Stats can increase or decrease for many reasons, some of which are detailed below. When a stat changes, the following messages are generated:
| Stat | Increases | Decreases |
|---|---|---|
| Strength | Your muscles feel stronger | Your muscles soften |
| Learning | You feel studious | Thinking seems to get tougher |
| Willpower | Your will seems inflexible | You feel soft-hearted |
| Dexterity | Your movements are getting swifter | You are getting shaky |
| Toughness | Your health increases | It seems that you are getting a cold |
| Charisma | You feel very self-confident | You feel reserved |
| Appearance | Your looks improve | You are growing a wart |
| Mana | You feel more in touch with the world | You are getting out of touch with everything |
| Perception | Your senses sharpen | You seem to get less perceptive |
| Stat | How to increase (or decrease) naturally |
|---|---|
| Strength | Burdened if St<15, Strained if St<16, Strained! if St<18, Overburdened if St<20 |
| kicking stairs trains St a lot (+20), but beware of stairs collapse (St/2000 chance) | |
| kicking down doors | |
| breaking webs if St < 15 | |
| using pickaxe successfully on rock | |
| of weakness abuses St | |
| Learning | reading scrolls and spellbooks |
| casting Identify | |
| potion of literacy (20/100/500 C/U/B) | |
| dull room abuses Le | |
| Willpower | casting spells/reading books while confused/stunned |
| of surrending abuses Wi | |
| Dexterity | disarming traps |
| evading door traps | |
| catching a returning missile weapon (Dx / 20 chance to catch) | |
| moving over discovered pit trap | |
| of fumbling abuses Dx | |
| Overburdened abuses Dx (-2) | |
| Toughness | cure sickness (1d10) |
| waiting for sickness to wear out (+10) | |
| eating candy or gnomish candy abuses To (-5/-50) | |
| Charisma | no known way to train naturally |
| Appearance | no known way to train naturally |
| Mana | casting spells from PP, from HP abuses Ma -1d500+500 |
| evading undiscovered traps | |
| creating undead slaves (a lot, but costs Ma) | |
| Druid summoning monsters | |
| Perception | casting Knock |
| drinking carrot juice, best if blessed (+6), cursed abuses (-6) | |
| disarming traps | |
| evading door traps | |
| finding secret doors | |
| being Blind for long periods |
The Athletics skill also helps raise physical stats (St, Dx, To) more quickly and has a half effect on Appearance. It trains twice as fast if stat < 10, and three times as fast if stat < 5. It happens at only level up, basic effect is skill level x 100.
Training value is associated with every stat, ranging from -5000 to 5000. Natural training happens once in 500-1000 turns, and always at level up. Every level up trains every stat by level if it's not at potential max. If St < 10, train by 100 at level up, if < 5 another 100. Also with Toughness.
There is a chance that the stat will be increased or decreased on each check. No training occurs if Training=0, if Training>0 then a stat increase is possible, otherwise a stat decrease is possible.
If the stat isn't at maximum (or Training is negative), number from 1 to N is rolled randomly, and if abs(Training) > RolledNumber, then the stat is increased or decreased. It means the smaller N, the bigger chance for a stat change. If Learning>9 (or Training is negative), N = X*(Stat+10), otherwise N = X*(Stat+20-Le). X=50 if Training is positive, X=10 if negative; it means negative training generates 5 times smaller N, thus is 5 times more effective. If the stat was increased, Training is decrerased by 1000 points, but not below zero. If a stat decrease occured, Training is set to 0.
If the stat is at its potential (and Training is positive), or it is not at potential but 1/10 chance, (another) number from 1 to StatPotential*100+750 is rolled randomly. If Training > RolledNumber, then the stat potential goes up and Training is decreased by (another) 2000 points, but not below 0.
Finally, another 1000 points of Training are removed, not below 0. To sum up, PC loses 1000 points of Training on unsuccessfull check, 2000 on stat increase, 3000 on potential increase, and 4000 on stat and potential increase.
See section 2.5.5 for a bit more detail on training with Garth.
Morgia Root trains Toughness up to 25, 5d100+200; trains Willpower up to 25, 50d10. B/U/C DOESN'T MATTER. About 18 are needed to maximize chance for Willpower.
Using Moss of Mareilon trains Dexterity up to 25, Cursed: -10d100, Uncursed: 10d100, Blessed: 60d30+30. About 6 blessed patches are needed to maximize chances for increase.
Tip: when your Wi/To stats or your Dx stat is 24 and the natural maximum is greater than 24 (in other words, when one more increase would put you to 25), use all of the morgia and not cursed moss of marelion you can, since once you hit 25, the herbs become useless. But if you pack on the training at 24, you may still get another increase or two after you hit 25, from the remainder.
In any case, do not eat or use additional herbs until the stat increases have taken effect - this may take a while.
For example, spellcaster corpses have 17% probability of granting +1 Ma, except for kobold shaman corpse, which always grants +1 Ma, but also causes sickness. Refer to section 0.3.3 for the other effects resulting from eating monster corpses.
Potions of -stat- behave as follows:
If a stat exceeds this score, it's lowered by one. If it's below this, it's raised by one. If it's equal, it remains unchanged.
Therefore, if you have a well-rounded character, with most or all stat scores close to each other and drink a blessed potion of balance, you will get a boost to most or all stats.
However, this only happens with 100-4*(StatAverage-10) % chance. This means 100% chance for stat averages of 10, 0% for 35. The B/U/C status of the potion is counted towards that StatAverage as explained earlier. Otherwise, alignment is moved towards neutrality instead.
Note also that potions of balance take into account all stat-modifying elements including worn equipment, wielded equipment and corruptions.
Sickness: -2 to several stats; -5 to Toughness
Starvation: -4 to Strength as soon as Starving status is reached. As time passes, Strength, Learning, Willpower and Dexterity begin dropping. They will eventually reach half their starting value (Strength reaches half the value after the immediate -4). While the stats are dropping, the PC is not in danger of starving to death. When the stats reach the halfway point, the PC is in danger of dying and should eat something. Since Starvation halves stats rather than simply decrementing them it is much more powerful than Sickness.
Rings of weakness: Decreases Strength to 2. Be careful to drop the PC's pack (and heavy worn equipment i.e. Big Punch) before using rings of weakness.
An extremely convenient scenario for these tactics is mining out a level that supports herbs. Morgia roots and moss of mareilon train Toughness, Willpower and Dexterity. Stomacemptia can be used for Starvation. Mining will generate crystals of knowledge for training Learning and Stone Giant corpses for increasing Strength. Even better if it is near Dwarftown. Most PCs will not have the Mining skill or an artifact pickaxe and will need Glod's help repairing pickaxes for 1500 gold pieces. This exploit should raise these stats into the 50s.
Garth (section 2.5.5) is a potentially endless source of stat increases for those stats he trains. The limitless gold available from the Casino can be used for this.
| Condition | Luck modification |
|---|---|
| being Blessed | +2 |
| birthday | +1d12+1 |
| +Luck intrinsic | +3 |
| +Fate intrinsic | +6 |
| ankh or platinum girdle equipped | +3 |
| correctly equipped item that grants +Luck | +2 |
| correctly equipped item that grants +Fate | +4 |
| always | if 1d100 < Ma then +Max(1d(Ma/10+2)-1,4) |
| +Curs intrinsic | -2d2 |
| +Doom intrinsic | -3d5 |
| correctly equipped items that grants +Curs | -1d(Number of +Curs items * 3)+1 |
| correctly equipped items that grants +Doom | -1d(Number of +Doom items * 8)+1 |
| savegame cheating | -1d200 |
The actual Luck roll is 1dGoodLuck-1 + BadLuck, where GoodLuck are conditions which increase Luck, and BadLuck are conditions which decrease luck (last 5 rows from the above table). This gives overall positive or negative bonus to the situation. Note that being Doomed in itself will also further impact many situations beyond the Luck roll penalty above.
| Activity | Speed modifier |
|---|---|
| Slowed (Slow Monster, or by an opponent) | -50% |
| Overburdened! | -40 |
| Strained! | -20 |
| Strained | -10 |
| Bloated | -10 |
| Burdened | -5 |
| Satiated | -5 |
| Drunk | -5 |
| Starving | -5 |
| Talents (Quick, Very Quick, Greased Lightning) | +2, +5, +9 |
| Athletics skill | up to +8 |
| Raven birthsign | +10 |
| Dexterity | +1 for every 2 points above 17 |
| Wish | +20d20, +1 permanent |
Monks and Beastfighters also receive speed bonuses as they level. Some items such as a quicksilver staff, ring/amulet of speed, or boots of the slow shuffle, and the artifacts black torc, Ring of the Master Cat and Boots of Great Speed can also impact the PC's speed. Corpses of monster such as quicklings and claw bugs and potions of quickling blood can also increase base speed.