Game 4: Moria (1975)

With Orthanc done and dusted, it's time for me to move on to yet another game from 1975, and yet another game from the PLATO system: Moria.  Moria was created at the University of Illinois by Kevet Duncombe and Jim Batton, both of whom claim that they had never heard of Dungeons & Dragons or read Tolkien at the time of the game's creation.  The game was supposedly developed after they heard stories about the creation of The Game of Dungeons.  I suppose I have to take their word for it, but I do find it a stretch that someone who has never read Tolkien would just pick the name Moria out of thin air.  That they never played Dungeons & Dragons is more believable, because it doesn't play much like D&D at all.

 The game begins with a pretty nifty title screen.  Astute readers will notice that it's in colour, rather than the good old orange and black of the other PLATO games.  My PLATO emulator has a colour option, and for this game I decided to try it out.  I'm glad I did, because it makes the various elements of the game screen stand out from each other.  I don't know if it's authentic, but it's certainly easier on the eyes (if a little garish).

The previous three games I've played (The Dungeon, Orthanc and The Game of Dungeons) were all top-down and icon-based, but Moria  uses a first-person perspective.  The land of Moria is depicted as a vast wire-frame maze, viewed through a teeny-tiny window.  Seriously, look at the thing.  It's so small.

The game, like most others of its type, involves wandering the maze, fighting monsters and gathering treasure.  I'm not certain that it has an end-point, but there are a number of goals to strive for.  The simplest is to get your name in the Hall of Fame, which is simply done by scoring a lot of points for killing monsters.  My character, shown above, has 125 points, and will need over 19,133 to get in the Hall of Fame.  If I want to get to the top, I'll need 8,590,248, which doesn't seem a likely scenario.  The second goal is to become master of a guild, which is done by raising your stats and donating shedloads of gold; there are four guilds that you can join, and I'll discuss them further below.  The last goal, and probably the most difficult, is to find the Reaper's Ring.  When the game first started the ring was apparently found on the first level of one of the four "terrains" (dungeons, in other words).  Every time the ring is found it drops down a level.  It was last found on level 38, which means that I have a hefty task ahead of me.

Character creation is very simple.  Every character has four stats: Cunning, Piety, Valor and Wizardry.  All four range between 1 and 100, but the highest a stat can be when you start is 10. Cunning aids with tricking monsters and opening chests.  Piety comes into play when you pray for aid.  Valor helps you in combat, and determines what weapons you can use.  Wizardry is used for casting spells.  They aren't randomly determined at character creation.  Instead you choose which stat will be your highest (with a value of 10), which also determines your medium stats (7) and your lowest stat (5).  For my current character I chose a high score in Valor, which meant that I started with medium Cunning and Piety, and low Wizardry.  It's the closest you get in the game to choosing a class, at least during character creation.  Joining a guild gives you further, more specialised abilities, but more on that later.  Your stats increase as you use them, but not very quickly.  The character shown above is the result of a few hours of play, and he's only increased a few points in each score.

In addition to the four stats, you have Vitality, which starts at 100.  When your Vitality drops to 0 you're dead, and it gets knocked down by the usual things: monsters and traps, mostly.  Another thing that lowers your Vitality is starvation, as well as thirst, because this is a game where you have to make sure you have food and water.  Without them you slowly die.  The final thing that drains your Vitality, and the one that has affected me the most, is spellcasting.  There's no limit to the number of spells you can cast, but each casting lowers your Vitality, so it's not wise to go around blasting spells everywhere.

The game takes place in the land of Moria, which is explicitly said to be an underground maze of rooms and corridors.  This makes a certain sense, because the game is entirely composed of wireframe walls; drawing a tree was well beyond its capabilities.  The game is structured as follows:

You begin the game in the city, which is a safe haven from monsters.  It's also friggin' huge.  All of the maps are divided into 6x6 blocks, and the city is eight blocks by seven blocks.  That makes it 48x42 squares.  The size of it wouldn't be a major problem, except that there's nothing to find.  Sure there are weapon shops, and magic shops where you can sell stuff, and food shops, and water houses.  But no matter how many weapon stores you find, they're all the same.  The map is massive.  I lost two characters to starvation just mapping the damn thing.

The size of the city is absurd given what's in it, and the only purpose it serves is to make it more difficult to find the four guilds.

I suppose I should talk about the guilds now.  They are the Thieves Guild, the Brotherhood, the Union of Knights and the Circle of Wizards.  Each corresponds to one of your stats, and you can only join the guild when that stat reaches 20.  I haven't gotten that far yet, so I don't have any first hand knowledge of what they provide.  According to the documentation each guild confers a special ability: members of the Brotherhood can heal; members of the Circle of Wizards can teleport back to the city; members of the Union of Knights take less damage and have a chance to behead monsters with a single blow; and members of the Thieves Guild have a better chance of finding magic items.  In addition to this your character can have a guild locker, and if you die and create another character instantly, the contents of that locker will be passed to him as an heir.  Your character starts at the age of 13, which makes the idea of having an heir a dubious one, but you know, medieval times.

I'm not sure what the Magic Shops are good for.  You can't buy anything there, and although you can sell items, you can also do so at the Weaponry Shop.  Perhaps you get better prices, but I haven't tested that out yet.  The Supply Store is where you buy food, at the rate of 100 gold pieces for a month's worth.  Water can be bought at the Water House, at the rate of 20 gold a month.

The most interesting shop, though, is the Weaponry Shop.  The range of items available here is staggering.  They're split into five categories: one-handed weapons, two-handed weapons, armor for the body, armor for the arms, and armor for the head.  Each item has an Offensive Rating and Defensive Rating, and you can easily find these out by asking the shopkeeper.  That's not all you can ask the shopkeeper, either.  You can tell him what category you're looking for, and how much you want to spend, and he'll recommend something.  You can also haggle.  No matter what the starting price of the item, you can usually talk him down to about 2/3 of that total.

That's it for this week.  I haven't progressed very far into the game as yet; I've mapped the city and the wilderness, and I'm just starting on the "Forest" (actually made of green tunnels and rooms).  I'll be back next time to talk about the wilderness, and combat.

Orthanc: Victory!

After a mere eight months, I've completed Orthanc.  I did take a break for a few months in the middle, so it's not as bad as it looks, but I'll need to pick up the pace if I'm going to make any progress on this blog.  I've only got myself to blame, really, for my desire to explore every little bit of a game.  If I hadn't set out to map the whole dungeon I would have been done on the first night.  I also would have experienced much less of the game, and you would have missed out on my amazing maps.  Like these!

Level 8

Level 9

Level 10

I was progressing slowly through level 8, but the turning point came (as I had suspected it would) when I found an Invisibility Ring.  Wearing the ring allowed me to completely avoid all set encounters, and so I was able to map the lower levels of the dungeon with little fear of attack.  I was still under threat from wandering monsters, but I never encountered any on the lower levels while wearing the ring.  In a way, it felt like cheating, but after all the time I spent with this game I was glad to be done.

And despite all the time I spent playing it, I didn't quite experience everything that Orthanc supposedly had to offer.  I never found any of the magic books, or a +3 weapon.  More importantly then any of these, I never encountered any other players in the dungeon.  The game allows different players to run across each other while exploring, and no doubt it was a common occurrence when the game was at its peak of popularity, but in the whole time I was playing I never saw another human being logged in.

The conclusion was a disappointment, as well.  All I had to do was go into the Hall of Fame and retire my character.  There was no victory screen, and no fanfare of any kind.  All that happened was my character's name appearing in the list, as shown below.  Anticlimax!

That's me!  Perrin!

My character was only sixth level when I completed the game, and that's a side-effect of using the Invisibility Ring: I didn't fight any monsters, and so I didn't gain any treasure or experience.  That's fine, though.  I'm in the Hall of Fame, I mapped the whole damned dungeon, and now it's time to give my official likes and dislikes.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE

Emptiness:  The dungeons levels, at 24x20 squares, are big.  This wouldn't normally be a problem for me, especially in a grid-based game, but there's nothing in them.  Explore as much as you want, all you'll find is monsters, pits, chutes and stairs.  All the games I've played so far in this blog are devoid of interesting locations, but The Dungeon was only one level, and The Game of Dungeons had such a frenetic pace that it didn't bother me.  Orthanc is just too big, and too empty.

Quest?  What Quest?: I suppose that Orthanc does have a goal, in that you have to prove yourself valorous enough to reside with the king in luxury.  It feels a bit nebulous, though.  I would much prefer my goal to be something in the game itself, rather than an intangible goal that's gained after the game is done.  Give me something to find in that big-ass dungeon, dammit!

Randomness: Try as you might, if you spend enough time in the dungeon you're going to fall afoul of some bit of fatal bad luck, probably in the form of a monster that surprises you and kills you before you can react.  It's realistic, I suppose, but it doesn't make the game more fun.  I don't mind when it happens to a low-level character, but once I have a well-developed character I feel like I should be able to survive with good tactics.  Most of the time in Orthanc this is the case, but there are still those times when the numbers go against you.

WHAT I LIKED

Authenticity: 1975 is full of games trying to be like Dungeons & Dragons, and so far this is the one that captures it the best.  It's not just the spells, and the monsters, but the power scale.  D&D characters hit their peak at about 9th level, and that was about the point in Orthanc where grinding for the experience needed to level up became more effort than it was worth.  As a result the game felt a lot more grounded, especially after the gonzo power scale of The Game of Dungeons.

Spells and Tactics: The combat in this game was about as complex as that in The Game of Dungeons, except that this game has more spells and more types of monsters.  It's reached the point where figuring out the right spells to use in the right situation feels satisfying, and it often captures the thrilling moment where casting the right spell can be the difference between life and death.  It's slightly disappointing that all of these PLATO games use spells as the only meaningful battle tactic, but in that way they're emulating D&D; it's hard to simulate the effect of clever tactical play, but it's a lot easier to code in the effects of various spells.

Tension: I've included this category in all three games so far, and there's a reason: perma-death!  I've said it before, but in the right kind of game perma-death is absolutely a positive thing, and little in gaming beats the thrill of reaching safety with no spells and a single hit point.  A simple thing like sliding down a chute to a lower level can be a harrowing experience.

That's Moria done and dusted, then.  I enjoyed it in a mild sort of why, but on the whole it was too large and too empty.  I'm going to leave you with this image of the game's dark elf, which amuses me for some reason.  Perhaps I'm just over the usual dark, angsty portrayal you see with them.

Ain't he adorable?

ADDENDUM - FINAL RATING:

Story & Setting: Yet again it's another vast dungeon with nothing in it, and a non-existent plot.  Rating: 1.

Characters & Monsters: I have to give this game credit for the sheer number of monsters on display here.  Their interaction with the spell system works well, and the differing ranges of hit points and damage outputs is just enough to add some variety.  Rating: 3.

Aesthetics: There's no sound, but as with the other PLATO CRPGs the graphics are pleasing and functional.  It's that orange and black, I love it.  Rating: 2.

Mechanics: This is where the game shines.  The spell system is good, there are a ton of magic items to provide for differing play-styles, and the variety of monsters allows for differing combat tactics.  None of these elements are superb, but they're all good, and that combines for a really solid gameplay experience.  The only negative here is that you can be too easily killed by random elements.  Rating: 5.

Challenge: This is a challenging game, but it's balanced rather well.  As mentioned above, its major flaw is that random elements can be instantly fatal.  That said, most of my issues came from my desire to explore the entire dungeon.  Actually finishing the game and getting onto the leaderboard wasn't too difficult.  In a way, you can set your own difficulty by how deep you delve, and that's cool.  Rating: 4.

Innovation & Influence: Any game that comes this early in a genre is going to score high, but most of the elements of Orthanc come from pedit5.  In many ways it's an expansion of that game, so I have to knock it down a point.  Rating: 5.

Fun: I enjoyed this game a fair bit at the beginning, but it gradually wore me down.  That's perhaps my own fault for playing it too long, but I still have to knock it down a point.  Rating: 3.

I can't see a time when I'll fire this game up again, so I'm not going to give it the bonus point.   The scores above total 23, and doubling that gives me a rating of 46.

Final Rating: 46 out of 100.

ADDENDUM THE SECOND:

Somewhat later in this blog I made the decision to overhaul my Final Rating system, so I'm going back through and fixing all of the games I've already played as of March 2020.  I've ditched the Innovation and Influence category, and replaced it for CRPGs with a category for Combat.  I've also changed the purpose of the bonus points, saving them for games that are important, innovative, influential, or have features that are otherwise not covered by my other categories.

Also, the Final Rating is a boring name.  The CRPG Addict has his GIMLET.  The Adventure Gamers have their PISSED rating.  Data Driven Gamer has his harpoons.  So I'm ditching the generic name and calling my new system the RADNESS Index: the Righteous Admirability Designation, Numerically Estimating Seven Scores. It's a pretentious mouthful, but I'm going with it.

Combat: This game's combat is similar to that in The Dungeon, even moreso than The Game of Dungeon's was.  It does have actual combat rounds though, rather than just telling you who died at the end.  As in The Dungeon, you can flee in a corridor but not in a room.  There are more magic items that can influence the results though, and a wider variety of spells. Rating: 2 out of 7.

Bonus Points: 0. Orthanc is a formative game, but its quite derivative of The Dungeon, and lacks the widespread influence of The Game of Dungeons.

Orthanc's RADNESS Index is 40 out of 100. So far that puts it second, below The Game of Dungeons and above The Dungeon.

NEXT: A while ago I said that I had tried to play Moria and found that I couldn't get it running.  I did some further digging around in the PLATO help files, and discovered that I was using the wrong lesson name to load the game.  Armed with my newfound knowledge, I'm cracking on with this game, and progressing nicely, and that's what I'll be writing about next week.

Orthanc: Delving Deeper

I feel like I'm in the hone stretch with this game now.  I'm currently about half-way through mapping level 8, and I feel like I have the game beat.  As with all the games of this vintage that I've played so far, it comes down to two things: knowing the right spell to use in a given situation, and knowing when to get the hell out of the dungeon.

There is, of course, a third factor, and that's luck.  Just a few nights ago I was trucking along nicely with a 9th level character, only to be surprised by an Evil High Priest and killed before I could even react.  It happens; sometimes the random chance goes against you.  But I've gotten to a point where I feel like I've minimised that random chance as much as I can.  I'm starting to encounter 10th-level monsters now: Dragons, Balrogs, and even the dreaded Programmers.  With smart spell usage and a bit of luck I find that I can take them out without to much trouble, and if I do find myself overwhelmed I can always escape with a Teleport.  Hopefully next week I'll be able to make my final post on the game, and move on to something else.

Before I finish this post, I did want to point out how awesome the Arrows of Slaying are now that I've found some.  I found a bunch of ten and a bunch of eight, and they're indispensable on the lower levels of the dungeon.  If you have any of these arrows, you get the option of firing one whenever you encounter a creature of the Mythical class, and it will kill the monster outright.  There are some nasty monsters in that class: Balrogs, Dragons, Griffins, Lammasu, Purple Worms, Umber Hulks and Wyverns make up a sizable portion of the level 9 and 10 monsters.  Having that instant kill in the arsenal is a life-saver.

This was a short post, so here: have some more maps.

Level 5

Level 6

Level 7

Orthanc: Grinding to Failure

For most of my time playing this game I've been quickly building my characters up, then sending them to map as much unexplored territory as possible before their inevitable demise.  A few days ago I decided to try something different: I was going to slowly and methodically grind a character up, keeping him stronger than the monsters encountered and increasing his survivability.

It worked, for a little while.  Getting a character from level 1 to about level 6 is no problem at all, and can happen quite quickly.  Things slow down after that, however.  For every level you gain the experience points needed to reach the next level double, like so: 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000, 16000, 32000, 64000, 128000, 256000, 512000, etc.  From level 7 onwards the target starts to get really high, and you need to delve deeper to get a decent amount of treasure, unless you're patient enough to chip away at it on the first couple of levels.  I wasn't.

I managed to grind my way up to 9th level, which gave me 20 spell slots and about 60 hit points.  I also found some choice magic items along the way: a ring of protection, elven boots and the all-important ring of light.  I would wear the boots to avoid random encounters, and the ring of light so that I would always know where the set encounters were.  I switched to the ring of protection before every battle, and also before going through a door.  It was a good system, and it seemed to be working well for me.

Ultimately, I was thwarted by the randomness of the game.  No matter how careful you are, there's no way of knowing what the next fight will be.  It could be against a Level 1 Kobold, or it could be against a level 8 Gorgon.  I wasn't done in by a single combat, however, but rather by the respawning of a dungeon level.  I was grinding on level 4 of the dungeon, and decided to return to the surface with 6 spell slots still remaining, but when I got to level 3 it had been restocked, and was crawling with encounters again.  For some reason every one that I hit was high level, and I was soon left with no spells.  The one that got me was a Sphinx, which is in the Animated category that's immune to most spells anyway.  There was nothing for me to do but chop way at it and hope the numbers came up in my favour.  They didn't.

So I'm going to forget about grinding.  At least with my old tactics I was progressing with my maps, however slowly.  I wasted two days of gaming trying to develop a powerful character, and in the end it got me nowhere.

Also, this happened:

Yes, your magical items can be destroyed after any battle.  Wonderful.

Orthanc: Magic Items

I'm chugging along at a nice pace on Orthanc now, having mapped level 5 and most of level 6.  I'm using my spells more effectively, and I'm also taking the game's comprehensive documentation into account by checking the stats of monsters before I decide how to tackle them.  Basically, I'm playing smarter, and I'm losing fewer characters because of it.  It's not only the spells that are keeping me alive, though: it's also the magic items I've found, and they're what I'm going to write about today.

Equipping my Light Ring.  Note that I also have a +2 sword.

Magic items in Orthanc come in four categories: boots, equipment, manuals and rings.

Boots: Boots are equipped in the dungeon by pressing 'B'.  (For the longest time I hadn't realised that you need to equip magic items, so I was finding them and wondering why they didn't do anything.  Read the instructions, kids.)  You can only wear one set of boots at a time, so you have to make a trade-off, and pick whichever one you think will be best in the current situation.

Elven Boots: These boots make you completely silent.  You can avoid all wandering monsters, but not those that are stationed in one place.  They're useful for when you're trying to escape the dungeon, as you will most probably have a clear path back to the surface as long as you retrace your steps; if that's the case, wandering monsters are the only ones you might encounter.

Boots of Speed: These work just like the Speed spell, giving you the first strike in combat and allowing you to move faster.  In the last post I wrote about how a lot of the spells have durations that are too short to be of much practical use.  Magic items are the remedy for that, as a lot of them replicate spells, but function permanently.

Boots of Levitation: Give you the power of Levitation, permanently.  Perfect for when you're exploring unfamiliar territory, and don't want to fall down a chute.

Equipment: This inaptly named category contains magical weapons and armour.  You can find weapons, shields and armour of +1, +2 or +3 value, which is D&D as hell: the original D&D booklets only went up to +3, so Orthanc is sticking close to the source.  There's also a Mythical Arrow of Slaying.  You can carry up to 31 of these, and they'll automatically kill any creature of the Mythical type.  That category includes Balrogs and Dragons, so yeah, I'd like to have a few stocked up for lower levels.  I haven't found any yet, though.

Books: I haven't found a single one of these yet.  Most of them raise your stats, and there's one for each (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Constitution).  There's also the Book of Vile Darkness (another lift from D&D) that permanently lowers your hit points by half.  That sounds nasty, but as I said, I haven't found any books.  There may be a clue to let you know when you have the cursed book, but I doubt it.  These PLATO games can be unforgiving.

Rings: Magic rings, much like the boots, can only be worn one at a time, and are equipped by pressing 'R'.

Ring of Light: Works like a permanent Light spell.  My current character has one of these, and it's indispensable, allowing me to see every secret door, and where all the monsters are standing.  It's great for letting you pick a safe path, and for avoiding battle when you're low on resources.

Ring of Protection: Makes you harder to hit, basically, just like the Protection spell.

Ring of Invisibility: Wearing this ring gives you the spell Invisibility, permanently, meaning that you're completely immune from attack.  I want one so much - it would make mapping a breeze.

Ring of Regeneration: Restores 1 hit point for every 25 moves.  Your hit points and magic restore even without this ring, but it takes 400 moves for every point.  The ring makes things a lot faster.

The instructions inform me that magic items can be lost after battle, and are gone forever, but I haven't had this happen to me yet.  I guess I'm just lucky?  Hopefully I haven't jinxed it.

There's a wide variety of items here, much more than in pedit5, and about on par with dnd.  The latter had a tendenct for magic items to be cursed, and blow up in your face, but Orthanc has avoided that, mercifully.  The ones I've found so far have been really helpful, and there's a little bit of thought involved in which ones to wear.  It's a pretty robust system.

Orthanc: Spells

If there's one common thread when it comes to surviving in these PLATO RPGs, it's this: spells are your most important resource.  In all three games I've played, combat has been little more than a process of trading blows until one combatant falls, so spells are the only tactical option you have.  Once they're gone, you're at the mercy of random chance, and that's a quick way to die.

Orthanc is no different in that regard, and it probably has the most varied range of spells I've encountered in the blog so far.  There are four levels of spells, and characters begin with four "units" with which to cast them.  A 1st-level spell costs one unit, 2nd-level costs 2, and so on.  You begin the game with access to all of the spells, but as you gain levels your spell units increase, so you cast more before your resources are depleted.

The spells are divided into combat and non-combat, so that's how I'll split my examination of them.

COMBAT SPELLS:

1st Level:

Charm: This spell is an automatic kill, but it only works on Men and Goblin-Types (the monsters are organised into categories, as I've mentioned before).  It also fails 30-50% of the time.  I haven't used it a great deal.  Most of the Men and Goblins I've encountered are weak enough to be defeated with a Sleep spell, and the rest I usually take out with more direct damage-dealing magic.  It probably won't use it at all, because there's a more effective version at 2nd level.

Sleep: Sleep gives you an instant victory against any foe of 4th level or less, except for Undead.  It always works, and it's the key to surviving the earliest stages of the game.  It's still the spell I use the most.

Magic Missile: A simple blasting spell that deals 2-20 points of damage per hit.  Against Undead it does double that, which has been enough to wipe out most of the nasties I've encountered.  It's a great spell that takes care of the one weak spot of Sleep.

2nd Level:

Hold Person: This works exactly like Charm, but it only fails 10-30% of the time.  Since it only costs 1 point more, I'll probably default to this version when I start encountering more powerful monsters.

Pray: Increases your ability to hit for a single combat, and is twice as effective against Undead.  I haven't noticed a great deal of difference when using this spell; I seem to hit more often than not even without it.

Protection:  This spell decreases the chance you'll be hit in combat, and just like Pray it works better against Undead.  Also like Pray, I haven't noticed much difference when I use it.  It lasts for 24 turns, though, which is better than a single combat.

3rd Level:

Hold Monster: Works like Charm, but it affects Animals and Insects.  I may start using this against Animals on deeper dungeon levels, but to be honest none of the Insects are very powerful.

Blast Bolt: Dishes out a whopping 5-60 points of damage, and double that against Undead.  This is the first spell I whip out against enemies to strong for Sleep.  What can I say, I like to make certain.

4th Level:

Dimension Door: This spell teleports your foe just outside the room you're in.  It fails 20-40% percent of the time, but it can be handy for surviving the battles you know you can't win.  The problem is, why would I ever use it when I have the very next spell?

Teleport: This spell works much like Dimension Door, but it teleports the target further away and fails more often.  The thing is, when it does fail it whisks you away to safety.  It's invaluable for survival in some situations, especially against Animated types, which are immune to all but 4th-level spells.

NON-COMBAT SPELLS:

1st Level:

Cure: Restores from 1-7 hit points, apparently modified by your Intelligence score.  This is another spell that gets superseded by a better spell later on, so I haven't cast it much.

Levitation: Pits and chutes abound in the dungeon, and getting dumped to a lower level that you haven't explored is a real pain.  Levitation lets you avoid that.  You can skip pits entirely, and it gives you the option of using a chute or not.  The only problem is that it lasts for just 12 moves.  It's barely worth casting.

Depth: This spell simply tells you what level you're on.  It's really helpful after you've just fallen down a chute.

Light: Reveals secret doors, and also shows what squares have monsters in them.  It's great to have on during exploration, especially if you want to avoid combat, but it only lasts for 24 turns.

Using a Light spell.  There's a secret door below me, 
and a monster lurking above.

2nd Level:

Speed: Lets you move faster (meaning that your spells last longer) and gives you the first turn in combat.  That first turn is important.  Sometimes you get jumped by a monster, and it can kill you before you even get a chance to react.  It doesn't happen much if you have a high Dexterity, but the chance is still there.  But again, it only lasts for 18 turns.

Find Traps: This spell is great, and I'd love it if it lasted for longer than 6 turns.  Every time you move, the spell gives you an indication of what's in the squares surrounding you, whether it be a pit, a chute, stairs or nothing at all.  I'd use it all the time, but it's just not worth the spell units for such a short duration.

Serious Cure: This works like Cure, but you can choose how many spell units to spend.  Each unit spent restores 1-7 hit points.  It's a good spell that renders the lower level version obsolete.

3rd Level:

ESP: You can use this spell to discover what lurks behind walls and doors.  I haven't found much use for it, as there are other more effective ways of avoiding monsters.

Using ESP on the wall just above me.

Continuous Light: Works just like Light, but it never runs out.  This is the only non-combat spell that I use all the time.

Pass Wall: Lets you move through a single wall.  It can be handy for exploration, or taking shortcuts, but on the whole I don't use it a lot.  I expect that won't change, unless there are more inaccessible map areas on the lower dungeon levels.

4th Level:

Pass Floor: With this spell you can pass through the floor to the next dungeon level down.  I can't see much use for it.  I don't need to explore a lower dungeon level until I've fully mapped out the current one I'm on, and it uses too many spell units to be a worthwhile shortcut.

Pass Ceiling: This, on the other hand, can be a life saver.  Quite a number of times I've fallen through a chute to a lower level and used this spell to return to familiar territory.

Invisibility: This spell lets you avoid all enemies, and could come in really useful when making a quick flight out of the dungeon.  It's not as useful as it might be, because the rooms you clear out usually stay cleared out, leaving a safe route to the surface if you retrace your steps.  But for those times when you get caught in a dungeon level that has just respawned, it could save your life.  I'll have to remember it the next time that happens.

40 Years of Whisenwood Dungeon

I was logging in to my PLATO emulator earlier today to play some Orthanc, and this is the screen that it opened with:

What a lovely tribute to The Game of Dungeons, also known as dnd.  It's nice to see the folks at Cyber1 giving the game a little bit of love.