Exhaustive commentary on SpliceHack features

splicehack.txt

Disclaimer: This was written primarily as a personal reference for considering SpliceHack features for adoption into xNetHack, though once NullCGT appeared on IRC the tone started to address them on occasion. Criticisms are mostly because I am comparing the features against my own game design philosophies, which differ from SpliceHack's.

Monster Item Usage
  Not sure about cancellation/wishing - yeah sure it's symmetric but is there some way to make it so that if a monster uses them it's not all out awful for the player? Also, a 1/10 chance of a hostile Archon per wish, ouch.
  Ditto throwing polymorph - surprise polying the player isn't fun
  Figurines are good. Potions of hallucination are good. Bullwhips are good.
  Scrolls of fire are now in vanilla.
  Reassessing their inventory - good, yeah I don't know why this isn't in vanilla.

Cartomancer
  How is this differentiated from the other roles? How does combat work after you run out of "attack cards"?
  Most of the "cards" seem to be other objects that are just called cards (you can apparently lock doors with a "worthless card" for instance).
  Quest is kind of bland.
  The penalty for writing "cards" is interesting though.
  And an artifact whose invoke power is to summon _usually_ tame monsters sounds interesting.
    Edit: It no longer does this. Oh well.
  Seems like it would need a way to find more and varied "cards" around the dungeon.

Dragonmaster
  Quest is bland again, but I am getting a sense that that is the idea here, that it can be improved later. Personally I would not add roles without first discussing them with the community and planning out the full Quest, but I guess that is just my opinion.
  Of particular note on the quest: undead are already way too much of a punching bag in this game, they play a big part in the Valley, the Sanctum, and the Priest quest.
    Edit: This was changed but there's still sort of a focus on the undead.
  I don't think undead are a particularly good guaranteed enemy on this quest. (Ideally, the main punching bag would be some creature that is opposed to dragons.)
  In particular, one thing I would add to the quest is dragon eggs (and dragon nests if those can be conjured up out of existing terrain).
  If the quest artifact is now Sharur, it turning into a winged lion is very weird flavor for the Dragonmaster role.
  Ah, so a major limitation is no dragon scale armor.
  What differentiates this role's overall playstyle from the other roles?
  As far as I can tell it looks like you're supposed to be a standard melee fighter when your dragon pet isn't up to snuff.

New Monsters
  Dragons:
    Void: Eh, I don't think I'd want a melee-instead-of-breath black dragon.
    Razor: So its thing seems like just powerful melee attacks and no breath (and metallivorous). I can see the need for monsters like this, but perhaps not dragons.
    Ooze: Not sure how they are differentiated from yellow.
    Filth, hex: I'm getting dragon overloaded. I don't think so much of the presumable late game hazards should be concentrated in a single monster class (also, consider genocide).
  Dinosaurs: This is general kitchen-sinkiness which I don't particularly like, but that seems like just a difference in philosophy.
  Renegade shopkeeper:
    Interesting, but they should probably come from a specific shop type and have some wares from that shop, rather than just standard shk gear.
    I think this could also be done without making a new permonst for it, just allow shopkeepers to generate rarely and set peaceful to 0 (and give them the wares) if they're not generated in a shop.
    Edit: Aaaand they're gone.
  Legendary lichen: More kitchen-sinkiness. My only note is that players would expect legendary lichen corpses to behave in many of the same ways as lichen corpses, such as not rotting, which I don't see any code to handle.
  Worm that walks: 
    Hm, I guess it is a sort of lich, after looking it up. 
    Not bad but possibly still unnecessary since we have pretty good lich diversity. 
    Maybe should replace one of the other lich species, like demilich or master lich.
  Lord of worms: Probably not necessary to have another worm that walks, except stronger.
  Nightmare: A fire horse from hell. Nice!
  Death maggot:
    Okay. I'd suggest CLR_GRAY instead of CLR_GREEN though.
    These should probably not grow up into worms that walk... don't they need to infest a spellcaster corpse for that, and isn't it a long process?
  Zombie dragon: Since it doesn't have any attack types that other zombies don't have, is it necessary to have as a slightly bigger slightly stronger zombie?
  Desert jinn: Not sure if this is supposed to have any special thing that makes it more than a dual-wielding demon. Does it ever grant wishes?
  Marid: Hm, high level water demon that can cast and spit. Maybe there's a niche for this.
  Animated statue: There are probably enough golems already. Unless there's something special about this being a statue.
  Lemur: Don't see anything that differentiates it from other Y chaff monsters.
  Amalgamation:
    Has some interesting potential but might possibly be very hard to balance.
    Though I guess if they're chosen as amalgams of appropriate-difficulty monsters, it could be okay.
    I'd personally randomize which stats get added from the two monsters rather than hardcode them.
    Also not sure about them being Q class.
    Ring of protection from shape changers would *not* work on this, good.
  Bad clone: I don't think it's really necessary to have a monster which is amalgamation but stronger.
  Memory hound: Nope, don't want more amnesia monsters. See below.
  Fusion elemental:
    Interesting concept.
    I think the name is ever so slightly odd (it's not an elemental of fusion, it's a fusion of elementals). Maybe "fused elemental".
    It should probably not have an engulf attack because it's partially solid earth.
  Weeping eye: it apparently has (level+1)d70 passive rust attack? Not sure if there's a niche for a basically weaker rust monster.
  Corrosive sphere: Kind of nasty, but that's a good thing in this case.
  Serval: Eh, more f chaff is probably not needed.
  Will-o-the-wisp:
    Ah, this is a good choice. Very well established in folklore and legend.
    If possible, it should have a retreating AI (not combatting the player).
    Actually, I'm not sure it should attack at all. Electricity seems out of place. Hmm.
    It should have a light radius of 0 - enough so that you can see it across a dark level, but not enough to illuminate its surrounding squares.
    Should spawn in swamp rooms and Juiblex's level.
  Porcupine and manticore:
    Not sure quill attacks are fleshed out enough as they currently are to be worth it (especially considering the oddities of their implementation with them being AT_SPIT, etc), but interesting mechanic anyway.
    I don't think any monsters currently hit you with physical passive attacks.
    Cancelling manticores should perhaps not affect their quills; the quills are not magical.
    Using the spat venom symbol for quills will be very weird in tilesets, but I suppose tilesets are broken with all these monsters and objects anyway.
  Grim Reaper:
    I don't particularly like a monster who is supposed to be Death, but not, especially since it exists just for the tarot deck.
  Banshee:
    Well-established and can be a good fit in NetHack.
    Though strength-drain sound attacks sound a little cruel.
  Giant fly:
    Seems like a chaff intended for the early levels. Necessary?
  Drake: Why is it specifically fire-associated, given the large amount of dragon types?
  Volatile mushroom: Heh, sure, why not. I guess the only reason you would ever attack them is if they're blocking your path or you didn't see it for some reason though.
  Monstrous spider: More chaff, I would not add it unless there's something special about it.
  Earthshark: Intended as a phasing monster that is not as strong as xorn? Is there a niche for this?
  Elder kraken: More chaff.
  Phoenix:
    Yes, very good, I'm all for more mythological creatures with well-known lore.
    Exploding into an egg is perfect, yes good more.
  Barghest: Seems like more d chaff.
  Cow: I'm generally against having monsters that are mainly there to provide lots of corpse nutrition (mainly because it's contrary to the way I want to take corpse nutrition).
  Amphisbaena: Its deal seems to be poison and crushing in one complete package. Sure, there's probably a spot for this, though I wouldn't add it myself.
  Draugr: More Z chaff.
  Sludge golem: Seems like it should have some sort of smell-based or decaying attack.
  Spectre: Well I sort of have to like this one since it came from me. Here, it is basically ghost+, right? I can't remember what other plans for it I had, if any.
  Enabled vorpal jabberwocks:
    Honestly I think this is a rather terrible monster and wish it weren't a deferred feature.
    A monster that can outright kill you in one hit with only one real protection (that gets consumed) *and* is on the nasty list has the potential to be game-endingly annoying..
  Bird pets:
    Way too nutritious, and way too heavy.
    A little bird won't weigh 150 aum = 15 lb, nor should it feed you for 150 turns.
  Dust devil:
    Seems like chaff, especially considering dust vortexes are already the true "dust devils".
  Silver golem:
    Got to be careful with balance here if they drop silver daggers (or other silver weapons).
    Killing a silver golem shouldn't be an invitation to daggerstorming all through Gehennom.
    YANI: make them non-randomly-generated (and they're already un-reverse-genocidable), and place one or two on special levels.
  Martial Artist / Martial Master:
    I think I would rather give special martial arts attacks to Monk player monsters and make them randomly generate, rather than create new monsters for it.
  Mystic scarab:
    What's mystic about it? Seems rather normal (if a bit high-damaging).
    Why's it infravisible? It's an invertebrate so should be cold-blooded.
  Wind sphere:
    Yes, one thing I want is monsters that cause you to hurtle somewhere else.
  Goblin windmage:
    Seems oddly specific. If it's a mage, why not add a monster wind spell (or a player wind spell and then let monsters cast player spells :D) and just leave the o casting to orc shamans?
    I guess I don't really like the idea of a magic user that only has one sort of magic available, it's not how nethack's monster or player magic systems work.
  Serpopard, chimera, cerastes, lindorm:
    I think I'm just getting exhausted by all the new monsters at this point.
    Do these fill niches or are they needed to enhance flavor somewhere else?
  Purple dragon, screamer:
    Yeah if we have sonic we need to have sonic based monsters.
    Screamer not being sonic resistant is weird though. Shriekers should also possibly be resistant.

  Uniques:
    Lord Sankis:
      Who exactly is this supposed to be? Turned on her own? Beat up a cow? Wha?
      Also, the AT_WEAP AD_FIRE attacks are also a lot weaker than they look due to how AD_FIRE works.
    Lord of the Foocubi:
      Has it got a canonical gender?
      Also, its attacks make it seem like Lord of the Thieves instead of Foocubi. (AT_SEDU is nymph charm + theft)
      "Foocubi" is a very clunky term to use in a monster name, it doesn't make any sense unless you're well experienced with reading the nethack wiki.
    Mephisto: Not sure what is supposed to be special about him - fiery attacks?
    Master of Cats:
      Idea: implement the nine lives thing with max HP: the first life has 90, the second has 80, and so on.
      Doing it with mlevel is fine though.
      This can still retain the levelport fleeing thing.
    Buer:
      This seems like the sort of demon lord specializing in dishing out lots and lots of physical damage I've been asking for.

New Objects
  Dress/Tuxedo: What do they do? Evidently nothing?
    (YANI: they increase Cha if you are the appropriate gender and decrease it if the opposite.)
  Tower Shield: Ditto, is it just +1 AC for +100 weight?
  Hide Shield: Ditto.
  Iron mantle: Seems the same as a cloak of protection, but worse. I guess informally IDing it is easier?
  Cloak of flight: WANT.
  Wand of wonder: Its main deal seems like it can replicate the effects of various other wands. Interesting... though probably unbalanced somehow.
  Bone knives: Hmm, could be interesting... but it would have to have some negative reason so that you don't get one once and then have boosted sacrifices for the rest of the game. Also, this will segfault when offering without anything wielded.
  Amulet of danger: Name seems a bit odd for conferring infravision.
  Amulet of nausea: Well I guess we need to balance out the shiny new amulets with some useless ones...
  Razor whip: I like this, it's nice to have an upgrade for whip wielders.
  Wands of acid and poison: Seems weird that they would explode and have the same effects. Other than that, they're okay but probably not something I would add.
  Scroll of cloning: Ooh, this is cool! Very minor nitpick, but I'd avoid a direct English scroll label.    Maybe mangle it somehow, this is definitely an appropriate reference.
    Confused effect is weird - why your weapon specifically?
    YANI: there are currently no BUC effects to this scroll - cursed should create the clone hostile, blessed with full HP, and, confused could... hm. Create a doppelganger of you, with the same BUC effects?
      Edit: cursed is hostile now, good.
  Earmuffs: Yes, with sonic scream and things like that, there is a reason to keep yourself deaf now. Good.
  Rogues gloves: Should perhaps be "rogues\' gloves". Am neutral toward this.
  Boxing gloves: Ah, so they increase staggering blow chances? Interesting. Perhaps this should be implemented as an appearance bonus (adding "boxing gloves" as a random appearance) rather than as a separate item entirely.
  Catnip: I like it! But it feels like it should be more fleshed out.
  Throwing axe:
    Shouldn't it be smaller (and thus lighter) than a regular axe?
    Since it stacks and is presumably ammo, shouldn't it cost less than a regular axe? Or else raise the price of a regular axe.
    Low damage and axe skill means this might not get used much.
  Alignment scrolls:
    Hmm, I'm not sure I like breaking atheist due to a unknowingly religious action such as read testing scrolls.
    Possible replacement for prayer: if safe to pray, create a tame aligned minion. This is not directly religious.
    Not sure the main coaligned effect should be to execute a prayer (though the pray-only-if-safe is kind of cool).
    Same deal as cloning - they seem like they're lacking BUC and confused effects.
    YANI: Could possibly merge into one "scroll of alignment", where blessed = coaligned, uncursed = random alignment, cursed = guaranteed crossaligned?
  Masks:
    Aw yeah, Majora's Mask and NetHack are two things I never knew I wanted to be combined in one game.
    Oh wait, they're one use only. Oh well.
    YANI: monsters rarely generate with their own masks.
    Worth noting that the corpsenm selecting code can still choose human monsters if it fails enough...
    I do like dnethack's mask application - no instant transformation, occupies the eye slot
    Ok, just noticed that blessed masks grant intrinsic unchanging. Some considerations:
      Since this is usually a negative outcome, I'd make it the _cursed_ behavior.
      I implemented intrinsic unchanging in xnethack and had to deal with several annoying bugs that resulted from this - mostly related to rehumanizing. Tread carefully.
      YANI: another way to break your intrinsic unchanging and rehumanize yourself. Possibly expensive.
  Potion of reflection:
    Quite intriguing. Intrinsic reflection in your base form, but only in consumable and limited form. And very rare, too.
    YANI: vapors/juices from the potion of reflection give the same effect, on account of skin contact.
    Might have some potential to allow ascension kit abuse... e.g. you quaff your potion of reflection right before suiting up to enter the Astral Plane, the slotless reflection allowing you to get one more critical ascension-kit gear piece on.
    The muse aspect of this makes it weird and unsymmetric which I don't like - monsters quaff it for permanent reflection, players don't get that. (Worth noting this applies to potion of invisibility too.)
  Deck of cards: Not sure how I feel about free unlimited luck detection - may cause players to get paranoid about their luck and do silly things like leave Gehennom to go fix it.
  Grain scythe: Eh, I'm not really feeling Reaper, and without that I don't think this has much of a use, except to theme up Death a bit.
  Second skin:
    Not sure this should be cloak slot.
    I mean, the intrinsic is balanced for the cloak slot, but I can't imagine wearing this *over* body armor.
    However, it'd be unbalanced in the shirt slot.
  Silver mace:
    The reason I don't like adding more silver weapons is that it's a slippery slope down to all metal wapons having silver counterparts, which is bad inflation of the objects list.
    I think the appropriate answer is the object materials patch, which will allow any metal weapon to generate as various materials (including silver) without defining new objects.
  Wand of sonics: The name sounds weird.
  Shield of resonance: I hear distant player cursing about shields of non-reflection.
  Wand of psionics:
    I don't really like the psychic damage stuff, see below, but "wand of psonics" would make a good hallucinatory object.
  Helm of opaque thoughts:
    Psychic stuff aside, its effects are decent (I like how it actively blocks warning of faint waves of psychic energy, double-edged things like that are cool).
    "Helm of opaque thoughts" is sort of long, how about tinfoil hat (actually I think that exists in some variant already).
  Wand of healing:
    This is a very obvious item to add, but I have never considered adding it because I have some suspicion that there's a very good reason that vanilla doesn't have it.

Artifacts
  Gungnir: Valks already have one auto-returning electrical artiweapon, why do they need two?
  Gae* spears: Gae Bulg sounds particularly nasty for an enemy to generate with or pick up before you find it... also, this is sort of a lot of spears to add.
    Gae Dearg cancellation is not symmetric (doesn't work on you if you're blind)??? Blegh, no.
  Sharur, Carnwennan, Seafoam, Helm of Darkness:
    Seems ok overall.
    Seafoam is kind of a bland name, perhaps replace it with something Poseidon-related.
    Artifact balance must be taken carefully - padding it out with less useful artifacts is good for not overpowering players, but a lot of people will moan and groan about sacfesting and not getting the gift they want.
    I'd avoid citing Wikipedia in the encyclopedia entry for Carnwennan.
    Edit: Why did you remove Helm of Darkness?
  Black Arrow: This is in dnethack, great minds think alike
  Vladsbane:
    I don't think this is a good thing to be serious about.
    Edit: Oh it's wish only. Carry on then.
  Luckless Folly:
    My guess is it would probably not see much use and be regarded as a junk artifact.
    Having a base +13 weapon is probably not worth minimizing your luck when doing that will have so many other bad effects.
    For instance, say goodbye to being able to write scrolls if you've minned your luck to use it.
    The main question is, would getting it actually convince anyone to change gears and go all out for its unique style?
  Unlimited Moon:
    I think you're thinking of Limited Moon from dnethack (it's a moon axe there).
    The strength based on moon phase is also from dnethack (but not from an artifact).
  Final Death: I would say there is probably no need for a second undeadbane.
  Reaper and War's Sword:
    Meh, if Death got Reaper it'd be OK, but then Pesty and Famine should get artifacts too (and I don't think they should all get artifacts).
    "War's Sword" sounds odd to me.
    "You Reluctantly relinquish..." is bad capitalization
  Acidfall:
    PLEASE no more long swords. We need to remove the focus on long swords, not increase it.
    I'd even take a polearm over a long sword at this point.
  Sunspot:
    I have two problems with the "The mace flashes with blinding light, blinding foo!" message: redundant "blinding", and also this being printed every time it hits a monster because it is very long.
    Also, it blinds unconditionally, as far as I can tell. It should have no effect if the monster is already blind.
  Pridwen:
    Fine, I like more non-weapon artifacts.
  Balance:
    Ok, but the comment still says "Shield of King Arthur".
  Seven-League Boots:
    I playtested these and they're just broken.
    You can't define a SPFX mask to be a combination of other masks without breaking things.
    Either a SPFX refactor is needed or else you can't add any more.
  Sonicboom:
    Does it grant sonic resistance? If so, sounds great (absolutely no pun intended)
    Players can't use them at all, because the SPFX_JUMP mask overlaps with SPFX_DALIGN and SPFX_DBONUS.    This causes them to consider themselves to have an attack bonus versus all non-A_NONE monsters. (This includes all players.)
    Because all players are treated as a bane target, they can't handle them when trying to wear them. So they are unusable by players.
    Even if the SPFX mask didn't overlap with DBONUS, the seven-league boots would still have problems such as magical breathing and reflection.
    Also, wishing for "seven league boots" doesn't work, which is too restrictive.

Spells
  Sonic scream: Nice. As we all know, nobody ever protects themselves from sonic damage.
  Slime spray: Since this doesn't appear to induce sliming, perhaps it should be renamed.
  Gas cloud: Sure, would be cool as a player spell too

Naming humans and nymphs:
  Main reservation is that it'd be weird to suddenly fight named monsters.
  (i.e. out of nowhere "Sally stole a pine wand", it feels like a SLEX unique or something)
  Maybe only some random monsters should be given these names.
  Edit: Oh, I like the fix for this, that they don't have names till they introduce themselves. However, it might make the message chains associated with nymphs and foocubi overly long.

Grudge Patch: Neat! I think I might steal it.

Underground Rivers Patch: Also neat! Perhaps it's best suited for Gehennom though.

All the Yellow Sign stuff (artifact, special engraving rules, monster): Meh, it's all too on-the-nose for my tastes. Doesn't seem quite nethack's style.

Beartrap and landmine generation: I like that.

Beast dens: xnethack already has something like this, by strongly biasing treasure-zoo monsters to be animals.

Mysterious force only affecting you if hallucinating: This seems pointless and frustrating exclusively to permanent-hallucinating players (nobody else is hallucinating for long periods on the ascension run).

New Races
  Merfolk:
    Interesting but don't seem quite fleshed out as a distinct race.
    Not sure there's really enough water in the dungeon for them to really shine.
  Angel:
    Not sure what the flavor is behind having intrinsic aggravate monster from the beginning.
  Infernal:
    "You feel itchy!" for gaining intrinsic regeneration seems like a negative message.
    I don't think these should leave corpses... it is inconsistent with all other demons.

Party mode: Interestingly, some people have discussed this, namely around creating a Bard or other strong petmaster role.

Dragon roaring: Love it. I might not make it a general aggravate() though, rather using a wake_nearto().

The Void branch: Rather neutral towards this (pun not intended). From a bones point of view, more branches are bad until someone fixes the issue where you can't save or load bones on a level containing branch stairs.

Forgetting objects via AD_MEMR: NO BAD GO AWAY. More amnesia is NOT needed.

Statuary level:
  Sort of boring as is.
  Not really any appreciable loot or monsters, and most players would just not go near the statues.
  Also considering how deep it is in the dungeon.
  A few wands in one of them isn't really enough incentive to go poking everything, especially if they're just striking and cold. (Not that these are bad rewards in their own right - having a guaranteed wand of cold is very nice for e.g. Medusa - but it doesn't seem like enough.)
  Edit: it was changed to wonder, OK, but I'm still doubtful that that's worth it.

Archery emporium:
  Hm. My main issue here is that it is going to be outright useless to many classes who don't want or have any use for archery fighting.
  10% silver arrows might incentivize some people who weren't considering using ranged, though.
  Also, where are the crossbows and bolts? Those should be there too.

Junk shop: 1% wand of wonder aside, it's hard to see this as anything but a worse general store.

Intrinsicswap:
  This is definitely a challenge mode.
  I wonder if it could even be adapted into some sort of race? But probably not a very flavorful one.
  My impression is that you would run around collecting tins of everything that can confer intrinsics and "swap them out" as best as possible when facing a new threat, but that would be a finite and slow process, which could make for intriguing gameplay.

New oracularities:
  Ah, the perennial struggle of How To Tell Players Cool New Things Without Making Them Read The Changelog.
  In practice, so few people buy major consultations that they won't ever see these.
  People also don't buy many minor ones either, and graffiti and fortune cookies aren't that common.
  We probably need some way to get more of these in the game. YANI: the Oracle's first major consultation is free, and subsequent ones are cheaper than they are now.

Werewolf race:
  Hm. I don't think I would add this myself, but I could see it taking off.
  Guard angering on transformation may be too cruel. This applies to all were transformations, right?

Filler Gehennom levels:
  Cavern map is bland, but you can't argue with it being an improvement over the mazes.
  I think some kind of cavernous level is justified (but ideally it should have rooms too, which would require changing the level generator, not that that's a barrier).
  The gehenfill-c code sort of does this, but I'm thinking random rooms built into the level organically, not a fixed two rooms placed in the same spot.

AT_SPEL AD_FIRE hellfire update: Does anything use this now? Currently nothing even uses it in vanilla.

Bribing:
  I very much like allowing them to pick an artifact from your inventory (the hero doesn't get the choice).
  Evil idea: if you refuse to give them an artifact, they get mad without even asking for gold. Or else they ask for more gold than they would have.
  Needs to somehow prevent players from stashing all their artifacts in a bag of holding before approaching the demon.
  Should also randomize among the available artifacts rather than just take the last one found in the linked list.
  Removing the demand of gold's dependence on current cash, yes, good.
  Edit: Oh, they also demand your bag of holding? That is EVIL! (And it's great!)
  Playing cards for your soul:
    The way this is implemented doesn't make much flavor sense. Especially since loss = good and win = bad.
    What is the demon wagering that it is willing to give up? Not safe passage, since if you win, it attacks.
    What are you wagering that has a meaningful loss to you? Not your soul, since losing has no other effects at all.

Increasing demon lord AC: Ehh... it doesn't really do all that much.

Quest Nemesis Buffs:
  Surtur:
    Good and thematic but I have a hard time believing a world-shaking strike does only 2d10 damage.
    Also, I sort of think AD_PITS is a weird _damage_ type.
  Nalzok:
    This may have to be handled with care - don't want the number of demons summoned to spiral out of control in a protracted fight.
    Also, eventually demon lords will get summoned, which doubles or triples the difficulty of the boss fight.
  Thoth Amon:
    I don't know enough Conan to know if this makes flavor sense.
    But it seems all right (though would be pointless if monster and player spellcasting were merged).
  Ixoth:
    This is likely to stunlock the player causing their death.
  Dark One:
    Yeah, he's barely a caster as is, he needs more spell powers. Good.

Demon lord angering if it has the Amulet: Can this ever actually happen?

Deck of Fate:
  Tower: What's the connection between this and cancellation/explosions?
  Death: I don't like adding the Grim Reaper as a separate monster to handle this. Should create a doppelganger of Death or something.
  Justice: Whether you get a good or bad effect should depend on your standing with your god.
  Emperess: Should be Empress.
  Okay so my overall impression is that this deck can get you very good stuff but also very bad stuff that you can't protect against.
  As such, it would not be used by strategic players - only by early players not caring if they cripple their character or players really greedy for a wish at all costs.
  It's a very SLASH'EM style item, I think.
  Hah, but it can save you from demon lord bribes, nice.
  (Though it might be a little cheesy that it saves you from *all* bribes.)

Mephisto's Lair:
  The level is pretty bland, I have to say.
  There are already too many boring levels (in Quests and things) that amount to just a rectangle in a big field.
  Also, doesn't help for flavor that all the monsters and objects and traps are random. There's nothing that characterizes the level or Mephisto.
  I know most of the other demon lairs follow this same formula, but they need overhauls too.

Lord of the Foocubi Lair:
  Better terrain but still some oddities and still rather bland room layout
  Like the drawbridges that are supposed to be accessed sideways or something, and require opening magic to open?
  Concerned about balance issues with guaranteeing so many opposite-sex foocubi in one place.
  Under current behavior this could be farmed for infinite levels and HP and Pw gains fairly easily (after killing the Lord).

Monster offering:
  Demons and the Wizard of Yendor wouldn't offer the Amulet on a high altar.
  Well, *perhaps* demons would, but they're generally not really aligned with the gods.
  And the Wizard is definitely not aligned with any god, and would not give up the Amulet's power to some god.

Poison instadeath removal: YES.
  edit: NOOOO!

Player monster buffs:
  Amulet-stealing is only really fair if the player can steal the amulet back.
  Monk stunning kick - again, an active stunning attack is dangerous because it introduces the possibility of stunlocking.
  Wizard spellcast - sure, though the flavor is very weird as long as monsters still cast monster spells.
  Rogue doublesteal - only makes sense, perhaps they should also have an AD_SITM attack.
  Not spawning with offensive items so that they use artifacts - I feel like this is the wrong solution, the right solution is to fix AI so that they won't try to blast you with a wand of fire when they are standing right next to you with Stormbringer

So thou thought thou couldst defeat me, fool:
  Do not like this, it harshes those good ascension vibes. Maybe if hallucinating.

Plane of Fire entry message: Good, yeah, I never realized that all the other planes have something and not this one.

Permahallu, permadeaf:
  These are good to have and I want them.
  However, permafumbling is probably too frustrating for me to want to force a player to get through an entire game to say that they did it.

Ill-Fated:
  Challenge mode for sure.
  Though the name doesn't seem quite right - your own fate shouldn't be tied to the dungeon denizens.
  I'd suggest ironman, but slex already took that term.

killed_demogorgon: Ideally we would come up with a way for the xlog to store all uniques killed. bhaak thinks text would suffice, but I disagree.

Buzzsaw trap: Level 6 seems a little early for a gory trap like this.

AD_DSRM:
  I think Chris_ANG said at one point "players will say bad words at you if you make their gear able to be dropped involuntarily". This may have applied more to armor, but still.

Furnaces:
  I assume they're supposed to have lava in them because they're drinkable, but most actual furnaces use burning coal or wood.
  (So players probably wouldn't think they can q from a furnace.)
  I disagree with random furnace blessing of objects. There's no flavor basis for that at all. Erodeproofing, perhaps.
  Furnace explosion doesn't look like it actually removes the furnace.
  No change with fire resistance for drinking lava? (Also, 999 is definitely survivable, there will be players who do it just to prove they can. Not that this is a bad thing.)
  If you really want to kill the player, set u.uhp to 0 and then losehp(1).
  Levitating over a furnace shouldn't make you fall onto it - the reason it does this for sinks is because it's a pun.
  Idea: don't generate them from level 1, only let them appear below a certain depth.

Demons appearing on the ascension run:
  Yes good I like it.
  Expect players to whine and wail at you for guaranteeing Demogorgon.
  Possibly, this should guarantee that no demon will end up on the Vibrating Square level.
  I think I would import this change only after removing covetous warping, because spawning on > and immediately facing a demon lord who keeps teleporting to < is cruel. Especially if you're on a no tele level.

Earthquakes on the ascension run:
  This is a good thematic idea that has been brought up in the past.
  Seems like the main effect will be to make players annoyed with all the pits appearing.
  Not very many effects. I'd add effects like collapsing diggable walls into piles of rubble, dropping boulders out of the ceiling, etc.
  These effects could be added to regular earthquakes too.
  These happen right when you first kill the Wizard - I would instead do it once you remove the Amulet from the Sanctum.

Leprechauns generated awake with the Amulet: This is probably not going to affect anyone since everyone will have their coins in a bag by then.

New player guide:
  I think a wiki page is probably better for this, and just provide a link to it in the README or Guidebook. Unless you anticipate a lot of players not having access to the wiki for some reason.

Sonic damage:
  No one prepares against sonic damage! http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0345.html
  Not sure why it's being implemented as a ray type.
  Sound bouncing from visually reflective objects doesn't make much sense.
  #define MR_SONIC 0x81: NO YOU CAN'T DO THIS. This makes all sonic-resistant monsters stone and fire resistant. If sonic has to be added, you have to upgrade their mresists into an unsigned short and its bitmask should be 0x0100.
  Ouch, it destroys breakable items.

Psychic damage:
  #define MR_PSYCHIC 0x82: GAHHHH. I hope you like your psychic resistant monsters to come with built in cold and stoning resistance.
  Psychic damage really doesn't seem like a reflectable ray to me. In vanilla it's nondirectional.
  Unlike sonic damage, I don't really think this type is workable.

Random trees in rooms: Sure, why not. It's no more illogical than Grotto Town's tree.

Give command:
  Like most other commands, this should return a value that represents whether it took an action to do.
  For example, #give while swallowed shouldn't consume a turn.

More informative farlook at monsters:
  I don't think describing their armor represents a probing nerf.
  It'd only be a probing nerf if it revealed all the other things like HP and statuses.
  I want to implement GruntHack farlook (which shows all worn/wielded items) but haven't got around to it.

Epitaph patch:
  Hah, nice, though giving players control of the epitaph text could be bothersome to the players that find it.

Code stuff:
  afc6f85
    impossible can take variable arguments - the "named object not in disco" should just use this rather than a separate pline
    Why is bone knife placed into the middle of the daggers?
  71d86a2
    Its like drinking glue! <-- It's
  1a131c0
    If you had an obj->oartifact check, I don't think you need to exclude unique items like the Bell of Opening (since they're not artifacts).
  b9a90f7
    Not sure why the documentation on artifacts was removed from the changelog - without it documented either in commit messages, the changelog, or on the wiki, players aren't going to know what to do with them.
  2cef461
    comment has "Unliited Moon"
  9a2a554
    I think the MSC files are autogenerated by some Windows program and don't have to be manually edited.
  dd27b62
    moffer is declared as returning boolean but it returns ints
  d77b58a
    AD_SILV: This should not be its own damage type. It should be AD_PHYS with the monster being checked - oh wait you didn't actually use it.
  a2e1e12:
    Must fix definition of MR_SONIC as detailed above.
    AD_LOUD explosions use resists_acid for their explmask...
    Cancellation prints "You are covered in sparkling lights!" even when it's not you that got hit.
  38177ec
    "grattitude" misspelling
  31fc642
    AD_LOUD artifacts use Cold_resistance if on the player... (copy error)

  Misc
    I highly recommend you port the xnethack change that makes item probabilities not have to add up to 1000 - it's a bit painful seeing all these nice items have their probability stolen from them to make room for others.
    A lot of places use conditions like (rnd(x) == 1). The normal convention for this is !rn2(x).
    Several devs consider git version history compliant with the NGPL clause that you have to record all edits to files, so if you did this you wouldn't have to put "Edited by NullCGT" everywhere.
    May as well refactor the MUSE_* list into an enum at this point.