Dynamite in SLASH’EM should be changed so that it uses a digging explosion, and carves out tiles in its blast radius, rather than just a really powerful fiery explosion that doesn’t affect terrain. It should probably also create pits randomly in the blast radius.

Also, Archeologists should start with some dynamite (though perhaps they, or at least Lawful ones, ought to get alignment.penalties for using it, since blowing up your dig site is poor archeological practice).

Archeologists automatically see a semi-randomized description of the quality of any mummy wrapping that comes into their inventory (“excellent specimen”, “wretchedly poor”, “slightly damaged”, etc). This gives them a clue as to its enchantment and beatitude.

Archeologists should have Skilled skill cap in either darts or spears to nod towards Mesoamerican atlatls and other throwing devices.

Archeologists should start the game recognizing mattocks.

Chaotic Archeologists gain alignment for taking historic statues and moving them off-level. Neutral Archeologists gain alignment from bringing historic statues into their quest home. (Lawful ones get nothing, because it’s right for them to leave the statues where they were.)

Archeologists should have a skill cap of at least Basic in axe.

Archeologists and Tourists get experience for photographing monsters they haven’t yet photographed.

Archeologists begin the game able to recognize all eggs.

Archeologists begin the game with a grappling hook.

Archeologists can give artifacts to Lord Carnarvon. At the end of the game, any artifacts in his inventory count towards the game score, without having to drag them up to the Astral Plane.

All thrones are considered historic and Archeologists get an alignment penalty for making one disappear.

Random piles of loot can sometimes generate buried in the floor or behind walls on spaces not adjoining any walkable spaces. Nearby engravings are generated to indicate that there is something in the vicinity. Archeologists get an alignment bonus for digging out these items.

Archeologists can apply their whips to cross over a ground-based trap with impunity, a la Indiana Jones.

Archeologists can ascertain a rough estimate of an item’s sale value without a shop handy, due to their profession.

Archeologists (maybe gnomes too) start the game with all valuable and worthless gems (but not gray stones) identified. If this is too powerful, perhaps they only begin the game with all worthless glass identified.

An artifact boomerang which is a guaranteed first sacrifice gift for Archeologists.

New type of book “encyclopedia”:

• Appears as a “hardback book” when unidentified, base price 300.
• Nonmagical and always polypiles into a blank spellbook.
• When read, it adds the appearance of some unknown magical items (1d4 if blessed, 1d3 if uncursed, 1 if cursed, plus 1 if you are an Archeologist) to your discovery list.
• It doesn’t disappear when read, but will set a flag that prevents its effects from happening again. This flag will be cleared when creating a bones file.
• Archeologists start with a special blessed encyclopedia (using a different flag), which is their research (the starting one comes pre-read and isn’t useful to this character). Reading an unread archeologist encyclopedia gives the message “These seem to be an archeologist’s notes. You pore over them intently.”, and type-IDs two unknown scrolls, rings, amulets, and wands, and puts two blessed scrolls of magic mapping into your inventory.
• The Archeologist home level contains another encyclopedia.
• There has to be an incentive for archeologists carrying around their encyclopedia so it doesn’t just get discarded as dead weight. A flavorful way to do this would be to award them extra experience points (say, double or triple) when they learn new object types while carrying an encyclopedia.

Archeologists should be immune to rolling boulders.

Archeologists should start with searching rather than having to get to XL 10 for it. To compensate, they now get stealth at XL 10 instead of 1.