🚀 go-pugleaf

Speaking of dead lizards, I've tried throwing them at cockatrices....

	You hit the cockatrice --more--

	You hear the cockatrice hissing --more--

Any guesses on what comes next?

I've looked at the code, and I don't think there is *any* way to avoid
turning to stone.  It seems to be a matter of luck only.

This is crap.

A single life and death decision should NOT be a matter of luck only.  This
part of the game needs to be thought out a little better.  Even if you had
*one* turn to do something after you hear the hissing, it would mean something
(save against magic, rather than blind chance).

By the way: in mythology, it was the *glance* of the cock that turns you to
stone.  The breath of the cock (or the basilisk) was so foul it would melt
stone and wither vegitation.

I think this monster needs a little work.
-- 
--
	Ron Christian  (Watkins-Johnson Co.  San Jose, Calif.)
	{pesnta,twg,ios,qubix,turtlevax,tymix,vecpyr,isi,idx}!wjvax!ron
	"But it won't let me make a directory called R&D!"

In article <399@wjvax.UUCP> ron@wjvax.UUCP (Ron Christian) writes:
> ... You hear the cockatrice's hissing.--More--
> I've looked at the code, and I don't think there is *any* way to avoid
> turning to stone.  It seems to be a matter of luck only.

You can genocide cockatrices. You can wear an elven cloak.
You may cancel the cockatrice. At all costs avoid hand to hand combat;
instead attack the cockatrice from a distance with arrows or rocks.
With a careful policy you can reduce the chances of being turned to
stone to less than 1 in 500 per encounter.

> This is crap. ...  Even if you had *one* turn
> to do something after you hear the hissing, it would mean something
> (save against magic, rather than blind chance).

Can you tell me the difference between "save against magic" and a call
to rand() ? One does not necessarily die after hearing the hissing.

> By the way: in mythology, it was the *glance* of the cock that turns you to
> stone.  The breath of the cock (or the basilisk) was so foul it would melt
> stone and wither vegitation.

I can see that you are really disappointed that your good adventure ended
so abruptly. Hack is a mythological world on its own, and outside references
can never prove anything. In this case however, the quote given in the data
file is authentical and mentions hissing as sometimes fatal.

In article <399@wjvax.UUCP> ron@wjvax.UUCP (Ron Christian) writes:
...cockatrices...
>A single life and death decision should NOT be a matter of luck only.  This
>part of the game needs to be thought out a little better.  Even if you had
>*one* turn to do something after you hear the hissing, it would mean something
>(save against magic, rather than blind chance).
>
>By the way: in mythology, it was the *glance* of the cock that turns you to
>stone.  The breath of the cock (or the basilisk) was so foul it would melt
>stone and wither vegitation.
>
>I think this monster needs a little work.
>-- 

I have to agree with this.  I should also point out that poison works the
same way - at times its a sure kill (i.e., The dart was poisoned! -more-).
This attitude is a hold-over from AD&D, I think, where there is a saving
throw against some things (stoning, poison) and if you fail, you're dead.

The question is, how can it be (easily) fixed up.  HACK doesn't have fuses
like some of the other versions of ROGUE, so it is difficult to implement
things that happen some time in the future (i.e., so you could have the
hissing be a warning of impending stoning, or have the character die after
3 turns of poison).  I'm not sure how hard it would be to add fuses to
HACK.

Another possibility is to make stoning in HACK be like stoning in SROGUE.
In this case, you start to feel your limbs stiffening (slowing you down)
and if you don't do something about it, you eventually turn to stone and
are unable to move (curiously, you don't die).

As far as making the cockatrice a line of sight monster (like U), I think
that would be a bit too deadly.  One has to remember that the mythological
cockatrice was a very rare creature.

						-- Scott Turner

In article <4644@ucla-cs.ARPA> srt@ucla-cs.UUCP (Scott Turner) writes:
> ... ~ I don't like the way cockatrices and poison can kill you instantly ...
>
> The question is, how can it be (easily) fixed up.  HACK doesn't have fuses
> like some of the other versions of ROGUE, so it is difficult to implement
> things that happen some time in the future (i.e., so you could have the
> hissing be a warning of impending stoning, or have the character die after
> 3 turns of poison).

Well, Hack *does* have fuses, although they are not called by that name
in the source. In fact they occur in several shapes. The shape most easily
used for the present purpose would be the code in hack.timeout.c
(isn't that name revealing?). Add a bitfield to the struct u called
being_turned_to_stone, and call done("died") after the timeout, if nothing
else has happened in the meantime. It need not be more than 5 lines of code.

If enough people support this view (letters from 25 sites expressing
agreement would be enough) I'll put something like this in version 1.0.3
(this fall). Personally, I do not agree. There are many ways one may die
instantly (I just died in the following way:

                      ----------
                     /          \
                    /    REST    \
                   /      IN      \
                  /     PEACE      \
                 /                  \
                 |     andries      |
                 |      666 AU      |
                 |   killed by a    |
                 |   visit to the   |
                 |       hell       |
                 |       1985       |
                *|     *  *  *      | *
       _________)/\\_//(\/(/\)/\//\/|_)_______

) and usually but not always there is some warning beforehand. In the case
of a cockatrice all players I know consider the mere appearance of a 'c'
as a warning that if they be not very careful, they'll soon be a statue.
More generally, I seem to recall that one of the fortunes contains the
warning: "Playing Hack may be dangerous to your health".

But let me be somewhat more constructive - one of the fuses in hack is
started after eating corrupted meat; if you haven't quaffed a potion of
healing within ten or so moves you die. By analogy one would want to
have something stopping (reversing) the petrification. But what?
[No, not dead lizards.]

In article <1573@ukma.UUCP> sean@ukma.UUCP (Sean Casey) writes:
>I agree with Ron, and I also think the "Trapper" needs to be reviewed.
>Without polymorph or digging, it's kill him right now or you're dead.
>The most annoying is being digested in one turn when you have super armour.
>
About "one turn": older versions of Hack had digestion acting cumulatively,
so that if you already had spent 4 turns in the stomach of some other
monster, you could be digested in one more turn. In the current version
this is no longer the case.

About "super armour": obviously your armour is not water- (or rather acid-)
tight, so that your armour does not prevent the gastric juices from doing
their work. (In the case of a trapper, a good armour does however slow the
digestion somewhat.)

In article <579@mcvax.UUCP> aeb@mcvax.UUCP (Andries Brouwer) writes:
>> ... ~ I don't like the way cockatrices and poison can kill you instantly ...

There are certain situations where it simply isn't reasonable to GET a
second chance. I've yet to be killed by a cockatrice that didn't hiss at
least once, and if you look at AD&D's Monster Manual on the beastie, that's
about all a cockatrice will give you (of course, this game has NOTHING to
do with TSR, AD&D, or any other trademark). If you don't like cockatrices,
why not change the thing to a basilisk, which can turn you to stone from
across the room, without needing to touch you first? THAT is something I'd
bitch about.

If you ARE going to 'fix' cockatrices, you need to deal with cockatrice
corpses. I'm not nearly as bothered by dying from a cockatrice as I am
picking up the stuff from some poor ghost and finding that there is a
cockatrice corpse in it. That is a good way to perpetuate ghosts
indefinitely...
-- 
:From the offices of Pagans for Cthulhu:          Chuq Von Rospach
{cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui   nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA

Who shall forgive the unrepentant?

> If you ARE going to 'fix' cockatrices, you need to deal with cockatrice
> corpses. I'm not nearly as bothered by dying from a cockatrice as I am
> picking up the stuff from some poor ghost and finding that there is a
> cockatrice corpse in it. That is a good way to perpetuate ghosts
> indefinitely...
> -- 
> :From the offices of Pagans for Cthulhu:          Chuq Von Rospach
> {cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui   nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA
> 
> Who shall forgive the unrepentant?

You shouldn't go groping through a dead guy's stuff unless you are prepared to
accept the consequences.  Such appalling manners.....

-eli

-- 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eli Liang  ---
        University of Maryland Computer Vision Lab, (301) 454-4526
        ARPA: liang@cvl, liang@lemuria, eli@mit-mc, eli@mit-prep
        CSNET: liang@cvl  UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!cvl!liang

To solve the problem of picking up a dead cockatrice in a ghost's possessions
if you don't have gloves, how about 'm' - moving onto the articles without
picking anything up. Then just use ',' to go through them.
Incidentally it isn't wise to fall down stairs with a cockatrice either!

If you pick up a scroll of Destroy Armour, keep it. Then if you've got cursed
armour, take off the rest of your armour and read the scroll. Bingo! the
horrible cursed armour disintegrates! Or of course, you could polymorph the
scroll into something else.

- David Caldwell,  Canterbury,  England.

"To know is nothing at all. To imagine is everything."