Ironband

Ironband is a variant by Antoine. It is a variant of NPPAngband (by Jeff Greene and Diego Gonzalez), which in turn is a variant of Angband. The mission is to descend to the 50th level of the dungeon and defeat The Witch-King of Angmar.

Download: Dec2012

Windows executable including source code (4,835,527 bytes)
Changelog

The main change is the introduction of Buzzkill's UT32.

Download: 14Aug08

Windows executable (1,513,902 bytes)
Source code (2,270,024 bytes)
Changelog
IRONBAND-README

The changelist:

Slay and brand ammo now only does 2x damage.
2-handed artefact weapons are now correctly 2-handed (so cannot be used with a shield, or by the smaller races)
Artefacts are less common, particularly if you have low Luck.
Spellcasting is a little less effective if you have low Int/Wis.
Monster pits and vaults no longer cause 'special' feelings: only artifacts do.
Some monster, object and spell tweaks.
High Elves now have a big disadvantage when facing the final bosses.

You can send Antoine feedback (comments, suggestions or bug reports) at <antoine dot from dot rgrd at gmail dot com>. You may also like to post character dumps at angband.oook.cz, or discuss the game on the oook forums or on the rec.games.roguelike.angband newsgroup.

Introduction to Ironband

As the name implies, Ironband is an ironman game. You can never go up stairs, only down. You start in the dungeon and can never get back to town to go shopping. You will have to pick up all your supplies in the dungeon.

There are no classes in Ironband - all characters can fight, shoot, sneak and cast spells. You can specialise by raising the appropriate stats (e.g. Intelligence and Wisdom for casters). The other stats are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Agility, Stealth, Perception and Luck.

You will notice you have quite a few SP and spells are cheap. However the downside is that SP do not regenerate naturally. You only get your SP back when you go down stairs. This causes some interesting tactical play. Wands and magical talismans can help, as can some rare magic items.

Why should you play Ironband?

1. No more 'game of shopping' - you never need to pick stuff up just to sell it.
2. 'Too much junk' is pretty much fixed (with changes to item probabilities, all characters able to use all items, some crap items removed, changes to identification, etc - and with no shops you need to keep a lot more of the stuff you find!)
3. Many of the problems which make normal Ironman games very challenging are fixed in Ironband (for example, stat drain is a problem but not a huge one, and spellbooks are more resistant to fire).
4. No more warriors wielding whips - go for a heavy weapon to do more damage (if your Strength is high enough).
5. No more boring stat gain period - your stats increase throughout the entire game without needing to collect potions.
6. Having nine stats is cool especially when you can decide which ones to raise. No more 'all endgame characters look the same'.
7. Lots of interesting resource allocation issues because your SPs only regenerate when you go downstairs. Will you use your precious SPs for a big fight, or to create some food for later, or to identify the items you found, or...?