=== Conditions and effects ===

As you play the game, you will inevitablly come under the effect of spells,
magical items, and attacks that may cause your character to exhibit certain
conditions, both beneficial and harmful.  Some of these conditions are 
reported on the main playing screen, and others can be seen by turning on a
special sub-window dedicated for that (see "specopt.txt").  All of them report
a message when you are first affected, and when the effect ceases, so an 
observant player can always know what his character's state is.

Positive conditions:
    Shield:
        This effect provides a bonus to your AC, making you harder to hit.
    Blessed:
        Blessing provides you a small bonus to AC and to hit.  It also 
        protects you from being tainted by malevolant creatures.
    Boldness:
        Boldness protects you from supernatural fear.
    Heroism:
        Heroism grants you a bonus to hit.  Usually accompanied by boldness.
    Stability:
        Stability protects you from confusion and stunning.
    Berserk:
        Berserk rage provides you an extra blow and a bonus to hit, at a cost
        of penalties to AC, spell success chances, and your saving throw, 
        magic devices, and stealth skills.  Usually accompanied by boldness.
    Prot. Evil:
        Evil creatures have a chance of being repelled when attacking you, 
        making their attack an instant miss.
    Absorb Hit:
        As long as this lasts, damage caused to your character will have an 
        inverse effect, healing him instead. The more damage you absorb, the
        shorter this will last.
    Resilient:
        Resilience is the most powerful temporary protection a character may 
        acheive. It both signifiacntly raises your AC and also makes you 
        only suffer 1/3 of any damage recieved.
    Hasted:
        Temporarily increases your speed.
    Invisible:
        If you are invisible, monsters will have a tough time noticing you. 
        See below for more details.  Invisibility is instantly cancelled if you
        attack a monster in melee combat - even if your source of invisibility 
        is a permanent one; in which case, it will be restored after a few turns.
    Infravision Bonus:
        Temporarily increases your infravision range by 30 feet.
    Stealth Bonus:
        Makes you a lot less likely to wake up sleeping monsters, and makes 
        blinded monsters (or most monsters if you're invisible) much less
        likely to spot you.
    Sense Invisible:
        Provides you with the temporary ability to see invisible creatures.
    Resistance Bonuses:
        Provides you with a temporary bonus to specific resistances (see below).

Negative conditions:
    Blind:
        While blind, you can not see your surroundings, nor can your read
        scrolls. Only bards and mystics may cast spells blinded.
    Perplexed, Confused, Befuddled, Insane:
        The more confused you get, the less control you have on your movement,
        and casting spells and using items becomes more and more difficult. If
        you become insane, you can not recover by non-magical means.
    Poisoned:
        When poisoned, you will lose hit points every round until the poison
        is cured (or it runs it course).
    Diseased:
        Disease slowly reduces your stats, and may cause attacks of blindness
        or diziness (stunning/confusion). Only characters with very high 
        constituion stand a chance of the disease ending on its own - others
        must use magical healing.
    Wary, Afraid, Terrified, Panic:
        Fear increases your armor class, but makes combat a lot more difficult. 
        As you become more and more afraid, more and more actions become 
        impossible.
    Paralyzed:
        Whole paralyzed, you may take no action at all - this is a very 
        dangerous condition to be in!
    Hallucination:
        Hallucination causes phantom monsters to appear on screen in addition
        to (and instead of) real monsters.
    Slowed:
        Temporarily decreases your speed.  If you are both slowed and hasted,
        the two effects cancel each other out.
    Stunned, Heavily stunned, Knocked out:
        When stunned, spell casting and combat become more difficult. Also,
        your mana points won't regenerate. Stunning can lead to being knocked
        out, which is similar to being paralyzed.
    Graze, Light cut, Bad cut. Nasty cut, Severe cut, Deep gash, Mortal wound
        If you are wounded, you will lose hit points consistently until healed. 
        Mortal wounds never heal on their own accord - you have to use magical
        healing to survive them.
    Tainted
        A taint on your soul means you are incapable of being blessed, using 
        some priestly magic, and most importantly, healing magic becomes less
        effective.  There are numerous causes of taints - taints caused by
        the touch of demonic creatures will wear off with time, but taints
        caused by wielding or wearing items imbued with unholy magic will 
        remain as long as the item is being used - and even beyond that.
    Weak, Stupid, Naive, Clumsy, Sickly, Ugly:
        Some monsters, traps, and items can cause you to lose some points in
        your basic attributes.  You will function with the lower statistics
        until they are magically restored.
    Exp. Drained
        Some monsters - mainly undead creatures - can drain your experience. 
        Unless you magically restore it, new experience gained from killing
        monsters and other endevours will mainly go to regain what was lost,
        and only 10% will count as new experience.  If you are drained past
        the point of level gain, you will lose a level - and all accompanying
        abilities.  Beware!


=== The Special Qualities and Abilities that your Character may Possess === 

After your character is born, you may discover what special qualities and 
immunities he has - and that you know about - by displaying the character 
screen (type 'C'), and then hitting 'h' to display a list.  This list is very 
handy for finding out what you qualities you need and do not yet possess.  
Because it only takes into account your racial intrinsics, and fully known 
(*Identified*) or obvious items, consulting this list is not cheating. 

The abilities screen is divided into several vertical columns, each of which
is further divided into sub-columns, which stands for the various equipment 
slots (a-l or m depending on your class).  In addition, the two rightmost 
sub-columns stand for character intrinsic abilities (@) and temporary abilities
granted by spells or items (*).

A list of displayed qualities follows, starting with the top columns:

No Blind:
    Total immunity to blindness.
Free Actn:
    Some creatures are able to paralyze or slow you with melee attacks or 
    spells.  Free Action is a survival essential deep in the dungeon.
Hold Life:
    Characters with Hold Life resist experience draining attacks, and may even
    escape their effects entirely.
Bravery:
    Total immunity to fear.
No Dsease:
    You will not suffer the long-term effects of disease, though you may still
    be damaged by disease attacks
No Stun:
    Total immunity to stunning.
No Poison:
    You will not suffer the long-term effects of disease, though you may still
    be damaged by disease attacks
No Cut:
    Total immunity to bleeding damage.
No Conf:
    Total immunity to confusion.
S. Digest:
    Slow Digestion reduces the amount of food you consume.
Fthr Fall:
    Feather Fall lowers the damage from pits and trap doors.  Also prevents you
    from being throw about by certain supernatural attacks.
Light:
    Light allows you to see in the dungeon. A '*' stands for the normal light 
    source. Other items that grant light are marked with a '+'
Regen:
    Characters who regenerate regain hit points at twice the normal rate and 
    mana faster than the normal rate.  However, they will also need to eat more
    often.
Telepathy:
    Telepathy is an extremely useful ability, allowing you to sense most 
    monsters (except mindless ones and some of those with weird thought 
    patterns) even through walls.
See Invisible:
    Many creatures in the dungeons are invisible, and you will need to keep 
    some source of permanent or temporary see invisible handy if you descend 
    more than a few levels into the dungeon.
Invisible:
    On the other hand, you too can gain invisibility, whether by temporary
    means such as spells or potions, or by rare powerful magical items. 
    When invisible, monsters will have a harder time finding you, and they
    will be less likely to target you with spells.  Note, though, that the
    effectiveness of invisibility depends greatly on your stealth - and if
    your stealth is very low, you might not benifit from it at all.  As 
    mentioned above, if you attempt a melee attack on a monster, your 
    invisiblity will be cancelled, at least temporarily.
Luck:
    Some items make you luckier, allowing you to find better items more often.
Stealth :
    Items with this ability decrease the amount of noise your character makes
    as he moves around the dungeon and performs actions.
Search:
    Items with this ability allow your character to find traps and secret doors
    more easily.
Infra-vsn:
    Some objects increase the range at which you may see warm-blooded beings,
    regardless of whether they are illuminated or even visible to the unaided 
    eye.  Some exceptionally cold creatures will also show up.
Tunneling:
    All shovels and picks and certain other weapons grant bonuses to tunnelling
    skill.
Speed:
    The faster you move, the fewer dangerous things monsters can do to you 
    before you get to take a turn.  Speed items are rare, but very effective.
Blows:
    Extra blows are one of the most useful abilities a melee fighter may ever 
    recieve.
Shots:
    Some missile launchers allow you to spend less time firing each shot.
Mana:
    The object grants a direct bonus to mana.
Health:
    The object grants a direct bonus to health.
Might:
    Some missile launchers have a higher base damage multiplier than normal.
Taint:
    You are suffering from a tainted condition.  See above for more details.
Disrupt:
    Disruption dramatically reduces the chance of spell success.
Drn Items:
    The item slowly drains the magic out of your equipment.
Drn Exp:
    As long as you equip this item, you will slowly lose experience.
Teleport:
    You will randomly teleport without control.
Aggravate:
    Monsters around you will become aggravated at your every move - beware!

The bottom columns work somewhat differently.  These are your resistances.
In addition to the sub-columns detailing the items, there is also a percentile
value to each row.  This is your level of resistance.  The percentile value is
color coded - yellow means a low value, light green a high value; dark green
means you have reached the maximum normally achievable.  Light blue means you
have a temporary bonus, which may or may not exceed the normal maximum.  Violet
means that you have some item which allows you to permanently attain a value
which is higher than normal.

All characters gain some resistances with level, depending on their class and 
race.  Items can provide bonuses to these resistances.  Note that if you have 
no resistance whatsoever to some effect, it will not show up.
