H -K -M -P -Ra -Ro -S -T -V -W). If -@ is used for the 2565 role, then a random one will be automatically chosen. Cannot 2566 be set with the `O' command. 2567 2568 2569 2570 2571 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 2572 2573 2574 2575 2576 2577 NetHack Guidebook 40 2578 2579 2580 2581 news 2582 Read the NetHack news file, if present (default on). Since the 2583 news is shown at the beginning of the game, there's no point in 2584 setting this with the `O' command. 2585 2586 null 2587 Send padding nulls to the terminal (default off). 2588 2589 number_pad 2590 Use the number keys to move instead of [yuhjklbn] (default 0 or 2591 off). (number_pad:2 invokes the old DOS behavior where `5' 2592 means `g', meta-`5' means `G', and meta-`0' means `I'.) 2593 2594 objects 2595 Set the characters used to display object classes (default 2596 ``])[="(%!?+/$*`0_.''). This string is subjected to the same 2597 processing as the dungeon option. The order of the symbols is 2598 illegal-object (should never be seen), weapon, armor, ring, 2599 amulet, tool, food, potion, scroll, spellbook, wand, gold, gem 2600 or rock, boulder or statue, iron ball, chain, and venom. Can- 2601 not be set with the `O' command. 2602 2603 packorder 2604 Specify the order to list object types in (default 2605 ``")[%?+!=/(*`0_''). The value of this option should be a 2606 string containing the symbols for the various object types. 2607 Any omitted types are filled in at the end from the previous 2608 order. 2609 2610 perm_invent 2611 If true, always display your current inventory in a window. 2612 This only makes sense for windowing system interfaces that im- 2613 plement this feature. 2614 2615 pettype 2616 Specify the type of your initial pet, if you are playing a 2617 character class that uses multiple types of pets; or choose to 2618 have no initial pet at all. Possible values are ``cat'', 2619 ``dog'' and ``none''. Cannot be set with the `O' command. 2620 2621 pickup_burden 2622 When you pick up an item that would exceed this encumbrance 2623 level (Unburdened, Burdened, streSsed, straiNed, overTaxed, or 2624 overLoaded), you will be asked if you want to continue. (De- 2625 fault `S'). 2626 2627 pickup_types 2628 Specify the object types to be picked up when autopickup is on. 2629 Default is all types. If your copy of the game has the experi- 2630 mental compile time option AUTOPICKUP_EXCEPTIONS included, you 2631 may be able to use autopickup_exception configuration file 2632 lines to further refine autopickup behavior. 2633 2634 2635 2636 2637 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 2638 2639 2640 2641 2642 2643 NetHack Guidebook 41 2644 2645 2646 2647 prayconfirm 2648 Prompt for confirmation before praying (default on). 2649 2650 pushweapon 2651 Using the `w' (wield) command when already wielding something 2652 pushes the old item into your alternate weapon slot (default 2653 off). 2654 2655 race 2656 Selects your race (for example, ``race:human''). Default is 2657 random. Cannot be set with the `O' command. 2658 2659 rest_on_space 2660 Make the space bar a synonym for the `.' (rest) command (de- 2661 fault off). 2662 2663 role 2664 Pick your type of character (ex. ``role:Samurai''); synonym for 2665 ``character''. See ``name'' for an alternate method of speci- 2666 fying your role. Normally only the first letter of the value 2667 is examined; `r' is an exception with ``Rogue'', ``Ranger'', 2668 and ``random'' values. 2669 2670 runmode 2671 Controls the amount of screen updating for the map window when 2672 engaged in multi-turn movement (running via shift+direction or 2673 control+direction and so forth, or via the travel command or 2674 mouse click). The possible values are: 2675 2676 teleport - update the map after movement has finished; 2677 run - update the map after every seven or so steps; 2678 walk - update the map after each step; 2679 crawl - like walk, but pause briefly after each step. 2680 2681 This option only affects the game's screen display, not the ac- 2682 tual results of moving. The default is `run'; versions prior 2683 to 3.4.1 used `teleport' only. Whether or not the effect is 2684 noticeable will depend upon the window port used or on the type 2685 of terminal. 2686 2687 safe_pet 2688 Prevent you from (knowingly) attacking your pets (default on). 2689 2690 scores 2691 Control what parts of the score list you are shown at the end 2692 (ex. ``scores:5 top scores/4 around my score/own scores''). 2693 Only the first letter of each category (`t', `a', or `o') is 2694 necessary. 2695 2696 showexp 2697 Show your accumulated experience points on bottom line (default 2698 off). 2699 2700 2701 2702 2703 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 2704 2705 2706 2707 2708 2709 NetHack Guidebook 42 2710 2711 2712 2713 showrace 2714 Display yourself as the glyph for your race, rather than the 2715 glyph for your role (default off). Note that this setting af- 2716 fects only the appearance of the display, not the way the game 2717 treats you. 2718 2719 showscore 2720 Show your approximate accumulated score on bottom line (default 2721 off). 2722 2723 silent 2724 Suppress terminal beeps (default on). 2725 2726 sortpack 2727 Sort the pack contents by type when displaying inventory (de- 2728 fault on). 2729 2730 sound 2731 Enable messages about what your character hears (default on). 2732 Note that this has nothing to do with your computer's audio ca- 2733 pabilities. This option is only partly under player control. 2734 The game toggles it off and on during and after sleep, for ex- 2735 ample. 2736 2737 sparkle 2738 Display a sparkly effect when a monster (including yourself) is 2739 hit by an attack to which it is resistant (default on). 2740 2741 standout 2742 Boldface monsters and ``--More--'' (default off). 2743 2744 suppress_alert 2745 This option may be set to a NetHack version level to suppress 2746 alert notification messages about feature changes for that and 2747 prior versions (ex. ``suppress_alert:3.3.1''). 2748 2749 time 2750 Show the elapsed game time in turns on bottom line (default 2751 off). 2752 2753 timed_delay 2754 When pausing momentarily for display effect, such as with ex- 2755 plosions and moving objects, use a timer rather than sending 2756 extra characters to the screen. (Applies to ``tty'' interface 2757 only; ``X11'' interface always uses a timer based delay. The 2758 default is on if configured into the program.) 2759 2760 tombstone 2761 Draw a tombstone graphic upon your death (default on). 2762 2763 toptenwin 2764 Put the ending display in a NetHack window instead of on stdout 2765 (default off). Setting this option makes the score list visi- 2766 ble when a windowing version of NetHack is started without a 2767 2768 2769 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 2770 2771 2772 2773 2774 2775 NetHack Guidebook 43 2776 2777 2778 2779 parent window, but it no longer leaves the score list around 2780 after game end on a terminal or emulating window. 2781 2782 traps 2783 Set the graphics symbols for displaying traps (default 2784 ``^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^"^^^^''). The traps option should be fol- 2785 lowed by a string of 1-22 characters to be used instead of the 2786 default traps characters. This string is subjected to the same 2787 processing as the dungeon option. 2788 2789 The order of the symbols is: arrow trap, dart trap, falling 2790 rock trap, squeaky board, bear trap, land mine, rolling boulder 2791 trap, sleeping gas trap, rust trap, fire trap, pit, spiked pit, 2792 hole, trap door, teleportation trap, level teleporter, magic 2793 portal, web, statue trap, magic trap, anti-magic field, poly- 2794 morph trap. 2795 2796 Cannot be set with the `O' command. 2797 2798 travel 2799 Allow the travel command (default on). Turning this option off 2800 will prevent the game from attempting unintended moves if you 2801 make inadvertent mouse clicks on the map window. 2802 2803 verbose 2804 Provide more commentary during the game (default on). 2805 2806 windowtype 2807 Select which windowing system to use, such as ``tty'' or 2808 ``X11'' (default depends on version). Cannot be set with the 2809 `O' command. 2810 2811 9.5. Window Port Customization options 2812 2813 Here are explanations of the various options that are used 2814 to customize and change the characteristics of the windowtype 2815 that you have chosen. Character strings that are too long may be 2816 truncated. Not all window ports will adjust for all settings 2817 listed here. You can safely add any of these options to your 2818 config file, and if the window port is capable of adjusting to 2819 suit your preferences, it will attempt to do so. If it can't it 2820 will silently ignore it. You can find out if an option is sup- 2821 ported by the window port that you are currently using by check- 2822 ing to see if it shows up in the Options list. Some options are 2823 dynamic and can be specified during the game with the `O' com- 2824 mand. 2825 2826 align_message 2827 Where to align or place the message window (top, bottom, left, 2828 or right) 2829 2830 align_status 2831 Where to align or place the status window (top, bottom, left, 2832 or right). 2833 2834 2835 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 2836 2837 2838 2839 2840 2841 NetHack Guidebook 44 2842 2843 2844 2845 ascii_map 2846 NetHack should display an ascii character map if it can. 2847 2848 color 2849 NetHack should display color if it can for different monsters, 2850 objects, and dungeon features 2851 2852 eight_bit_tty 2853 NetHack should pass eight-bit character values (for example, 2854 specified with the traps option) straight through to your ter- 2855 minal (default off). 2856 2857 font_map 2858 NetHack should use a font by the chosen name for the map win- 2859 dow. 2860 2861 font_menu 2862 NetHack should use a font by the chosen name for menu windows. 2863 2864 font_message 2865 NetHack should use a font by the chosen name for the message 2866 window. 2867 2868 font_status 2869 NetHack should use a font by the chosen name for the status 2870 window. 2871 2872 font_text 2873 NetHack should use a font by the chosen name for text windows. 2874 2875 font_size_map 2876 NetHack should use this size font for the map window. 2877 2878 font_size_menu 2879 NetHack should use this size font for menu windows. 2880 2881 font_size_message 2882 NetHack should use this size font for the message window. 2883 2884 font_size_status 2885 NetHack should use this size font for the status window. 2886 2887 font_size_text 2888 NetHack should use this size font for text windows. 2889 2890 fullscreen 2891 NetHack should try and display on the entire screen rather than 2892 in a window. 2893 2894 hilite_pet 2895 Visually distinguish pets from similar animals (default off). 2896 The behavior of this option depends on the type of windowing 2897 you use. In text windowing, text highlighting or inverse video 2898 is often used; with tiles, generally displays a heart symbol 2899 2900 2901 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 2902 2903 2904 2905 2906 2907 NetHack Guidebook 45 2908 2909 2910 2911 near pets. 2912 2913 large_font 2914 NetHack should use a large font. 2915 2916 map_mode 2917 NetHack should display the map in the manner specified. 2918 2919 mouse_support 2920 Allow use of the mouse for input and travel. 2921 2922 player_selection 2923 NetHack should pop up dialog boxes, or use prompts for charac- 2924 ter selection. 2925 2926 popup_dialog 2927 NetHack should pop up dialog boxes for input. 2928 2929 preload_tiles 2930 NetHack should preload tiles into memory. For example, in the 2931 protected mode MSDOS version, control whether tiles get pre- 2932 loaded into RAM at the start of the game. Doing so enhances 2933 performance of the tile graphics, but uses more memory. (de- 2934 fault on). Cannot be set with the `O' command. 2935 2936 scroll_amount 2937 NetHack should scroll the display by this number of cells when 2938 the hero reaches the scroll_margin. 2939 2940 scroll_margin 2941 NetHack should scroll the display when the hero or cursor is 2942 this number of cells away from the edge of the window. 2943 2944 softkeyboard 2945 Display an onscreen keyboard. Handhelds are most likely to 2946 support this option. 2947 2948 splash_screen 2949 NetHack should display an opening splash screen when it starts 2950 up (default yes). 2951 2952 tiled_map 2953 NetHack should display a tiled map if it can. 2954 2955 tile_file 2956 Specify the name of an alternative tile file to override the 2957 default. 2958 2959 tile_height 2960 Specify the preferred height of each tile in a tile capable 2961 port. 2962 2963 tile_width 2964 Specify the preferred width of each tile in a tile capable port 2965 2966 2967 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 2968 2969 2970 2971 2972 2973 NetHack Guidebook 46 2974 2975 2976 2977 use_inverse 2978 NetHack should display inverse when the game specifies it. 2979 2980 vary_msgcount 2981 NetHack should display this number of messages at a time in the 2982 message window. 2983 2984 windowcolors 2985 NetHack should display windows with the specified fore- 2986 ground/background colors if it can. 2987 2988 wraptext 2989 NetHack port should wrap long lines of text if they don't fit 2990 in the visible area of the window. 2991 2992 9.6. Platform-specific Customization options 2993 2994 Here are explanations of options that are used by specific 2995 platforms or ports to customize and change the port behavior. 2996 2997 altkeyhandler 2998 Select an alternate keystroke handler dll to load (Win32 tty 2999 NetHack only). The name of the handler is specified without 3000 the .dll extension and without any path information. Cannot be 3001 set with the `O' command. 3002 3003 altmeta 3004 (default on, AMIGA NetHack only). 3005 3006 BIOS 3007 Use BIOS calls to update the screen display quickly and to read 3008 the keyboard (allowing the use of arrow keys to move) on ma- 3009 chines with an IBM PC compatible BIOS ROM (default off, OS/2, 3010 PC, and ST NetHack only). 3011 3012 flush 3013 (default off, AMIGA NetHack only). 3014 3015 MACgraphics 3016 (default on, Mac NetHack only). 3017 3018 page_wait 3019 (default on, Mac NetHack only). 3020 3021 rawio 3022 Force raw (non-cbreak) mode for faster output and more bullet- 3023 proof input (MS-DOS sometimes treats `^P' as a printer toggle 3024 without it) (default off, OS/2, PC, and ST NetHack only). 3025 Note: DEC Rainbows hang if this is turned on. Cannot be set 3026 with the `O' command. 3027 3028 soundcard 3029 (default on, PC NetHack only). Cannot be set with the `O' com- 3030 mand. 3031 3032 3033 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 3034 3035 3036 3037 3038 3039 NetHack Guidebook 47 3040 3041 3042 3043 subkeyvalue 3044 (Win32 tty NetHack only). May be used to alter the value of 3045 keystrokes that the operating system returns to NetHack to help 3046 compensate for international keyboard issues. OPTIONS=subkey- 3047 value:171/92 will return 92 to NetHack, if 171 was originally 3048 going to be returned. You can use multiple subkeyvalue state- 3049 ments in the config file if needed. Cannot be set with the `O' 3050 command. 3051 3052 video 3053 Set the video mode used (PC NetHack only). Values are `autode- 3054 tect', `default', or `vga'. Setting `vga' (or `autodetect' 3055 with vga hardware present) will cause the game to display 3056 tiles. Cannot be set with the `O' command. 3057 3058 videocolors 3059 Set the color palette for PC systems using NO_TERMS (default 3060 4-2-6-1-5-3-15-12-10-14-9-13-11, (PC NetHack only). The order 3061 of colors is red, green, brown, blue, magenta, cyan, 3062 bright.white, bright.red, bright.green, yellow, bright.blue, 3063 bright.magenta, and bright.cyan. Cannot be set with the `O' 3064 command. 3065 3066 videoshades 3067 Set the intensity level of the three gray scales available (de- 3068 fault dark normal light, PC NetHack only). If the game display 3069 is difficult to read, try adjusting these scales; if this does 3070 not correct the problem, try !color. Cannot be set with the 3071 `O' command. 3072 3073 9.7. Configuring autopickup exceptions 3074 3075 There is an experimental compile time option called AU- 3076 TOPICKUP_EXCEPTIONS. If your copy of the game was built with 3077 that option defined, you can further refine the behavior of the 3078 autopickup option beyond what is available through the pick- 3079 up_types option. 3080 3081 By placing autopickup_exception lines in your configuration 3082 file, you can define patterns to be checked when the game is 3083 about to autopickup something. 3084 3085 autopickup_exception 3086 Sets an exception to the pickup_types option. The autopick- 3087 up_exception option should be followed by a string of 1-80 3088 characters to be used as a pattern to match against the singu- 3089 lar form of the description of an object at your location. 3090 3091 You may use the following special characters in a pattern: 3092 3093 *--- matches 0 or more characters. 3094 ?--- matches any single character. 3095 3096 3097 3098 3099 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 3100 3101 3102 3103 3104 3105 NetHack Guidebook 48 3106 3107 3108 3109 In addition, some characters are treated specially if they 3110 occur as the first character in the string pattern, specifically: 3111 3112 < - always pickup an object that matches the pattern that follows. 3113 > - never pickup an object that matches the pattern that follows. 3114 3115 Can be set with the `O' command, but the setting is not pre- 3116 served across saves and restores. 3117 3118 Here's a couple of examples of autopickup_exceptions: 3119 3120 autopickup_exception="<*arrow" 3121 autopickup_exception=">*corpse" 3122 autopickup_exception=">* cursed*" 3123 3124 The first example above will result in autopickup of any type of 3125 arrow. The second example results in the exclusion of any corpse 3126 from autopickup. The last example results in the exclusion of 3127 items known to be cursed from autopickup. A `never pickup' rule 3128 takes precedence over an `always pickup' rule if both match. 3129 3130 9.8. Configuring User Sounds 3131 3132 Some platforms allow you to define sound files to be played 3133 when a message that matches a user-defined pattern is delivered 3134 to the message window. At this time the Qt port and the win32tty 3135 and win32gui ports support the use of user sounds. 3136 3137 The following config file entries are relevant to mapping 3138 user sounds to messages: 3139 3140 SOUNDDIR 3141 The directory that houses the sound files to be played. 3142 3143 SOUND 3144 An entry that maps a sound file to a user-specified message 3145 pattern. Each SOUND entry is broken down into the following 3146 parts: 3147 3148 MESG - message window mapping (the only one supported in 3.4). 3149 pattern - the pattern to match. 3150 sound file - the sound file to play. 3151 volume - the volume to be set while playing the sound file. 3152 3153 The exact format for the pattern depends on whether the 3154 platform is built to use ``regular expressions'' or NetHack's own 3155 internal pattern matching facility. The ``regular expressions'' 3156 matching can be much more sophisticated than the internal NetHack 3157 pattern matching, but requires 3rd party libraries on some plat- 3158 forms. There are plenty of references available elsewhere for 3159 explaining ``regular expressions''. You can verify which pattern 3160 matching is used by your port with the #version command. 3161 3162 3163 3164 3165 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 3166 3167 3168 3169 3170 3171 NetHack Guidebook 49 3172 3173 3174 3175 NetHack's internal pattern matching routine uses the follow- 3176 ing special characters in its pattern matching: 3177 3178 *--- matches 0 or more characters. 3179 ?--- matches any single character. 3180 3181 Here's an example of a sound mapping using NetHack's inter- 3182 nal pattern matching facility: 3183 3184 SOUND=MESG "*chime of a cash register*" "gong.wav" 50 3185 3186 specifies that any message with "chime of a cash register" con- 3187 tained in it will trigger the playing of "gong.wav". You can 3188 have multiple SOUND entries in your config file. 3189 3190 9.9. Configuring NetHack for Play by the Blind 3191 3192 NetHack can be set up to use only standard ASCII characters 3193 for making maps of the dungeons. This makes the MS-DOS versions 3194 of NetHack completely accessible to the blind who use speech 3195 and/or Braille access technologies. Players will require a good 3196 working knowledge of their screen-reader's review features, and 3197 will have to know how to navigate horizontally and vertically 3198 character by character. They will also find the search capabili- 3199 ties of their screen-readers to be quite valuable. Be certain to 3200 examine this Guidebook before playing so you have an idea what 3201 the screen layout is like. You'll also need to be able to locate 3202 the PC cursor. It is always where your character is located. 3203 Merely searching for an @-sign will not always find your charac- 3204 ter since there are other humanoids represented by the same sign. 3205 Your screen-reader should also have a function which gives you 3206 the row and column of your review cursor and the PC cursor. 3207 These co-ordinates are often useful in giving players a better 3208 sense of the overall location of items on the screen. 3209 3210 While it is not difficult for experienced users to edit the 3211 defaults.nh file to accomplish this, novices may find this task 3212 somewhat daunting. Included in all official distributions of 3213 NetHack is a file called NHAccess.nh. Replacing defaults.nh with 3214 this file will cause the game to run in a manner accessible to 3215 the blind. After you have gained some experience with the game 3216 and with editing files, you may want to alter settings to better 3217 suit your preferences. Instructions on how to do this are includ- 3218 ed in the NHAccess.nh file itself. The most crucial settings to 3219 make the game accessible are: 3220 3221 IBMgraphics 3222 Disable IBMgraphics by commenting out this option. 3223 3224 menustyle:traditional 3225 This will assist in the interface to speech synthesizers. 3226 3227 number_pad 3228 A lot of speech access programs use the number-pad to review 3229 3230 3231 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 3232 3233 3234 3235 3236 3237 NetHack Guidebook 50 3238 3239 3240 3241 the screen. If this is the case, disable the number_pad option 3242 and use the traditional Rogue-like commands. 3243 3244 Character graphics 3245 Comment out all character graphics sets found near the bottom 3246 of the defaults.nh file. Most of these replace NetHack's de- 3247 fault representation of the dungeon using standard ASCII char- 3248 acters with fancier characters from extended character sets, 3249 and these fancier characters can annoy screen-readers. 3250 3251 10. Scoring 3252 3253 NetHack maintains a list of the top scores or scorers on 3254 your machine, depending on how it is set up. In the latter case, 3255 each account on the machine can post only one non-winning score 3256 on this list. If you score higher than someone else on this 3257 list, or better your previous score, you will be inserted in the 3258 proper place under your current name. How many scores are kept 3259 can also be set up when NetHack is compiled. 3260 3261 Your score is chiefly based upon how much experience you 3262 gained, how much loot you accumulated, how deep you explored, and 3263 how the game ended. If you quit the game, you escape with all of 3264 your gold intact. If, however, you get killed in the Mazes of 3265 Menace, the guild will only hear about 90% of your gold when your 3266 corpse is discovered (adventurers have been known to collect 3267 finder's fees). So, consider whether you want to take one last 3268 hit at that monster and possibly live, or quit and stop with 3269 whatever you have. If you quit, you keep all your gold, but if 3270 you swing and live, you might find more. 3271 3272 If you just want to see what the current top players/games 3273 list is, you can type nethack -s all on most versions. 3274 3275 3276 11. Explore mode 3277 3278 NetHack is an intricate and difficult game. Novices might 3279 falter in fear, aware of their ignorance of the means to survive. 3280 Well, fear not. Your dungeon may come equipped with an ``ex- 3281 plore'' or ``discovery'' mode that enables you to keep old save 3282 files and cheat death, at the paltry cost of not getting on the 3283 high score list. 3284 3285 There are two ways of enabling explore mode. One is to 3286 start the game with the -X switch. The other is to issue the `X' 3287 command while already playing the game. The other benefits of 3288 explore mode are left for the trepid reader to discover. 3289 3290 3291 12. Credits 3292 3293 The original hack game was modeled on the Berkeley UNIX 3294 rogue game. Large portions of this paper were shamelessly 3295 3296 3297 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 3298 3299 3300 3301 3302 3303 NetHack Guidebook 51 3304 3305 3306 3307 cribbed from A Guide to the Dungeons of Doom, by Michael C. Toy 3308 and Kenneth C. R. C. Arnold. Small portions were adapted from 3309 Further Exploration of the Dungeons of Doom, by Ken Arromdee. 3310 3311 NetHack is the product of literally dozens of people's work. 3312 Main events in the course of the game development are described 3313 below: 3314 3315 3316 Jay Fenlason wrote the original Hack, with help from Kenny 3317 Woodland, Mike Thome and Jon Payne. 3318 3319 Andries Brouwer did a major re-write, transforming Hack into 3320 a very different game, and published (at least) three versions 3321 (1.0.1, 1.0.2, and 1.0.3) for UNIX machines to the Usenet. 3322 3323 Don G. Kneller ported Hack 1.0.3 to Microsoft C and MS-DOS, 3324 producing PC HACK 1.01e, added support for DEC Rainbow graphics 3325 in version 1.03g, and went on to produce at least four more ver- 3326 sions (3.0, 3.2, 3.51, and 3.6). 3327 3328 R. Black ported PC HACK 3.51 to Lattice C and the Atari 3329 520/1040ST, producing ST Hack 1.03. 3330 3331 Mike Stephenson merged these various versions back together, 3332 incorporating many of the added features, and produced NetHack 3333 1.4. He then coordinated a cast of thousands in enhancing and 3334 debugging NetHack 1.4 and released NetHack versions 2.2 and 2.3. 3335 3336 Later, Mike coordinated a major rewrite of the game, heading 3337 a team which included Ken Arromdee, Jean-Christophe Collet, Steve 3338 Creps, Eric Hendrickson, Izchak Miller, John Rupley, Mike Threep- 3339 oint, and Janet Walz, to produce NetHack 3.0c. 3340 3341 NetHack 3.0 was ported to the Atari by Eric R. Smith, to 3342 OS/2 by Timo Hakulinen, and to VMS by David Gentzel. The three 3343 of them and Kevin Darcy later joined the main development team to 3344 produce subsequent revisions of 3.0. 3345 3346 Olaf Seibert ported NetHack 2.3 and 3.0 to the Amiga. Norm 3347 Meluch, Stephen Spackman and Pierre Martineau designed overlay 3348 code for PC NetHack 3.0. Johnny Lee ported NetHack 3.0 to the 3349 Macintosh. Along with various other Dungeoneers, they continued 3350 to enhance the PC, Macintosh, and Amiga ports through the later 3351 revisions of 3.0. 3352 3353 Headed by Mike Stephenson and coordinated by Izchak Miller 3354 and Janet Walz, the development team which now included Ken Ar- 3355 romdee, David Cohrs, Jean-Christophe Collet, Kevin Darcy, Matt 3356 Day, Timo Hakulinen, Steve Linhart, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Eric 3357 Raymond, and Eric Smith undertook a radical revision of 3.0. 3358 They re-structured the game's design, and re-wrote major parts of 3359 the code. They added multiple dungeons, a new display, special 3360 individual character quests, a new endgame and many other new 3361 3362 3363 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 3364 3365 3366 3367 3368 3369 NetHack Guidebook 52 3370 3371 3372 3373 features, and produced NetHack 3.1. 3374 3375 Ken Lorber, Gregg Wonderly and Greg Olson, with help from 3376 Richard Addison, Mike Passaretti, and Olaf Seibert, developed 3377 NetHack 3.1 for the Amiga. 3378 3379 Norm Meluch and Kevin Smolkowski, with help from Carl Sche- 3380 lin, Stephen Spackman, Steve VanDevender, and Paul Winner, ported 3381 NetHack 3.1 to the PC. 3382 3383 Jon W{tte and Hao-yang Wang, with help from Ross Brown, Mike 3384 Engber, David Hairston, Michael Hamel, Jonathan Handler, Johnny 3385 Lee, Tim Lennan, Rob Menke, and Andy Swanson, developed NetHack 3386 3.1 for the Macintosh, porting it for MPW. Building on their de- 3387 velopment, Barton House added a Think C port. 3388 3389 Timo Hakulinen ported NetHack 3.1 to OS/2. Eric Smith port- 3390 ed NetHack 3.1 to the Atari. Pat Rankin, with help from Joshua 3391 Delahunty, was responsible for the VMS version of NetHack 3.1. 3392 Michael Allison ported NetHack 3.1 to Windows NT. 3393 3394 Dean Luick, with help from David Cohrs, developed NetHack 3395 3.1 for X11. Warwick Allison wrote a tiled version of NetHack 3396 for the Atari; he later contributed the tiles to the DevTeam and 3397 tile support was then added to other platforms. 3398 3399 The 3.2 development team, comprised of Michael Allison, Ken 3400 Arromdee, David Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Steve Creps, Kevin Darcy, 3401 Timo Hakulinen, Steve Linhart, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Eric 3402 Smith, Mike Stephenson, Janet Walz, and Paul Winner, released 3403 version 3.2 in April of 1996. 3404 3405 Version 3.2 marked the tenth anniversary of the formation of 3406 the development team. In a testament to their dedication to the 3407 game, all thirteen members of the original development team re- 3408 mained on the team at the start of work on that release. During 3409 the interval between the release of 3.1.3 and 3.2, one of the 3410 founding members of the development team, Dr. Izchak Miller, was 3411 diagnosed with cancer and passed away. That release of the game 3412 was dedicated to him by the development and porting teams. 3413 3414 During the lifespan of NetHack 3.1 and 3.2, several enthusi- 3415 asts of the game added their own modifications to the game and 3416 made these ``variants'' publicly available: 3417 3418 Tom Proudfoot and Yuval Oren created NetHack++, which was 3419 quickly renamed NetHack--. Working independently, Stephen White 3420 wrote NetHack Plus. Tom Proudfoot later merged NetHack Plus and 3421 his own NetHack-- to produce SLASH. Larry Stewart-Zerba and War- 3422 wick Allison improved the spell casting system with the Wizard 3423 Patch. Warwick Allison also ported NetHack to use the Qt inter- 3424 face. 3425 3426 3427 3428 3429 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 3430 3431 3432 3433 3434 3435 NetHack Guidebook 53 3436 3437 3438 3439 Warren Cheung combined SLASH with the Wizard Patch to pro- 3440 duce Slash'em, and with the help of Kevin Hugo, added more fea- 3441 tures. Kevin later joined the DevTeam and incorporated the best 3442 of these ideas in NetHack 3.3. 3443 3444 The final update to 3.2 was the bug fix release 3.2.3, which 3445 was released simultaneously with 3.3.0 in December 1999 just in 3446 time for the Year 2000. 3447 3448 The 3.3 development team, consisting of Michael Allison, Ken 3449 Arromdee, David Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Steve Creps, Kevin Darcy, 3450 Timo Hakulinen, Kevin Hugo, Steve Linhart, Ken Lorber, Dean 3451 Luick, Pat Rankin, Eric Smith, Mike Stephenson, Janet Walz, and 3452 Paul Winner, released 3.3.0 in December 1999 and 3.3.1 in August 3453 of 2000. 3454 3455 Version 3.3 offered many firsts. It was the first version to 3456 separate race and profession. The Elf class was removed in pref- 3457 erence to an elf race, and the races of dwarves, gnomes, and orcs 3458 made their first appearance in the game alongside the familiar 3459 human race. Monk and Ranger roles joined Archeologists, Barbar- 3460 ians, Cavemen, Healers, Knights, Priests, Rogues, Samurai, 3461 Tourists, Valkyries and of course, Wizards. It was also the 3462 first version to allow you to ride a steed, and was the first 3463 version to have a publicly available web-site listing all the 3464 bugs that had been discovered. Despite that constantly growing 3465 bug list, 3.3 proved stable enough to last for more than a year 3466 and a half. 3467 3468 The 3.4 development team initially consisted of Michael Al- 3469 lison, Ken Arromdee, David Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Kevin Hugo, Ken 3470 Lorber, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Mike Stephenson, Janet Walz, and 3471 Paul Winner, with Warwick Allison joining just before the re- 3472 lease of NetHack 3.4.0 in March 2002. 3473 3474 As with version 3.3, various people contributed to the game 3475 as a whole as well as supporting ports on the different platforms 3476 that NetHack runs on: 3477 3478 Pat Rankin maintained 3.4 for VMS. 3479 3480 Michael Allison maintained NetHack 3.4 for the MS-DOS plat- 3481 form. Paul Winner and Yitzhak Sapir provided encouragement. 3482 3483 Dean Luick, Mark Modrall, and Kevin Hugo maintained and en- 3484 hanced the Macintosh port of 3.4. 3485 3486 Michael Allison, David Cohrs, Alex Kompel, Dion Nicolaas, 3487 and Yitzhak Sapir maintained and enhanced 3.4 for the Microsoft 3488 Windows platform. Alex Kompel contributed a new graphical inter- 3489 face for the Windows port. Alex Kompel also contributed a Win- 3490 dows CE port for 3.4.1. 3491 3492 3493 3494 3495 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 3496 3497 3498 3499 3500 3501 NetHack Guidebook 54 3502 3503 3504 3505 Ron Van Iwaarden maintained 3.4 for OS/2. 3506 3507 Janne Salmijarvi and Teemu Suikki maintained and enhanced 3508 the Amiga port of 3.4 after Janne Salmijarvi resurrected it for 3509 3.3.1. 3510 3511 Christian ``Marvin'' Bressler maintained 3.4 for the Atari 3512 after he resurrected it for 3.3.1. 3513 3514 There is a NetHack web site maintained by Ken Lorber at 3515 http://www.nethack.org/. 3516 3517 - - - - - - - - - - 3518 3519 From time to time, some depraved individual out there in 3520 netland sends a particularly intriguing modification to help out 3521 with the game. The Gods of the Dungeon sometimes make note of 3522 the names of the worst of these miscreants in this, the list of 3523 Dungeoneers: 3524 3525 3526 3527 3528 3529 3530 3531 3532 3533 3534 3535 3536 3537 3538 3539 3540 3541 3542 3543 3544 3545 3546 3547 3548 3549 3550 3551 3552 3553 3554 3555 3556 3557 3558 3559 3560 3561 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 3562 3563 3564 3565 3566 3567 NetHack Guidebook 55 3568 3569 3570 3571 Adam Aronow Izchak Miller Mike Stephenson 3572 Alex Kompel J. Ali Harlow Norm Meluch 3573 Andreas Dorn Janet Walz Olaf Seibert 3574 Andy Church Janne Salmijarvi Pasi Kallinen 3575 Andy Swanson Jean-Christophe Collet Pat Rankin 3576 Ari Huttunen Jochen Erwied Paul Winner 3577 Barton House John Kallen Pierre Martineau 3578 Benson I. Margulies John Rupley Ralf Brown 3579 Bill Dyer John S. Bien Ray Chason 3580 Boudewijn Waijers Johnny Lee Richard Addison 3581 Bruce Cox Jon W{tte Richard Beigel 3582 Bruce Holloway Jonathan Handler Richard P. Hughey 3583 Bruce Mewborne Joshua Delahunty Rob Menke 3584 Carl Schelin Keizo Yamamoto Robin Johnson 3585 Chris Russo Ken Arnold Roderick Schertler 3586 David Cohrs Ken Arromdee Roland McGrath 3587 David Damerell Ken Lorber Ron Van Iwaarden 3588 David Gentzel Ken Washikita Ronnen Miller 3589 David Hairston Kevin Darcy Ross Brown 3590 Dean Luick Kevin Hugo Sascha Wostmann 3591 Del Lamb Kevin Sitze Scott Bigham 3592 Deron Meranda Kevin Smolkowski Scott R. Turner 3593 Dion Nicolaas Kevin Sweet Stephen Spackman 3594 Dylan O'Donnell Lars Huttar Stephen White 3595 Eric Backus Malcolm Ryan Steve Creps 3596 Eric Hendrickson Mark Gooderum Steve Linhart 3597 Eric R. Smith Mark Modrall Steve VanDevender 3598 Eric S. Raymond Marvin Bressler Teemu Suikki 3599 Erik Andersen Matthew Day Tim Lennan 3600 Frederick Roeber Merlyn LeRoy Timo Hakulinen 3601 Gil Neiger Michael Allison Tom Almy 3602 Greg Laskin Michael Feir Tom West 3603 Greg Olson Michael Hamel Warren Cheung 3604 Gregg Wonderly Michael Sokolov Warwick Allison 3605 Hao-yang Wang Mike Engber Yitzhak Sapir 3606 Helge Hafting Mike Gallop 3607 Irina Rempt-Drijfhout Mike Passaretti 3608 3609 Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks 3610 of their respective holders. 3611 3612 3613 3614 3615 3616 3617 3618 3619 3620 3621 3622 3623 3624 3625 3626 3627 NetHack 3.4 December 2, 2003 3628 3629 3630 3631