Which variants are the closest to Angband?

[Grotug]

I would love to play a variant to Angband that is very close to vanilla with only small changes, and preferably using the rune system of identification. I don't suppose such variants exist, though.

[fph]

Not yet, I think. Most active variants have been forked from Vanilla at the time before it had rune-id. But if I were creating a new variant today I'd surely start from the more modern rune-id codebase.

[Pete Mack]

FA Angband 2 is the only one, and it is still pre-alpha.

[tangar]

You are welcome to play Tangaria or PWMAngband It has rune ID and all modern V stuff. Also you even can play it totally 'turn-based' if you will just run server on your local PC. There are plenty of differences thought, but all for the greater good (c)...

[whartung]

Originally Posted by Grotug

I would love to play a variant to Angband that is very close to vanilla with only small changes, and preferably using the rune system of identification. I don't suppose such variants exist, though.

What small changes are you looking for? Maybe you could make them yourself.

[tg122]

FAangband 2.0 is close to Angband but improves on it in several ways. I believe it's still in Beta, but is very playable.

[Grotug]

Originally Posted by tg122

FAangband 2.0 is close to Angband but improves on it in several ways. I believe it's still in Beta, but is very playable.

I guess it's been in the works for a little bit https://groups.google.com/g/rec.game...2GbKX-AJ?pli=1

Originally Posted by whartung

What small changes are you looking for? Maybe you could make them yourself.

I really would like to, but I'm terrified of coding. I took a rudimentary coding class once and got an F in it.

Hmm.. let's see...

• Tone down annoying monsters; namely make vortices less common as well as super-breeders.
• Fix the obnoxious gorging mechanic to be more realistic. (Why would @ eat so much as to cause themself to be -10 speed?) If eating will cause gorgedness, a prompt, "are you sure you want to eat the slice of meat? You will be heavily gorged if you do" will appear.
• Code a game option that scrambles the rarity and depth of items at the game's outset without the player knowing what items are scrambled (so free action may become super rare but rods of speed maybe as common as rings of escaping) (This one's kinda dumb but might be fun for a laugh).
• Make my own silly starting scenarios: like the one where a hobbit starts out with Sting and The One Ring. I'd also make my own competition where @ gets to start with one of two super launchers (I wasn't able to find the post I made about them awhile ago); and then host it as a competition.
• Make spells that increase in power with character level also increase in cost with leveling. So a 3 mana minor heal spell will cost 20 or so mana for a level 50 character. Add back in the 300 heal spell.
• Add a poor man's !*Enlightenment* spell that works similarly to how Holy Vision from Warcraft 2 did: allows you to map a small area anywhere in the map (instead of just your location); revealing the objects and evil monsters there as well. Use the cursor to select the portion of the dungeon you want mapped.
• Tweak speed items in such a way so that speed feels special again (speed items are too common, currently).
• Make early levels smaller, or at least with a lot more down stairs, or some combination so that early levels are easier to find the down stairs.
• Make small, rectangle "special" levels less common.
• Play around with pastel coloring of special rooms and make secret doors visible (maybe the brick is a slightly different shade)
• Make a bunch of new room types, especially for secret rooms.
• Add some new effects for potions of surprise, such as causing the level to suddenly become mirrored (the level you are on suddenly flips horizontally making upstairs now look like down stairs and down stairs look like upstairs. Not sure if monsters and items would also be visibly flipped)--add this effect to the "causes bizarre things to happen" activation.
• Remove the effect that slow monster wands and staves now have of waking monsters and limit their use only to monsters that can be held/paralyzed, or otherwise leave them as is but make them much less common.
• Make rare artifact staves that cannot be destroyed by acid or fire or recharge backfire, with a randomized power level. Like staves of power, for example, but perhaps with more than one activation, (up to 3), with the ability to choose which activation (heal 1000 hp, deal 150 damage to all, or hasten self) for example. When recharged with scrolls Artifact staves would get a 50% increase in number of charges restored (as compared to normal, similarly powered staves). So instead of 3 charges being restored they'd get 4 or 5 charges.
• Maybe play around with an ironman-lite game option with in-dungeon shops. Maybe every 5 levels there is a shop somewhere with the last shop maybe being dungeon level 70. In such a version have money and precious stone veins be much more rare. maybe add back the charisma stat for this game option.
• In a similar vein, maybe add oracles: shop-like rooms in the dungeon that either give the player a clue about some of the items in the game (see option 3 in this list), or about fighting Morgoth or some other deep, dangerous monster; kinda like how Commander Keen had cryptic messages throughout:

  You will need a Raygun in the end, but not to shoot the Vorticon...

  or... offer a reward for the player to complete a quest. The quest would need to be completed before reaching a certain floor. So if you are on DL23 you could come across a bloke who offers you a reward if you kill Gorlim before reaching DL50. He'll tell you to see his cousin who will be on DL50 and will give you the reward (maybe you'll have to take up an inventory slot with Gorlim's head to prove it). The cousin would have 5 artifact items (totally randomized) but all of a similar power level (the power level would be less random to increase the chance that lugging around Gorlim's head wasn't for naught). You'd then get to choose the artifact you liked the most.
• Make dragons of annihilation more rare.
• Make rare, new item: backpack, that has a random assortment of lesser items in it as well as increasing max number of items per inventory slots above 40, capping out at 60. Or, make said item not super rare and have @ starting pack only have a per item carrying capacity of 20 (instead of 40).
• Make a tweaked version of the game that removes teleport other wands, rods and spells (but maybe keep as rare object activation). To compensate, tone down monster summons by a lot.
• Include option to play the game with 20 dungeon levels instead of 100 (protract the deeper monsters into the last two levels, so something like monsters native to DL62 through DL79 show up on DL19 and those currently native to DL80 through DL100 show up on DL20.
  
  So, for revamped monster distribution, something like:
  (where the left column represents the shortened game dungeon depth and the right column represents when monsters from the current game would start showing up in the shortened version)
  
  DL1 = DL1
  DL2 = DL2
  DL3 = DL3&4
  DL4 = DL5&6
  DL5 = DL7&8
  DL6 = DL9&10
  DL7 = DL11&12
  DL8 = DL13&14
  DL9 = DL15&16
  DL10 = DL17thru21
  DL11 = DL22thru26
  DL12 = DL27thru31
  DL13 = DL32thru36
  DL14 = DL37thru41
  DL15 = DL42thru46
  DL16 = DL47thru51
  DL17 = DL52thru56
  DL18 = DL57thru61
  DL19 = DL62thru79
  DL20 = DL80thru100

[tangar]

Grotug, it's time indeed for you to make your own variant, mate

[fph]

You can change many things just by editing the gamedata files, without writing a single line of C: native depths, rarities, special rooms, etc.
And you can play your Frodo start with debug/wizard commands.

Just give it a try; many changes might be easier than you think.

[Pete Mack]

Frodo also has pretty nice armor when he sets out: mithril chainmail, possibly magical.

We actually played the frodo start as a competition some years back, but that requires the debugger to avoid (or get out of) wizard mode.