Bones generation
I dont' know the details on how these work, but I'm almost certain that any given death will make a bones file. Some people will argue with me on this by looking at the bones directory and the files therein, and their creation/modification dates and such. My arguement? Double bones. Triple bones. The QUADRUPLE bones I just came accross. The odds are just too high for that. Now then. Back to battling magical mushrooms. /hate shrooms

Not to named baddies
:idea: I haven't looked at the code, but as far as I can tell some categories of deaths never generate a bones file, but most "natural" deaths do result in a bones file. I've never encountered a bones for a character that died to a named baddy(specially generated--not the ones that are always on the same level). Nor any where special level features had been disturbed. For instance if I use praying to silva to move Genevatrix then get killed training against giant plants I can find that bones file, but if I kill Genevatrix, or use a wand of teleport to move her and then die to a plant, I never see a bones file. Or if I die in GC on a level that I've opened the meteoric steel chest on I don't see a bones file, but if I die before moving the chest it does generate a bones file--in fact I had one game where the hidden room with traps and chests appeared on GC2, GC3, and GC4 because I hit bones files on all 3 levels.

Rigging Bones File
I wonder if you can rig your deaths so that you can "hand over" your mega bad-ass equipment to the next character you play with a bones file. I was pretty disappointed this time. I didn't meet ANY ghosts from the first dungeon level to Oree. But I did get about 4 artifact weapons, so I guess that's OK. I had to kill Petrus for one of them though. On another game I encountered three ghosts of myself on the same level! That was pretty kewl since I ended up with 4 Saathuls.

I often find bones files of characters killed by named baddies - in fact I just died when I went down the stairs to the Enner Beast Level not due to Enner but because Ischalidirh blasted my chest full of wands and then my evil clones hit me. My character only had 14 END.

There is probably a good way to utilize the bones system to one's advantage. For instance, if my character had the good fortune to find a scroll of wishing, then I could save the game right there, enter the next level, get myself killed, reload my save, meet my ghost if lucky, kill it, and then end up with 2 wish scrolls. Repeat and I would have 4 wish scrolls. Then, I could wish for everything I need, do the "ghost-clone" method several more times, and get multiple copies of all my items.

Wouldn't that technically be save-scumming?

that IS savescumming, and Freelance, it's why you think the game is so easy. try not to do it, and play without exploiting the game system.

There's no even a point doing it this way. If you want scroll of wishing, instead of copying your save and cloning them with this extremely long and useless method, just put yourself in wizard mode and have fun with the infinite scroll of wishing you ll get ( you even start with 5 scrolls of wishing as soon as you get in wizard mode ). But i really really , dont understand at all what's the point of doing such thing. Cheating the game, making it too easy and then increasing the difficulty, only to cheat more... Wth.

It's not that I set out to "cheat." It's just that anytime I play a game, my nose for exploits just turns on. It's been like this since I played the first "gold-box" SSI AD&D CPRG--"Pool of Radiance" I think? At that time I stumbled upon a way to duplicate your character's entire inventory. Save the game, but before pressing the saving butting drag one inventory item out without putting it back. Then, when you reload, drop the inventory on the character's paper doll and presto! You have two of the same thing. I usually make myself play a game "legit" the first time through. After that it's upon season on uber-methods. SSI never fixed that exploit that I found, even in later games. I remember playing a Dragonlance game where all six character had dragonlances. The opposition didn't stand a freaking chance.

you might want to get a job as a game tester, if your skills for finding gliches and "exploits" are this good.

Hmm. I have mixed feelings about that. When I find an exploit, it feels like a nice "bonus." If I had to do this for a job it would probably be very tedious and not pay a great deal. Grnnted most of the jobs I've done so far have a fair amount of tedium, but they pay all right. I read about game-testing in a gaming zine one time. Something about having to the character jump through all twenty levels. Then have him die on every conceivable location. That'll get the bugs out but I sounds a bit too boring for me.