👉 GnollHack keeps most of NetHack 3.6.2's rules and adds graphics and sound, a new spell system, more equipment slots, and difficulty levels, and it delays many of NetHack's instant deaths.
For every rule change, see Detailed Features; for a shorter overview, see Features. NetHack 5.0 vs. GnollHack Release 3 compares the current releases of the two games, and comparisons with other games are collected on Comparisons to Other Games.
📱 Presentation and UI
| Feature | NetHack 3.6 | GnollHack |
|---|---|---|
| Graphics | Text characters, or static 2D tiles in some interfaces | A graphical interface on every platform, with 2D animations |
| Audio | No music or built-in sound effects; some builds can play your own sound files for chosen messages | Sound effects, a music soundtrack, and voiceovers |
| Inventory Actions | Commands by key, such as q to quaff and r to read |
Select an item in the inventory to get all its common actions |
| Information | Damage numbers and most item stats are not shown, so players look them up in spoilers | Detailed stats in the game and exact damage in messages |
NetHack 5.0 has caught up on two of these: it plays a few sound effects (musical instruments, squeaky boards, gaining or losing a level), and selecting an item in its inventory opens a menu of actions for it. GnollHack also has an optional AI advisor, the Gnoll Overseer, which uses the live game state and the game's own data.
🔮 Magic and Spells
| Feature | NetHack 3.6 | GnollHack |
|---|---|---|
| Spells | 40 spells in 7 schools | Over 200 spells in 12 spell schools |
| Learning Spells | Read a spellbook | Read a spellbook, or pay priests, the Oracle, artificers, and some other NPCs to teach you |
| Memory | A spell is forgotten about 20,000 turns after you last read its book | Spells are never forgotten |
| Casting | One turn; the failure rate depends on your casting stat, experience level, skill, and armor such as metal armor and shields | Most spells are first prepared with Mix (Shift+x) from material components (reagents); spells have casting times and cooldowns, and somatic spells have armor penalties |
The spell menu can be sorted and reordered in either game, and GnollHack also lets you put spells on the number keys 0–9. NetHack 5.0 adds one spell, chain lightning.
⚔️ Combat
| Feature | NetHack 3.6 | GnollHack |
|---|---|---|
| Weapon Swapping | Takes a turn (x) |
Instant |
| Ranged Combat | Only the missile's damage counts; the launcher's enchantment adds to-hit. Adjacent targets are slightly easier to hit | Launchers add their damage and enchantment to the missile. Firing or throwing at an adjacent monster has a large to-hit penalty |
| Two Weapons | Two-weapon combat, for some roles | Dual wielding, dual-wield artifacts, spiked shields, and main-gauches |
| Skills | Up to Expert; only martial arts and bare-handed combat reach Master and Grand Master | Up to Grand Master; weapon skills raise the critical hit chance |
| Magic Cancellation | The highest MC of any one worn item, usually the cloak | Adds up across all worn gear and works as a saving throw against magical touch attacks; see Magic Cancellation |
| Instant Deaths | Some deaths are instant, such as being drowned by an eel or the touch of death; stoning and sickness are delayed | Many are delayed by several turns, so you can react and save yourself; when you are drowning, for example, you have a few turns to get back to air |
| Covetous Bosses | Bosses keep teleporting away to heal and may steal your quest artifact | Only a few monsters still teleport away to heal, such as the Wizard of Yendor, arch-liches, Asmodeus, and Demogorgon |
🛡️ Equipment and Items
NetHack 3.6 has 14 equipment slots: weapon, alternate weapon, quiver, body armor, shirt, cloak, helmet, gloves, boots, shield, amulet, two rings, and eyewear. GnollHack has 22 equipment slots. It adds an alternate weapon or shield for the other hand, robes worn over body armor, bracers, and five slots for miscellaneous magic items.
In NetHack, two items of the same kind differ by enchantment (+1, +2), erosion, and erosion-proofing. GnollHack items can also have one of the five quality tiers described on Exceptional, Elite, Celestial, Primordial, and Infernal Items, the affixes of Mythic and Legendary Items, and elemental enchantments.
NetHack players identify items with scrolls and the spell of identify, by shop prices, by engrave-testing wands, and by trying items out. GnollHack has more identification items, such as the new wand of identify, and the Oracle and some NPCs identify items for gold.
🎓 Characters, Monsters, and Economy
| Feature | NetHack 3.6 | GnollHack |
|---|---|---|
| Playable Races | Human, elf, dwarf, gnome, and orc | Gnomes are replaced by the new Gnoll race, with its own stats, starting items, and traits |
| Attributes | Attributes rise slowly and semi-randomly through hidden "exercise" | Exercise is gone; eating certain corpses or fruits, such as a banana, raises an attribute at once |
| Difficulty | One difficulty; in the non-scoring explore mode you can refuse to die | 7 difficulty levels and several gameplay modes, some without permadeath |
| Random Monsters | Each monster's difficulty is capped by the dungeon level and your experience level, but the rest of its group is not checked, so soldier ants can arrive several at a time early on | Monsters come as encounters, and the cap applies to the whole group |
| Gold | Shops, temple donations for protection, the Oracle's consultations, and bribes demanded by demon lords | Besides the paid identification and spell lessons above, gold buys healing and cures from priests and peace with angry watchmen |
| Pets | Pets step toward you square by square, can get stuck behind obstacles, and follow your trail when out of sight | Pets find a path back to you. You can tell them to hold position, drop items, and wear or wield gear, and you can hire mercenaries |
In NetHack, Chat mostly gets you a monster's sound or a line of text. In GnollHack, Chat (Shift+c) is how you deal with NPCs, monsters, and pets: the paid services and pet commands above are all chosen there.
📈 GnollHack Development Key Figures
- More than 10,000 code commits since July 2019, when GnollHack was forked from NetHack 3.6.2
- More than 23,000 graphical tiles; some of them, such as statues, are generated by the Tile Set Compiler
- More than 100 high-definition user interface icons
- More than 5,000 voiceover lines
- 14 pieces of original background music
The drawn tiles and the icons were made for GnollHack by artists and the 14 pieces of music by a composer, and the voiceover lines were recorded by voice actors.
📷 User Interface Screenshots
NetHack
NetHack's ASCII UI:
NetHack's Windows GUI with the Nevanda tileset:
GnollHack
GnollHack's GUI on Windows:
