0.17

This article is about a previous release of Crawl. For information about other versions of Crawl, including the newest, see List of Stone Soup versions.

0.17 is a version of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. It was released on November 6th, 2015.

Highlights

• Square line of sight.
• Shorter Lair rune branches.
• New rune vaults for many branches.

Branches, Environment

• Snake, Shoals, Swamp and Spider are now all 4 levels long, down from 5.
• Levels no longer have -cTele.
• Shadow traps have been removed.
• Slime wall damage no longer varies by depth.
• AC now applies before resists for cloud damage.
• Ghostly flame clouds have been renamed to spectral mist clouds.
• Troves no longer ask for items that the player character's species cannot use.
• Pandemonium now spawns primarily tier 3 and above demons.
• New altar type: 'ecumenical altars', which allow the player to worship a random god.
• New WizLab: Lehudib's Moon Base, where the player can fight the legendary Moon Troll.
• Tukima's Studio and Eringya's Formal Garden WizLabs have been removed.

Character

• All races have had their evocations aptitudes reduced by one point.
• MP scaling has been reworked & simplified; MP aptitudes have been adjusted.
• Heavy armour no longer penalizes unarmed combat & throwing speeds.
• Rot is now healed first, instead of last; effectively, rotting reduces the effectiveness of healing until cured. The Rot status is also gone, with rot taking place immediately.
• Stat loss is no longer regenerated over time; instead, it's restored by XP.
• The deterioration mutation is now only 2 levels, and has a chance of causing stat loss whenever the player takes damage, rather than over time.
• Being at 0 in a stat no longer causes direct damage to the player.
• Undead stat gain: Mummies get one of Str, Int, or Dex every 5 levels, and Vampires get either Int or Dex every 5 levels.
• Vampires can now drink from anything that has blood, regardless of their chunk type.
• Headbutt aux attacks no longer apply a small stun and the hooves aux kicks no longer bypass AC.
• Unarmed attacks no longer have a speed penalty when attacking with a shield.
• Cleaving attacks now function even under confusion.
• Control-attacking & manipulating doors are no longer permitted under confusion.
• Confusion will never cause characters to stumble into deep water/lava.
• Corrosion can affect characters not using weapons or armour, and applies -4 to both armour and slaying (instead of -5/-3).
• Multi-turn actions, other than climbing/descending stairs, no longer reduce EV by 5 for their duration.
• Poison-immune characters (e.g. gargoyles, mummies) no longer take poison damage.
• Draconian Fighters no longer start with extra equipment.
• Teleportitis only triggers when it would land the player in LOS of enemies. It triggers slightly more frequently as a result, but no longer triggers in Labyrinths or the Abyss.
• The 'spiny' mutation is now dramatically stronger.
• Powered by Death is now triggered by kills, instead of corpses.
• Black Mark no longer gives vampirism; its other effects are now stronger.
• Clawed attacks no longer have bleeding-over-time damage effects.
• There's now a distinct hunger state of Fainting and appropriate warning messages for when the player is so low on nutrition that they might become paralyzed.
• The Breathe Flames and Spit Poison mutations are now mutually exclusive.
• Demonspawn can shoot through their own demonic guardians.
• Ability scores now cap at 125, up from 72.
• Some species now have lower Throwing aptitudes:
  • Centaur, Halfling, and Kobold go from +3 to +1;
  • Ogre, Spriggan, Tengu, High Elf, and Deep Elf go from +1 to 0;
  • Hill Orc and Gargoyle go from 0 to -1.

Geometry

• All range-based mechanics now treat diagonals identically to orthogonal directions. Line of sight, spell range, and other effects are now visually 'square'. Many of those, including line of sight, are now slightly shorter.

Gods

• Gozag:
  • The fee for entry has been reduced, especially early on.
  • Gold distraction is now an effect centered on the player that's refreshed whenever they find (make) new corpse-gold, rather than being centered on the gold piles themselves.
  • The cost of Potion Petition is more variable and higher initially, but no longer increases with use.
  • Friendly bribed allies are now permanently allied, but restricted to the branch from which they came.
  • Corpseless monsters now drop gold.
  • Gold that lands in deep water/lava teleports into the player's pockets.
  • Amulets of faith no longer have any effect.
  • Bribes now work on any intelligent monster in the branch, with bribe susceptibility based on HD and a scaling factor by branch. Unique Hell or Pan lords can't be bribed.
  • Bribes now trigger on monsters coming into view, rather than on level entry.
  • Call Merchant now always places shops at the player's location.
• Ru:
  • New sacrifice: Sacrifice Eye, similar to the effect of amulets of inaccuracy (and stacking with the amulet).
  • New sacrifice: Sacrifice Resistance, providing rC- rF-.
• Beogh's smite damage now scales better with invocations.
• Okawaru's Finesse no longer gives contamination.
• Lugonu and Trog no longer accept corpse sacrifices.
• The Shining One no longer blesses allies' weapons and armour; the Summon Divine Warrior ability is now slightly cheaper.
• Cheibriados' slouch damage is now based on monster movement speed.
• Ashenzari now gives the Scrying ability at 1* piety, boosts skills at 2*, and grants SInv at 3*.
• Zin's Vitalization no longer provides nutrition, and now has a small MP cost.
• Jiyva's Slime Prayer now lasts longer and has a small MP cost.
• Sif no longer requires worshippers to know spells.
• The player now no longer needs an altar to use the following abilities, which are accessible from the ability menu: Zin's Donate Gold, Kiku's Bless Weapon and Gift Necronomicon, Lugonu's Bless Weapon, and The Shining One's Bless Weapon.
• Gods no longer protect worshippers from Beogh smiting or TSO cleansing flame.
• Qazlal's wrath now causes noise 50% of the time before other possible actions, and can no longer inflict Deformed Body.
• Notes are now generated whenever you reach a piety rank for a god for the first time, instead of on abilities being gained.

Items

• New items:
  • Maxwell's Etheric Cage, a helmet giving rElec, +4 MP and a large boost to MP regen, at the cost of causing intermittent light contamination.
  • the Robe of Vines, a +5 robe with massive regeneration but which renders the wearer unable to heal by external means.
  • Kryia's Mail Coat, +7 scale mail which amplifies the effect of healing items (and grants rC+ to boot).
• Poisonous chunks and rot chunks have been merged into 'inedible' chunks, which are only edible by ghouls. Some monsters have had their meat cleaned.
• Unrandart changes:
  • The Cloak of Starlight is now +2 and gives Stlth--.
  • The Fencer's Gloves now give a bonus to Short and Long Blades skills.
  • The Sceptre of Torment is now a staff.
• The box of beasts now produces a new type of variable creature, 'mutant beasts', instead of chimeras.
• The Orb of Zot now turns all controlled blinks into uncontrolled blinks while carried.
• Warding now applies to ranged attacks.
• Troll leather armour now provides regeneration to trolls.
• Staves of summoning no longer have a chance of abjuring on hit.
• Staves of power now give a flat +15 mp, rather than scaling with your MP; they no longer store MP when swapping.
• For the player and for monsters, curare needles no longer have an effect that prevents the use of abilities relying on breath.
• Scrolls of Holy Word now apply the Daze status effect instead of stunning enemies.
• "Sustain abilities" has been renamed to "sustain attributes".
• The Storm card no longer summons twisters.
• The Placid Magic card is no more.
• The Sack of Spiders makes more appropriate types of spiders at lower and higher levels of Evocations and fewer orb spiders overall.
• The Rod of Clouds makes acid clouds more often and storm clouds less often.
• Removed items:
  • The Cloak of Flash.
  • Potions of decay.
  • Potions of restore abilities.
  • Rings of teleport control.
  • The Book of Control.
  • Hammers.

Monsters

• New monsters:
  • Salamander stormcallers, appearing in the late Dungeon and the Vaults. They chant for a few turns before calling down a Fire Storm on their victims.
  • Entropy weavers, appearing in Spider, Vaults, and Depths. They chant for a few turns before corroding their victims' equipment terribly.
  • Juggernauts, terrifying giants that lurk in Depths. They move quickly and deliver fantastically punishing blows, but must rest after each attack.
• Death cobs have been greatly strengthened and their attacks increase your hunger, even when guarded by AC.
• Hungry ghosts' hungering effect now apply even when their attack damage is reduced by AC.
• XP and placement for many uniques has been adjusted; in general, uniques have been removed from depths at which they're no longer threatening, and their XP has increased considerably.
• Jellies no longer eat items the player has seen.
• Monsters will now pick up all scrolls & potions, not just ones they use.
• Poison now has a 1/3 chance of affecting rPois+ monsters (up from 0/3).
• All nonliving monsters now have rPois+++.
• rElec++ has been removed; monsters that previously had it now either have rElec+ or full immunity.
• Non-magic-immune monsters are now always confuseable.
• Unrelated monsters can now swap with each other.
• Ghouls no longer cause rot with their attacks.
• Monsters no longer eat corpses.
• Revenants no longer ignore silence.
• Phantasmal warriors' attacks no longer pierce shields & armour.
• Death knights now have agony & haunt in addition to pain mirror.
• Worms are less vulnerable to some forms of kiting, having more regen in exchange for less max hp.
• Air elementals can no longer 'submerge' in air.
• Fire elementals no longer fly (though they can still cross lava). They can now enter shallow water.
• Queen ants are now faster.
• Liches and Ancient liches can no longer cast Shadow Creatures.
• Many monsters have lost the 'teleport self' spell: (ancient) liches, wizards, giant orange brains, hellwings, smoke demons, ogre magi, Mara, and Boris.
• Various 'high-intelligence' monsters no longer have immunity to drowning while confused.
• Basic mummies no longer have death curses.
• Alligators now come in pairs.
• Jorgrun is no longer a deep dwarf (monster), and now regenerates normally.
• Deep dwarf player ghosts now regenerate normally.
• Hell beasts no longer have randomized speeds.
• Salamander mystics, firebrands, and stormcallers now all have normal land move speed and fast swimming speed.
• Polyphemus can throw his yaks at the player.
• Blocks of ice are now susceptible to LRD and Shatter.
• Demonspawn warmongers now have Haste Other instead of Grand Avatar, and can spawn with a shield.
• Demonspawn blood saints no longer have ephemeral infusion, and no longer damage themselves when casting Legendary Destruction.
• Orange crystal statues now have Shadow Creatures and both they and obsidian statues are faster at casting their spells.
• Monsters can no longer have the Inner Flame spell.
• Hellwings no longer have the Teleport Other spell.
• Monsters can no longer have Animate Dead nor Simulacrum spells.
• Monsters that worship Dith or Yred (including allies of the player) are immune to the umbra accuracy reduction.
• Monsters can no longer have a flee ability (polar bears, black bears, and krakens).
• Derived undead (skeletons, zombies, spectres, and simulacra) now do 80% of the damage of the base monster and inherit the energy use pattern of the base monster.
• Removed monsters:
  • Unborn.
  • Ravens.
  • Giant mites.
  • Baby alligators.
  • Boring beetles.
  • Goliath beetles.
  • Wandering mushrooms only generate through Fedhas or the monster Summon Mushrooms spell.

Spells

• Enslavement is replaced by Tukima's Dance in the Enchanter starting book, and by Gell's Gravitas in the Arcane Marksman starting book. Tukima's Dance no longer appears in the Book of Enchantments.
• Ignite Poison is now level 3 Fire/Poison/Transmutations; it no longer ignites items or poisonous creatures, only poisoned creatures and clouds, but does dramatically more damage to the former, especially at low power.
• Gell's Gravitas is now level 3 and smite-targeted; it can now target empty space, but no longer confuses monsters.
• Summon Guardian Golem is now level 3.
• Aura of Abjuration is now level 5, and has been moved from the Grand Grimoire to the Book of Summonings.
• Monstrous Menagerie has been moved from the books of Summonings and Beasts to the Grand Grimoire.
• Summon Mana Viper has been moved from the Book of Hinderance to the book of Summonings.
• Sticks to Snakes no longer requires wielding arrows.
• Apporting the Orb of Zot now causes the orb run to begin.
• Cigotuvi's Embrace is now stronger with small numbers of corpses, and considerably weaker with huge numbers.
• Freeze no longer has a stun effect.
• Death's Door sets player exhaustion when canceled with Borgnjor's Revivification.
• Ozocubu's Armour and Stoneskin no longer give additional bonuses to Ice Form and Statue Form, respectively.
• Casting Malign Gateway no longer drains player Int.
• Casting Haunt no longer cause sickness.
• High level spellbooks no longer restrict learning from them based on skill levels.
• Corpse Rot now affects all corpses in LOS.
• Darkness is now level 6.
• Controlled Blink is now level 8.
• Removed spells:
  • Abjuration.
  • Control Teleport.
  • Enslavement.
  • Flight.
  • Sure Blade.
  • Singularity.

Interface

• The level map viewer (X) now allows you to examine monsters, items & features (with 'v'), just as the normal examine mode does.
• The inventory descriptions for weapons & shields now shows the skill required to reach minimum attack delay / remove attack delay penalty, respectively.
• The rune menu now shows you all runes and their locations before they are found, including the Orb of Zot.
• New ability_slot option, which allows you to specify default letters for abilities.
• The 'a'bility command shows the menu by default; to get the old behaviour, use the option "ability_menu = false".
• The auto_eat_chunks option is now true by default, so hungry characters eat chunks while resting, travelling, and exploring.
• Allow searching for jewellery, dragon armour/hides and magical staves using abbreviations for their granted properties.

0.17.1

First point release for 0.17. It was released on 12th of October, 2015.

• Fix insect monsters never berserking. This bug prevented queen bees from berserking their hive bees and moths of wrath berserking insects in Spider.
• Prevent the Gell's Gravitas spell from moving monsters into deep water or lava.
• Fix resting to stop properly when MP don't regenerate.
• Properly warn when a beam might poison a monster while worshiping the Shining One.
• Put hunter's swords in slot 'a' or 'b' at game start to allow easier switching between ranged and melee weapons.
• Put EE starting stones on the 'b' slot.
• Update the manual for 0.17.
• Many other bug fixes for game crashes, to vaults, and to in-game text.