Lots of ideas that will probably never get implemented.

These ideas are merely to be pondered over though they can be taken
seriously. I hope that they will atleast let you think up other ideas
or give you a smile. :) [WARNING! LONG READ AHEAD! READ IF YOU HAVE
SPARE TIME. SUGGESTED THAT YOU "SKIM" THE DOCUMENT OR READ WHAT CAN BE
SEEN]

First up are new dungeon tiles. These would add LOTS of strategy into
Crawl (only their colors change):
Smoke/Fog (floor)- More prevelant on the lower levels and levels with
more moisture (fog tile 200% more possible near a water tile, maybe?)
Smoke/fog hides whatever is underneath unless you either look for it
with e[x]amine or the ; key. Could move around like a monster that's
invulnerable and does no damage. Cuts off less tiles from your veiw
the closer you are to it. If you're inside you only have 1/2 your
visual range. If it's fog, fire spells will do less damage and ice
spells will do more damage and for smoke fire does more/ice less
damage. Light grey, maybe white.
Poison Water (floor)- Anyone without poison resistance or immunity
will suffer alot if they accidentally ingest any of this water;
otherwise acts like any other water tile. Green.
Mud/Muck (floor)- Movement speed of anything not flying/floating is
hampered badly on these tiles. Heavy items will sink meaning you will
have to [s]earch once for them if you drop that +5 Plate mail. o.0
Strong fire magic will turn the mud into regular dirt floor; any item
that sunk will have to be dug out though (they apear on the floor, but
take awhile to "extract") Stealth is hindered greatly because of all
the slooshing unless you're a Naga; in which case you lose even more
speed. Dark brown.
Unstable Rocks/Rocky floor (floor)- Makes stealth alittle harder.
Being stealthy on this floor type REALLY helps your stealth skill and
speeds up Nagas (more area for the snake-like "foot" they use to move)
Slows down smaller races and Cenetaurs. Dark grey.
Depressed Ground/Trench (floor)- A trench. Water/poison water/lava
will flood in if this is cast directly next to the tile. Monsters and
the player can get trapped but climb out after moving several times in
one direction (you are climbing out) but some monsters like jells will
never be able to escape. a monster filled trench tile will be unable
to hold another monster; but can hold 2 jells simultaniously per tile
(4 tile trench = 8 jells) anything in the trench will be killed
instantly if lava floods the trench, poisioned and wet if poison water
floods in, or very wet if water floods in. Trenches cannot be emptied
or items retrived once a trench is flooded. flying/levitating will
move you out of the trench instantly and the trench will have no
effect on some monsters (worms for example) Takes time for the trench
to fill (tile by tile)
Icy Floor (floor)- The floor is covered in ice. Any monster that is
not flying/floating will slip and slide another tile or so. Can be
melted with various fire spells. More prevelant on lower levels.
Roots (wall)- A type of wall, can be attacked or set ablaze to be
removed. Looks like a normal wall except you can see through it (but
not shoot through) Monsters will attack it if they need to get past
(to you, probably.) More prevelant on the upper/medium levels.
Webbing (wall)- Spiders make webs (are there any spiders?). Can be
burnt away, cut through, frozen and shattered, blown apart, etc etc.
Just there to slow you down. Need to be near a wall. Slightly slower
walk speed if you run into one. Where ever spiders are. White.
Icy Wall (wall)- A short wall made of ice. Missile weapons/spells can
be shot over. Can be destroyed. Cyan or light blue or dark blue.
Fire Wall (wall)- A wall of flame. Magic can pass through but
arrows/darts will be incinerated and needles will lose any poison that
was on them (but they still go through!). Red or orange.


Second is new magic spells. Now i won't post a long gob of the usual
magic ideas nor the levels you can use them at (primarilly since i
dont want to look like a idiot making a powerful spell gained too soon
;) ). No, no these ideas pertain to changing the dungeon itself. The
elemental magics should all have one way to change the landscape of
the dungeon:
Fire Magic - Not much you can do with fire to change the dungeon...
atleast perminately
Floor to Magma - Turns one tile into lava temporarally (i'm thinking
under 100 turns) but this will not increase with skill. What will
increase in skill is the temperature of the lava (more damage) and
amount of tiles it will effect. The amount of tiles it will effect
will rise ever so often; at first it will only effect the one tile,
but soon it will effect 5 tiles (think how the numbers on the keypad
are arranged. 4,8,5,6,2) to a max of a 4 tile radius letting you
scorch a army of enemies instantly. o.0 Always good for blocking a
corridor off for a short breather.
Desintegrate wall - What it says. Like Dig, except it has a chance to
make the wall grey [impervious rock, right?]. Higher levels lowers the
chance to make the wall grey, though. Will also work against doors,
found or not; as well as afew other magic spells.
Re-enforce wall - Burns the wall into a grey wall. Not really usefull
(unless there's a monster that can pass through normal brown walls)
but i wanted to mention it anyways. Higher level, higher the chance of
not desintegrating the wall.
Fire Wall - Duh. :p Temporary. Passible but not without damage, etc,
etc. (fire wall is a over-done spell, imo, but i mentioned it
anyways.)


Ice Magic - You can change some stuff in the dungeon quite nicely with
these spells. :)
Icy Floor - Turns one floor tile into ice. Each level will mean that
you can "multi-cast" the spell more and more. Multi-casting is
selecting one target, then another, each effected in succession with
only one cast. (kind of like chain-lightning; one cast, multiple
targets) Anything that is not flying will slip afew tiles (2),
possibly more, depending on how strong the spellcaster is in Ice Elm.
spells. Jells might get frozen in place if they touch a frozen tile;
higher chance with higher skill level. Fire attacks of a higher level
than that of the caster that target the floor will melt the ice on
that tile. Will turn a lava tile into a normal tile for 200 turns.
Icy Wall - Creates a wall of ice that will last indefinately until
destroyed. Strength depends on the caster's ability. Monsters wont
attack it unless they need to (which means no decoy tactics) and
missile weapons can pass over.


Earth - Oh yeah. Lots here. Too numerous to mention all of them.
Dig - Already impemented.
Cave in - Creates a regular dirt tile on a normal tile. Must be 1 tile
away from a wall. Will instantly kill anything underneath, but the
cave in takes time so they may move away before it collapses. If a
corpse is underneath with a nice item you want, you can cast Dig to
remove the dirt wall.
Disturb Ground - Creates a Rocky floor/Unstable rocks floor tile
perminately
Level Ground - Restores any rocky ground to a level playing feild of
normal tiles. will not work on trenches.
Trench - Creates a Depressed ground/trench tile on casted area.
Casting trench on a already trenched area will only make the enemy
(and you) take longer to climb out) can only be cast 3 times before it
has no more effect.
Passageway down - This spell will create a passage down to the next
level in a random position that has been explored but only if you have
been on that level previously. Casting it on a lava/water/poison
water/mud pool/tile will drain the pool or tile (leaving rocky and
normal ground tiles behind) to a random explored position on the next
level down; dont be surprised if you climb down a stair case to find
yourself surrounded by lava or poison water! does not work on tiles
that were "trenched". does not work on the last level of the dungeon
or any of the branch's last levels.

Wind - Not much here.
Push tile - Will "blow" away water/poison water/lava/mud tiles onto
other tiles of the same type, creating a clean path of normal/rocky
ground for you to walk on freely. length and durration is determined
by skill. at first it will only last 60 or so turns and go about 8
tiles, but later it will cut cleanly across huge pools and even lakes
and last for quite a while.

I have no good thoughts about how to improve the prayer/god system
(it's perfected, imo) and there isn't really much that i can suggest
in weapons/armor. Afew new mutations like the ability to have webbed
toes/hands, for better movement in water/poison water, and super-heat
resistant scales, for resistance/impervious ability to walking or
getting flooded by lava in a trench. basically walk freely on lava,
and similar helpful mutations would also be nice to have.
Afew gameplay suggestions could be:
1- If dungeons dont already, let them go beyond level 27; but dont let
the goal be the orb of Zot. Just a continual hack n' slash seeing how
far down you can get.
2- Multiple ways to win in the normal game. For example, if you know
you can't get the orb of Zot, you could try to get a special amulet
called something like "The King's Emblem" or other "special" items and
then if you go out with them you can eventually return to try for the
Orb of Zot (but not "The King's Emblem" because you've already taken
it out, see?) so you can play a quick(er) game, yet come back later
for a longer, funner time trying to get something else. :)
3- Auto-screenshot or something similar so that you can tell the game
to take a screen shot every so often (ex: every time you kill a Lich
or Dragon or for every 5 tiles you step). You could, with the right
program, make a movie of your adventure. :)


Once more, i am sorry if i have caused you to become late for work or
some other appointment, but hey, you stuck here and read my post.
Thank you.