The effects of real-world time, date and moon phase in NetHack
3.4
time-341.txt Last edited 2003-03-09 for NetHack 3.4.1
Compiled for 3.1.3 by Boudewijn Waijers.
Edited for 3.4.1 by Dylan O'Donnell <psmith@spod-central.org>.
HTML Conversion by Kate
Nepveu.
Contents
NetHack is aware of the time in the real world (or, at least,
what it's told about it by your system clock); certain particular
times have effects on gameplay.
The date is only checked when the game is started or restored;
if you keep playing without saving, you'll continue to see the
effects even after the relevant period has passed (or not see the
effects even though it has been reached). NetHack divides the month
into eight phases of three or four days each; thus the full and new
moon will be reported for a rather longer time than your calendar
might depict.
Full moon:
- you have a chance of not being able to tame dogs at night (but
you will still make them peaceful and you may try again).
- your dog won't whine, yip, bark, or growl, but will always howl
when you chat at it, at night (likewise werecreatures).
- your baseline luck is increased by one.
- werecreatures are usually in their were-form, especially at
night.
New moon:
- there is NO effect on your baseline luck.
- if you are hit by a cockatrice's or chickatrice's special
hissing attack, and you are NOT carrying a lizard corpse in your
main inventory, you will always start turning to stone. Normally,
there is only a 1/10 chance.
Friday the 13th:
- your baseline luck is decreased by one. Note that prayers will
be rejected while you have negative luck, so until you manage to
redress this, dangerous situations will be that much more
dangerous.
If Friday 13th happens to be a full moon, the -1 and +1 to
baseline luck will cancel out. See gems-341.html for more discussion of how
luck is calculated.
Night (22:00 - 05:59):
- your chance of changing into a werecreature when you are a
lycanthrope is one in every 60 moves instead of once in every 80
moves.
- you have a chance of not being able to tame dogs at when the
moon is full (but you will still make them peaceful and you may try
again).
- gremlins can only steal intrinsics at night.
- werecreatures can summon more easily.
- your dog won't whine, yip, bark, or growl, but will always howl
when you chat at it, when it is full moon.
- werecreatures are more likely to be in their were-form,
particularly when it is full moon.
Midnight (0:00 - 0:59):
- undead do twice as much damage;
- you get a different message when entering a graveyard ("Run
away! Run away!" instead of "You have an uncanny feeling...").
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