Path: ulcc.ac.uk!server3.netnews.ja.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!news2.euro.net!newsfeed.freenet.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!164.164.151.190!not-for-mail From: darshans@aztec.soft.net (Darshan Shaligram) Newsgroups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack Subject: [S] Slash'EM gypsy spoiler draft Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 14:35:52 GMT Lines: 413 Message-ID: <3b8a58a2.464105528@news.cis.dfn.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: 164.164.151.190 X-Trace: fu-berlin.de 998922597 874721 164.164.151.190 (16 [98495]) X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Xref: ulcc.ac.uk rec.games.roguelike.nethack:144731 Here's a rough draft of a Slash'EM gypsy spoiler. Comments will be appreciated. I'm still sure that there must be heaps of errors lurking in this beast. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Slash'EM gypsies (Many thanks to Eva Myers for clarifying several points about three card monte) Gypsies are a curious bunch in Slash'EM. They're usually peaceful (unless you mess with them) and #chatting with them can be interesting. Why would you want to bother with gypsies at all? If you're playing wishless, gypsies won't interest you much. If you want wishes, though, a gypsy can be what you're praying for. When you #chat with a gypsy, she will offer you these choices based on your money (your credit with her + the gold you're carrying) 1. Read your fortune if you have 50 or more gold 2. Three-card monte if you have at least 1 gold 3. Ninety-nine if you have at least 1 gold 4. Pawn gems Before you read your fortune, you'll want to build up credit of at least 10050 gold with the gypsy. To build up credit, you must play three-card monte or Ninety nine or pawn some gems. There is no way to convert credit with the gypsy into gold (that would make it too easy to multiply your gold :)). Yendorian Tarocchi is commented out at the moment. Possibly the next version of Slash'EM will include this. Apart from #chatting with gypsies, be warned that they can be extremely tough when angered. They are dangerous opponents, so don't try to kill them unless you're pretty tough yourself Further, gold and gems that a gypsy collects from you can't be recovered by killing her. ----------------------------------------------------------- Reading your fortune: 50 gold is taken from you. The gypsy will first deduct the amount from your credit. If your credit is not sufficient, the remainder of the 50 gold will be deducted from the gold you're carrying. The gypsy will now proceed to draw a card from her (shuffled) pack. A gypsy's cards are like tarots, if not exactly the same. There are 4 suits: swords, wands, shields and rings. There are 13 ranks: Ace, two, three, ... nine, ten, Jack, Queen and King. There are 20 trumps. Thus there are 72 cards in all. To read your fortune, the gypsy will draw a card from her pack. Each time you ask her to read your fortune, she'll draw another card, until all the cards have been drawn and she reshuffles the pack again. What happens next depends on what card the gypsy draws. If the gypsy draws a trump: 0. the Fool: -1 to Wisdom. (No problem if you have a unicorn horn handy) -3 to luck (ouch!) 1. the Magician: If you've killed the Wizard of Yendor, then he'll be resurrected. If you've killed the Wizard, and he's already been resurrected (and not killed again), then the resurrected Wizard will be brought to you (unless he has the "oY) If you've not killed the Wizard, the gypsy will tell you on what level the Wizard is. 2. the High Priestess If you have the "oY: "I see a high altar in the heavens." else the gypsy tells you on what level Moloch's sanctum is. 3. the Oracle The gypsy tells you on what level the Oracle is. 4. the Lovers An appropriate foocubus is summoned. 5. the Chariot The gypsy will offer you a controlled levelport for 5000 gold *credit*. The gold you're carrying can't be used to pay for the levelport. 6. Strength +1 to Strength (of course). Half physical damage for another 500-999 turns. 7. the Hermit "You feel like hiding!" Teleportitis for the next 300-599 turns. Invisibility for the next 500-999 turns. 8. the Wheel of Fortune If hallucinating, "Where is Vanna?" else, "You feel lucky!" If your luck is negative, it's reset to zero. otherwise +3 to luck. 9. Justice An Erinys is summoned, if not extinct. 10. Punishment If not punished already, then you are supplied with the good old ball and chain. Otherwise, you get a malignant aura. 11. the Devil A major demon is summoned. Needless to say, it will be annoyed by your presence. 12. Sorcery +1 to your spellcasting statistic (this is the stat used by your character for spellcasting - Wis. for healers, knights, monks, priests, undead slayers, valkyries and yeomen, Int for all other classes) Half spell damage for the next 500-999 turns. 13. Death If you're undead or a demon, or if you are hallucinating or have magic resistance, then no effect. else, you die. 14. the Tower The gypsy tells you where Vlad's tower is. 15. the Star The gypsy gives you a precious gem which is the birthstone for this month. The gem is identified for you. The gems you get for the various months are: Jan - Garnet Feb - Amethyst Mar - Aquamarine Apr - Diamond May - Emerald Jun - Opal Jul - Ruby Aug - Chrysoberyl Sep - Sapphire Oct - Black Opal Nov - Topaz Dec - Turquoise 16. the Moon This is a funny one. Tells you the phase of the moon. Doesn't seem to do anything to luck. No effect gamewise, as far as I see. 17. the Sun Warns you of what to expect if it's nighttime/midnight and YAFM if it's not. No effect gamewise. 18. Judgement The gypsy tells you on which level the portal to the quest is. 19. Infinity If you have 10000 gold *credit* with the gypsy, she offers you a wish. If the gypsy doesn't draw a trump (she draws an ordinary card) you get a message about the card. No effect gamewise, as far as I can see. It should be noted that when the gypsy offers you a wish or a controlled levelport, you must have that much gold as credit with the gypsy, otherwise you'll get either "What a pity that I can't accept gold!" (you're carrying enough gold, but your credit is inadequate) or "What a pity that you don't have enough!" (you're not carrying enough gold and your credit is inadequate) When the gypsy draws Infinity, you certainly want to have 10000 credit. If you're going wishless, then #chatting with gypsies isn't worth much anyway, but you needn't be afraid of losing wishless conduct - you can choose to refuse the gypsy's offer and reject the wish (you can likewise refuse the controlled levelport offer). ---------------------------------------------------------------- Three-card monte You might want to play monte before asking the gypsy for your fortune, since you'll want the credit from monte if the gypsy offers you a wish. You can make a bet of an amount ranging from 1 gp to your combined credit + gold carried. Your object in Monte is, of course, to pick the 'right' card of the three. Unlike the real game, there's no need to keep your eyes peeled on the right card. You'll be asked to pick either the left, right or center cards. Just choose one of the three at random, but bear in mind these things: 1. Your luck matters. The luckier you are, the better. 2. The bigger your bet, the less likely you are to win the *next* time. 3. You will always win the very first time you play the Monte (Oh, and by first time, I don't mean first time for that gypsy. I mean your first game of 3 card monte). I'm not sure that I have this right - can somebody verify? 4. Each time you win, the chances of your winning the next time may be reduced. 5. Each time you lose, the chances of your winning the next time may be increased. 6. Don't pick the same card twice in a row. This reduces your chances of winning *next* time. If you win, the amount that you bet is added to your credit. If you lose, the amount that you bet is deducted from your credit (and your carried gold, if your credit is inadequate). To get more detailed, this is what happens: You start off with a monte luck of 0 (the lower the better). Each time you play the three card monte, you win if your monte luck is less than a random number from 1 to 10. Therefore, your first monte game will always be a win. When you win, if your monte luck was zero, the gypsy says "You win! Wasn't that easy?" If you win and your monte luck was more than zero, "You win!" If you lose, "Sorry, you picked . Try again." After the game, a delta factor is calculated as: delta = 0 + random number from -3 to 0, depending on your luck (it's taken as rnl(4) - 3 in the source) + 1 if you picked the same card twice in a row + log10(your last bet) + 1 if you win, and delta > 0, delta is added to your monte luck if you lose and delta < 0, delta is added to your monte luck. if your monte luck is better (less) than 0 or worse than 10, it's capped at those limits. Remember, the lower your monte luck, the better for your next round of monte. By being aware of your initial monte luck and how three card monte works, you can build up unlimited amounts of credit with the gypsy with a little patience (thanks to Eva Myers for explaining this technique). The easy steps: 1. Max out your luck (get luck to 13 - I'm not talking about your monte luck here, but your 'normal' game luck). 2. Make a huge bet (as large as possible) which you're guaranteed to win, since your monte luck will be zero initially. 3. After your huge bet, keep making small bets of 1 gold until the gypsy says, "You win! Wasn't that easy?" again. Your monte luck should now be 0 (there's a very small chance that it'll be 1 instead - read on for Eva Myers' explanation of the math). 4. Make another huge bet which you're very likely to win. 5. Go back to step 3. At no point should you pick the same card twice in a row. Repeat these steps until your credit is satisfactorily high. Eva Myers' explanation of the math involved: You can get unlimited wishes from gypsies by building up credit in three card monte and repeatedly asking for your fortune (although this can be quite tedious). Here's my reconstruction of how it might work. First a reminder of what rnl does: int rnl(x) /* 0 <= rnl(x) < x; sometimes subtracting Luck */ register int x; /* good luck approaches 0, bad luck approaches (x-1) */ { register int i; #ifdef DEBUG if (x <= 0) { impossible("rnl(%d) attempted", x); return(0); } #endif i = RND(x); if (Luck && rn2(50 - Luck)) { i -= (x <= 15 && Luck >= -5 ? Luck/3 : Luck); if (i < 0) i = 0; else if (i >= x) i = x-1; } return i; } I.e., if your luck is maxed out at 13, then 36/37 of the time, rnl(4) will be zero, but the remaining 1/37, the luck bonus will be ignored and it will be a random number from 0 to 3. So the "random number from -3 to 0" mentioned above is almost always -3, and when you make a tiny bet (1 GP), delta is almost always -2. (I'm assuming you never pick the same card twice in a row.) So my strategy would be: pawn some gems to get started. Then make a huge bet which you're guaranteed to win. Then make 1 GP bets until you see "You win! Wasn't that easy?". Then make a huge bet again, and repeat this procedure until you have all the credit you want. Note that there's a tiny chance (1/1480) of losing each huge bet other than the initial one. The figure of 1/1480 comes from a 1/37 chance that you didn't get the luck bonus when calculating the change in odds after the previous tiny bet, times a 1/4 chance that as a result rnl(4) was 0, delta was 1, and your monte luck went up to 1, times a 1/10 chance that you lose with monte luck 1. ------------------------------------------------------------ Ninety nine Before you begin, you make a bet of an amount from 1 to the total of your credit with the gypsy + the gold you're carrying. Your object in Ninety nine is simple. Get the total as close to 99 as possible without exceeding (or being forced to exceed) 99 or going below zero. The gypsy shuffles her cards before beginning the game. To start with, the gypsy deals you and herself 3 cards. These are from the same pack of cards that are used to read your fortune. The total starts with zero. If you play a trump, the total remains unchanged, except for the Fool, which loses the game immediately. If you play a jack or a queen, the total is decremented by 10. If you play a king, the total is set to 99. If you play any other non-trump card, the card's rank is added to the total (for an ace, one is added, for a deuce, two and so on). If the total goes below 0 or above 99, you lose. The game doesn't actually allow you to pick a card that would take the total to the losing zone, but if you have no card that allows you to stay in the game, you must forfeit and lose. After you play your round, another card is drawn from the pack for you. If the pack is empty, you win. The gypsy then plays a card. If the gypsy can't play any card, she forfeits and you win. The total is increased or decreased by the gypsy's card using the same rules. After the gypsy plays, she attempts to draw another card from the pack. If the pack is empty, you win. If after the round, you haven't won or lost, it's your turn to play again. As usual, when you win, the amount you bet is added to your credit. If you lose, the amount is deducted from your credit (and your carried gold, if your credit is not sufficient). Also note that the gypsy uses the same cards in Ninety nine as she does for fortune telling. After a game of Ninety nine, the gypsy will not reshuffle her cards. The cards that have been dealt (not necessarily played) in Ninety nine will not be drawn by the gypsy for telling your fortune until she's exhausted all her other cards (whereupon she'll reshuffle the pack). ----------------------------------------------------------- Pawning gems You can pawn identified gems to gypsies for credit. The gypsy will give you the base price of the gems as credit. ----------------------------------------------------------- Darshan