Nezeramontias mod by fecesfaerie
Version 1.06 beta
New inventory graphics by meamkimchi, yukoahso, Riparious, Shadowtalon, Joel, Jbouley, Om, Stargazer, Kraj, Untamed & Fusman 
Converted Diablo 1 inventory graphics by Digibo
Grapics for new inventory, cube, and stash by Phalzyr
Additional set submissions by Mandzo
New monster animations by onyx (Grave Digger), Incandescent One (Acid beasts, Black Knight, Defiler, D1 Diablo, Lazarus, Leoric, Viper),
Har'lea'quinn (Bone Golem), Joel (Amelyssan, Dijin, Drow Magus), and Alkalund (Earth Elemental, Chimera)

This is my new mod for Diablo 2.  It's my first for the expansion.  This mod works
only with version 1.10s of the expansion.

Usage: Unzip all the files into your Diablo 2 directory.  Then run the file nezinstall.bat by double clicking on it.
This installs the mod and backs up the files that this mod replaces.  When you're done with this mod, run the
file nezuninstall.bat to revert everything to normal.  Know that in order to play this mod, you must start a new character.
Regular characters from D2 and characters from previous versions of Nezeramontias will NOT load.

The file new uniques.txt contains a list of all the added uniques in the mod.  It's a semi-spoiler,
so don't look at it if you don't want to know about them.  It lists the name of the unique,
what type of item it is, its item level and the level required to equip it.  
If the name and the type are the same, the item is unique only and is created with the cube.  

There is also a new sets.txt which lists all set items.  

Hirelingskills.txt lists the skills of each hireling and what level they aquire their skills

Note about additional mod files:  The other files that come with this mod (newuniques.txt, cube recipes.txt, etc.)
are easier to read if you open them in a spreadsheet editor such as MS Works Spreadsheet, Excel, or the D2Excel editor.

Beta Note:  This new version is a pretty considerable update from the last version.  Lots of things have been added;
many previous additions have been redesigned.  I've no doubt there are a number of bugs creaping about, and I need a lot
of play-testing help in order to get the bugs out of this mod.  It should be pretty stable in terms of crashes, but expect
to spot some bugs from time to time.  Also, this is a beta mod for a beta patch, so bugs from the 1.10s patch will most
likely still be present.


Changes/Additions to the Basic Game

Difficulties:

-Removed the experience penalties for dying in Nightmare and Hell.

-Increased the resistance penalty for Nightmare and Hell to -110% and -225%.



Monsters:

-All monsters are at higher levels at each difficulty.

-All monsters have higher damage, hit points, armor class, and attack ratings.  

-Monsters now move nearly twice as fast as before.

-Monsters that normally do elemental damage with their attacks now do more.  Most monsters that did not now do.

-Some of the Succubi now fire their magic missiles faster.

-Oblivion Knights now shoot faster Bone Spirits.

-Enabled most of the unused monsters and moved around some of the others to different areas (Succubi will now appear 
late in Act 4)

-Added over 60 new monsters.

-Nearly all monsters now have special enchantments to make them tougher.  For example, the various dark rogues do more damage at 
night while some archer enemies have a chance to get a piercing attack.  Some monsters now possess auras, while some monsters that 
were immune to certain elemental attacks will now absorb them.

-Greatly increased the stats of the Hell Bovines to make them tougher.  They also get several new enchantments.

-Andariel can now cast Decrepify and Poison Nova along with her other skills.

-Champion and Unique monsters get greater hit points, armor, damage, and attack rating bonuses 
(especially at higher difficulties).

-Added some extra names for Unique Monsters to spawn with.

-All monsters that possess skills now have higher skill levels.



Base Items:
-Improved all the gems.  They now get extra enchantments beginning at the normal level.

-Decreased the drop rate of gems, and decreased the chances of getting high grade gems from monsters.

-Increased the level required to use all gems.

-Improved the drop rate of runes.

-Added a divine level to all the gems.  There are also cube recipes for upgrading gems to the divine level, and you may also 
obtain them from shrines if you possess a perfect level gem.

-Added special gems for each of the seven classes.  The new class gems come in four levels: Chipped, Flawed, Normal, and Perfect.
Cube recipes and gem shrines will work on the new class gems.

-Added 12 new runes.

-All gems and runes (except the 12 new ones) can now be bought in shops.

-Keys can now stack to 18.  The two book items may now hold up to 100 scrolls.

-Added potions that grant temporary resistance bonuses to fire, lightning, and magic.

-Added several elixers that will permanently raise a stat when consumed.  There are elixers for improving strength, dexterity, 
max life, max stamina, max mana, and for all the resistances (including magic).  Elixers can be dropped by certain monsters.  They
can also be bought, but they are quite expensive.

-Added a new book of skill that will grant the user an additional skill point when used.  These may also be bought (and are very 
expensive).

-Added several new stones that may be used in the cube to add various bonuses to enchanted items (including charms).  For those familiar
with previous versions of Nezeramontias, the new stone items have replaced what were formerly the salves.

-Added "socket screw" items that can be put in the cube along with an enchanted item to add one socket to it.

-Added a "Blacksmith's Hammer" and "Anvil" item.  These two items may be put into the cube along with a damaged piece of equipment
to repair it.  You may buy these items from black smiths in the various acts or occasionally obtain them from defeated monsters.

-Added "Goddess Tears" which will fully restore mana when used.

-Added "Meat" which will fully restore health and stamina when eaten.

-Added the "Rip" potion which will grant the user the "Rest in Peace" ability (killed monsters can't be revived) for 30 seconds.

-Added seven fruit items that are rare drops from monsters.  If you manage to collect all seven of them, put them in the cube to create
a special unique charm.  The seven fruits are a banana, cherry, grape, orange, pear, pineapple and radish.

-Added 18 "doll" items.  Occasionally when you kill an act boss or some of the sub bosses, that monster will drop a doll of itself.
The exception is the Tyrael doll which can be bought in an Act 4.  The dolls are used in a special cube recipe.  
Collect the six boss dolls (Andariel, Duriel, Mephisto, Diablo, Baal, and Tyrael) to create a unique amulet.  Collect the six early support
dolls (Blood Raven, Griswold, The Countess, Radament, Coldworm, Chimera) and use them in the cube to create a unique ring.  
Collect the six late support dolls (The Summoner, Damien, Izual, Hephasto, Lazarus and Nihlathak) to create another unique ring.  Put
the created rings and amulet into the cube to create the most powerful charm in the game.

-Added two special "key" items: the Key to the Sets and the Key to the Uniques.  These items may be bought in shops.  When placed
in the cube with a magic item, the Key to the Sets will produce a set item version of that piece of equipment.  If one doesn't exist,
it will spawn a new magic item.  The Key to the Uniques will produce a unique version of the item placed into the cube.  If one doesn't
exist, the Unique has already spawned in a given play session, or your character is not at a high enough level, a rare is spawned.  
These recipes work on any item that can spawn as magical (including jewels and charms).

-Added a new "spirit energy" item for use in recipes. Spirit energy may be bought in shops or occasionally dropped by monsters.

-Added "space fragments" for use in advanced recipes.  Space fragments cannot be bought and are only spawned by certain powerful monsters.

-Rings and amulets can now be socketed.  Rings gain the attributes of weapons while amulets gain the attribues of armor and helmets.

-Added a new ring and amulet.  These items may only spawn as normal items.  To add enchantments to these items, you must put them
in the cube along with three of the same gem or rune and a certain number of space fragments.  Refer to Cuberecipes.txt for the
exact recipes.

-Added "Mystery Chests" to the game.  Those who have played Nezeramontias before may remember the Mystery Chest items, but they work a 
bit differently now.  Rather than being bought from the gamble screen, they are bought from Gheed's shop in Act 1 (all his other items
have been removed).  To open a mystery chest, you must place it in the cube along with a new "chest key" to obtain the item within.  Some
of the rarest items can be obtained from these chests.

-Charms may now spawn as rare items.

-Doubled the max stack size of arrows and bolts. 

-Arrows and bolts may now spawn as magic and rare items.

-Added several "elemental orb" items.  When equipped in the shield slot, these orbs grant you elemental bonuses and sometimes grant
you the ability to cast spells.

-Added "Golem Gears" as a new base item.  Golem Gears cannot be equipped but spawn with several enchantments and are designed specifically
for creating Iron Golems.  Some random enchantments only appear on Golem Gears.

-Added "Monster Gates" which are occasionally dropped by monsters.  Monster gates are unique charms that come with charges to a skill
that will summon random monsters for you to fight.



Armor and Weapons:
-Decreased the base worth of all armors.

-All heavy armors now reduce damage taken from monsters but also increase your stamina drain when running.

-Decreased the monatary value that equipment gets from enchantments.  In other words, enchanted stuff sells for less.

-Added a new class for each of the six kinds of armor (helmet, armor, gloves, shield, belt and boots).

-Added "Cloaks" as a new base item that grant bonuses to Assassin skills.

-Added several new robes as base items.  The robes have low armor ratings, but always spawn with resistance bonuses.

-Added throwing stars.  These items may be used by anyone, but they give bonuses to assassin skills.

-Bone helmets and scythes now give bonuses to Necromancer skills.

-All Assassin claws are now capable of spawning with skill bonuses.

-Added a new base class for Assassin claws.

-Added "spectral swords" that may only be equipped by the Sorceress.

-Added "Jewel Swords" as a new base type that are always socketed and grant bonuses to finding gold.

-Added a new group of Paladin Axes that grant extra bonuses to Paladin skills.

-Added "guns" as new base items.  Guns also have their own type of ammo.  Most guns may also be equipped by Rogue hirelings.

-Added "Energy Swords" as new base items.  These items are always indestructable, but my not spawn with more than one socket.
To use them you must equip a battery (another new item) in the shield slot.  Like energy swords, batteries may also spawn
as enchanted items and grant additional bonuses to the sword.

-Added new Katana swords as base weapons.

-Added Holy Water as a new throwing weapon.  They grant Paladin skill bonuses.

-Doubled the max stack size of all throwable weapons.

-Two handed sorceress staffs always spawn with extra bonuses to energy and a new stat known as "magic-affinity."  See the skill
section for a discussion of what magic-affinity is.



Gambling:
-Gambling rates for obtaining rare, set, unique, exceptional, and elite items have all been improved.

-You may now gamble for all items that can be enchanted except ammos.



Characters:
-All characters now gain six stat points per level.

-Reduced the amount of experience needed to level, and raised the level cap to 1000.

-Increased the experience penalties at higher levels.  Characters start gaining less than normal exp at level 51.

-All characters hive higher run/walk speeds.

-All characters regain mana 50% slower and drain stamina four times faster than before.

-Increased the level needed for most character skills.  Top skills are now obtained at level 45.

-Increased the skill cap for all skills to 99.

-Added six new skills to each character.

-All characters have extra inventory space for the cube, chest, and their person.

-All characters begin with the Horadric cube.



Skill Edits:
-Gaining skill levels works differently than before.  For a level one skill, the first skill level costs one point, but
every five levels the skill will cost an additional point (to a maximum of four).  Level 9 skills cost 2 points at level
1 and increase every six levels (to a maximum of 6).  Level 18 skills cost 3 points at level 1 and increase every seven 
levels (to a maximum of 8).  Level 27 skills cost 4 points at level 1 and increase every eight levels (to a maximum of 10).  
Level 36 skills cost 5 points at level 1 and increase every nine levels (to a maximum of 12).  Level 45 skills cost 6 points 
at level 1 and increase every ten levels (to a maximum of 14).

-Removed all prerequisites for skills.  Now level and skill points are the only requirements for obtaining a skill.

-Many skills have higher mana costs and cost more mana to cast at higher levels.

-The Strafe skill now fires twice as fast as before.

-The Valkyrie summon now has a percent chance to cast charged bolt when hit by enemies.

-Blaze and Fire Wall now grant synergy bonuses to each other.

-The Thunderstorm skill now strikes enemies more often.

-All of the elemental masteries of the Sorceress now grant bonus damage and elemental piercing.

-Improved the bonuses for all the Paladin resistance auras.

-Conviction now gives smaller bonuses for each skill level, but there is no cap to how much it can drop enemy resistance.

-The Paladin's Zeal skill and the Druid's Fury skill can no longer be interupted.  Both skills also attack faster than before.

-Bone Wall and Bone Prison cast a version of Teeth that stuns enemies when struck.

-The Necromancer may now have one of each Golem summoned at once.

-The Druid may have the Bear and one of his wolf groups summoned at the same time.

-Whirlwind gets more attacks per frame.  

-Altered the Barbarian's natural resistance formula so he now gets a 5% bonus at the first level and a steady 3% bonus at all
following levels.

-Battle Command now gives an extra +1 bonus to all skills for every five skill levels.

-Molten Boulder now travels three times faster than before.  Bone Spirit travels twice as fast.

-Twister and Tornado now do cold damage.

-Twister starts with one missile at level one and gains extra twisters with more skill levels.

-Armageddon drops rocks nearly four times faster than before.

-The Assassin's Blade Fury skill attacks five times faster than before and does more damage but requires throwing stars to use.

-Wake of fire now only fires once at level 1 but gains an additional attack every two levels.

-Many skills now get bonuses from a character's Energy stat.  Direct elemental attack skills receive damage bonuses.  Curses 
receive duration and radius bonuses.  Defensive skills receive duration and defense bonuses.

-Many skills also receive bonuses from the new "magic affinity" stat.  Magic affinity is a new property that spawns on some enchanted 
items and on the base versions of Sorceress staffs.  The magic affinity enchantment increases the attack power of projectile skills
that do elemental damage.



Rare/Unique/Set Items:
-Added just over 300 hundred new unique items.  Some of the uniques (and sets) ported from old versions of Nezeramontias have been 
redesigned to take advantage of the new abilities of the 1.10 patch.

-Added 18 new sets.

-Some Set and Unique items contain exclusive skills.

-Rares, uniques and sets spawn more frequently.



Souls:
-Souls are a new kind of item in Nezeramontias.  Nearly every enemy in the game (even bosses) possesses a "soul" that can only be 
obtained as a rare drop from that specific monster.  Souls are unique items that may be equipped in the ring slot and contain 
enchantments that reflect the monster killed for it.  Some souls grant basic stat bonuses or enchantments the monster possesses.  
Others grant you the skills of that monster.  Some allow you to transform into that monster while others allow you to summon the 
monster to fight by your side.  Experiment to find which souls work best for you :-)

-Added a recipe for creating a unique charm called the Soul Hunter Medallion.  To create this item, insert a soul and an amulet
into the cube.  Throughout the game, you will collect monster souls, but it's very likely that you will not want to keep many of
them.  Rather than selling them, you can insert them into the cube with the medallion to add to the "soul count" stat present
on the medallion.  The Soul Hunter Medallion will grant several bonuses to the character that will increase as souls are added.  Some
stats need more souls to boost than others, and you'll have to collect quite a few souls before any stats are boosted.

-Added another recipe for the Soul Hunter Medallion.  If you like to duel with fellow players, you can collect the player ears they 
drop, put them in the cube with the medallion and add to the medallion's "Player Kill" count.  This stat has no effect in the actual
game other than to act as bragging rights for master player killers.  No cheating on racking up kills :-)

-Added hidden recipes for improving the Soul Hunter Medallion that can only be discovered by playing.



Hirelings:
-All hirelings have six skills. Most get at least one non-character skill.  See Hirelingskills.txt for details.

-All hirelings now have improved stat bonuses when they level and gain levels quicker.

-Hirelings no longer receive stat penalties (except for resistances) at higher difficulties.

-Hirelings no longer receive damage penalties when fighting Prime Evils.



Levels:
-Levels have much higher monster populations than before.  There are also more unique and champian level monsters in each level.

-Monsters now spawn in some levels where they did not previously appear.

-Most underground levels are larger than before.

-Some levels with preset maps have been redesigned and expanded.

-There is now a trap door linking the Act 1 town to the Secret Cow level, so you can enter the place as many times as you want
(don't go before you're ready though :)

-The Infernal Pit (last hell type area of Act 5) has had most of the monsters originally in it
moved to different areas.  In their place are the treasure maggots, treasure horders (which give birth to treasure maggots),
treasurebus monsters (a version of the Succubus) and Andariel clones.  Andariel Clones frequently drop set items while the 
others frequently drop uniques.  

-Rearranged some of the levels in Act 1 to create a side area called Kagero Dungeon.  Several of the underground Act 1 areas have 
been moved from their original position to a new area in order to form a large "side quest" dungeon.  This means some Act 1 areas
(the jail and Countess' tower for example) do not contain as many levels as before.  The new challenge dungeon is 6 levels
deep, contains no waypoints, and is populated by the strongest monsters in the game.  There's a superunique to fight at
the end.  Defeat her, and she may drop some hidden items.  You can access it through the graveyard.



Misc:
-All shop keepers give less money for sold equipment.

-Reduced the repair cost of equipment.

-Improved gold drops throughout the game. 

-Increased the duration of all shrines.  The Monster shrine and Experience shrine will recharge after a few minutes.

-The experience shrine now grants an experience boost of 150%.

-Enabled many unused prefixes and suffixes for magic items.

-Added new prefixes and suffixes.

-Added many new recipes not mentioned in this readme (see cube recipes.txt for details).

-Added new enchantments that can appear on items.

-Added a few secret items not listed in this readme whose purpose will be revealed while playing :-)
 
 

Future Plans:
-Add more uniques and sets.

-Add some runewords.  Please send ideas; I'm not very good at coming up with good ones.

-Add some more recipes.  

-Edit more of the levels.  So far I've only expanded two of the treasure caves in Act 1.  One is a small addition.  The other
(the last treasure cave of Act 1) is significantly larger than before.  It's my first major attempt at D2 map editing.  Let
me know what you think.

-Fix display errors for skills.  Counting new character skills, soul skills, and unique/set exclusive skills, there are over
100 new skills in this mod, and there's no doubt there are still quite a few display errors in them.

-Add skill pics for the new skills.

-Once the final 1.10 version comes out, if a plugin for adding levels is completed, I'll probably restore the Act 1 areas
back to their original form and add new areas for Kageor Dungeon.

-Implement some more of those animation plugins for new monsters.


Thanks:	-yukoahso and meamkimchi for all the new exclusive inventory pics (and there are a lot of them :)
		-Fusman for making his inventory pics publicly available.
		-Digibo for converting all the Diablo 1 inventory pics for us.
		-Phalzyr for creating the new stash, cube, and inventory and making those publicly available
		-Mandzo for his new set suggestion 
		-Riparious, Shadowtalon, Joel, Jbouley, Om, Stargazer, Kraj & Untamed for their inventory packs.
		-afj666 for the plugin that makes adding extra levels possible and Sir General for the original 
		 work in breaking the level limit (I've wanted to see this done for a LONG time :-)
		-Paul Simary for an excellent map editor (graphic D2 map editor rocks!), and his anim_data tool
		-Iswelo for D2 modding's original map editor and his D2Excel editor.
		-Joel for the TXTDC6 editor and that post of cube recipe op codes that makes the new mystery chests possible :)
		-JBouley for his "Naming Idea" list at Phrozenkeep
		-onyx, Incandescent One, Har'lea'quinn , Alkalund, and Joel for those nice new monster animations
		-Everyone who has played this mod and provided suggestions and bug reports.
		-And of course thanks to everyone at the Phrozenkeep forums for all their help,
		   knowledge, and general ability to figure out cool stuff :)

e-mail: fecesfaerie@hotmail.com
  