OT: Nethack

Re: OT: Nethack

Grats! Welcome to the midgame.

The two things I can think of that will really ruin your day right now:

(1) Do not attempt to enchant your GDSM any further. +5 is the maximum any non-elven armor can be safely enchanted. If you attempt to enchant it further, it will likely vanish.

(2) Do not put another bag of holding, a bag of tricks, or a wand of cancellation in to your bag of holding. It will explode, taking with it everything that's inside it. As an extension, do not put any unidentified wands in your bag of holding until you know for certain they aren't wand of cancellation. Bags of tricks can be automatically identified by looting them when they are on the ground (will hurt you slightly), or by applying them when they're in your inventory (will create a monster).


If I were you, my next step would probably be to hang out at that altar (assuming you've got a good stock of food, which you should) until you get Cleaver. Then, if you don't already have battle axe at expert, I'd hang around the earlier levels until you get battle axe to minimum basic, ideally skilled. After that, just proceed down through the dungeon. You'll find the quest on somewhere between dlvl 13 and 16 (approximate numbers, not exact) by way of receiving a psychic transmission from somebody. You'll find medusa somewhere in the low dlvl 20s (also approximate), which will be obvious in that the level is almost completely filled with water. A couple levels below medusa is the castle, which has a guaranteed wand of wishing and a lot of relatively unpleasant monsters.

Whether you choose to do medusa/castle or the quest first is ultimately up to you and it depends on a whole lot of different things. The barb quest isn't particularly hard (as compared to some of the other quests, at least), but it contains a lot of monsters with wands and such, so if you don't have reflection (which it doesn't look like you do) you might not do so well. I'd probably recommend clearing out most of the remainder of the dungeons (above medusa) before doing either medusa/castle or the quest.

You should now be at a point where you have a good bit of warning before dying in the conventional method, so any time you're fighting something that lasts more than a turn or two, keep a very close eye on your hit points and start retreating if it looks at all like you're going to die - as far as traditional death this is probably only going to occur if you're being attacked by more than one monster, but not necessarily. You may also benefit greatly from looking up "instadeath" (and delayed instadeaths) on either the wiki or the spoilers. The most likely way you'll die at this point is from something killing you with an instadeath attack, and they're all pretty much avoidable provided you know what you're looking for.

As for advancing your char, I'd personally say your #1 priority at this point should be trying to get reflection somehow. Unfortunately, there's only a few ways to do this: (1) silver dragon scale mail, which is out cause you have GDSM, (2) shield of reflection, which is likely to spawn in a statue near medusa, but can't be used with cleaver (or any other two handed weapons), (3) amulet of reflection, which is what you should use (if you can find/wish for one). If there is a shield of reflection on medusa's island, you may want to spend some more time sacrificing at the altar until you get a decent one handed artifact weapon. Actually, you may want to do that either way, since while cleaver is very good, using a shield for more AC might help you survive longer (particularly if it allows you to get reflection), and you'll also have the option of two-weapon combat.


There's probably a large amount of things I'm not saying here because the midgame is almost as complicated as the early game (and I don't consider myself capable of writing a general guide for it either), but by all means let me know if you've got any other questions or you run into a situation that looks scary.

-CG

edit: thought of something already. You can't start the quest until you're clvl 14, so that's something to keep in mind. You also probably won't be levelling from experience any more. Eat wraith corpses whenever possible (unless you're very satiated) - you gain a level for each one. Be quick about it, though, because they rot in about 2 turns. Dance with foocubi if you're in a situation where being naked isn't going to result in YASD (when fighting whichever of incubus or succubus is opposite your gender, you may feel very attracted to them, at which point they will start (attempting) to remove your clothing. For anything where you get a choice, allow them to remove your cloak and armor and decline everything else. If, at the end of their trying to get you naked, you don't have your cloak and armor, you two will have a bit of fun and something random will happen. One of the possible positive outcomes is gaining a level. Nearly all of the possible negative outcomes can be cured by a unicorn horn except losing a level, but losing a level places you at 1 exp below your previous level, so just go kill something.) You can also drink non-cursed potions of gain level, but if you're planning on making it through to ascension you'll want to save at least one to curse (a cursed potion of gain level causes you to rise through the ceiling and go to the next higher dungeon level - this is extremely useful in a couple places during an ascension run).
 
Re: OT: Nethack

The two things I can think of that will really ruin your day right now:

(1) Do not attempt to enchant your GDSM any further. +5 is the maximum any non-elven armor can be safely enchanted. If you attempt to enchant it further, it will likely vanish.

(2) Do not put another bag of holding, a bag of tricks, or a wand of cancellation in to your bag of holding. It will explode, taking with it everything that's inside it. As an extension, do not put any unidentified wands in your bag of holding until you know for certain they aren't wand of cancellation. Bags of tricks can be automatically identified by looting them when they are on the ground (will hurt you slightly), or by applying them when they're in your inventory (will create a monster).

You ruined the surprise. (although it's a very mean surprise in both cases).

@NacRuno: Since you're now at the clvl where experience and level gains really slow down, I'd recommend the following. If you manage to find & identify a potion (!) of gain level, don't drink it until you hit level 13. You need to be lvl 14 to do the quest and it's a lot easier to level from 12 to 13 than from 13 to 14.

Other ways to gain levels are by eating a Wraith corpse or engaging in "questionable" activities with some of the dungeon's inhabitants.

If you haven't bought protection yet, you might want to look up how to do that.

@everyone: check out the death list on alt.org/nethack server. There are some classics that will make you go :rolf: or :doh:

edit: I swear CG's edit wasn't there when I started my post...............I'll stop trying now.



 
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Re: OT: Nethack

I'm a nub too, but I'm making a lot of use of wikihack to figure out what I'm up to. Latest stupid error: putting unidentified wands into an unidentified bag. They can go boom and cost you a bag of holding and everything in it. :(

mv

edit: posted this after reading through pg 3, so it's a bit...lame? dated? sleepy? something.
 
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Re: OT: Nethack

Started up another barb this evening, but died in the mines at level 9 with ~18000 points. It was mainly due to bad luck...No good armor dropped(1 AC at death) and I didn't find any rings, amulets, or potions(seriously...). I did manage to get Cleaver from my God though. I put up a good fight at the end, but I got swarmed by zombies, didn't have much of anything to engrave with, and eventually died. Oh well. I can honestly say that I've gotten much better at the game now and could most likely have gone much deeper into game if my luck hadn't been so poor. I'll update the table later(or someone update for me if they post it and read it) since it's a rather insignificant update.
 
Re: OT: Nethack

...snip...
I've been reading through all the options descriptions this morning. I sit rather far away from my monitor, and I managed to change the font sizes so I can stop squinting to read the masses of text. However, I play with tiles and I haven't yet found a way of either increasing the tile sizes or manipulating/forcing screen resolution. I can read stuff, but I still can't really see the game itself from a normal playing distance. Anyone have any suggestions, besides manually adjusting my monitor's resolution? Thanks!

On the official Nethack page, in the Windows download section there is a "Step 5: OPTIONAL" (near the bottom) which walks you through how to install larger tiles (32 x 32). I have not done it myself out of lazyness, but perhaps this will help if you're using Windows (I notice the step is not there for Linux or Mac).

As for me. Well I was dumped by my girlfriend on Saturday and have spent most of the time between then and now being drunk, miserable and not feeling much like playing games.

I did have a go at it last night and managed to kill my saved barbarian to a Rothe, I was running away, but didn't really care enough to try and avoid it any further.

On my next attempt I managed to displace my kitten into a boulder trap, killing him instantly (You hear a distant rumble...), I always try not to displace my pet for this reason... oops. Anyway, I followed him into the trap as it seemed like the right thing to do (I was only level 2ish anyway).

I will update the table with my current attempts count later.

Hopefully I have better luck tonight.
-hps

Edit: Just installed the 32 x 32 option. It's certainly bigger... but umm... it's not really easier to tell what the tiles are. They're just more blocky.

Edit2: Ok, having wandered around a bit, and seen some monsters/items now, I may have been a little quick to judge. Definitely give the large blocks a try. Some things are blockier (doors, walls, etc.), but others are easier to see I think. (by see, I mean figure out what they are without having to use the / command on them.)



 
Re: OT: Nethack

Ermm... Sorry for the double post, but I have to ask, and I've already edited the last post enough times I think. Not to mention that this is sort of a new topic.

I found a crystal wand, which I B/U/C'd with my pet. And I'm confused about engraving with them. It's my understanding that they identify themselves if you engrave with them. I however, have not yet had one identify itself. I assume this is because I have not yet successfully engraved the word I was trying to engrave? Does it have to be a successful engrave?

Anyway, on with the story. I used to try and engrage Elbereth (or however you spell it), but decided that I'd have a better chance of a successful engrave with a shorter word, so I started engraving the word "the".

Anyway, on this attempt I got the "t" and the "h" right, but botched the "e" into a "c"... the result was "thc" and the game told me "all the bugs on this floor are frozen"... is this the normal effect of engraving "thc"? Or just a coincidence?

Either way, it entertained me. I've tried to find info on this on the wikihack page, but to no avail.

btw, thanks CG, for your enthusiasm towards the game and towards helping us noobs!

-hps
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Wands (mostly) do not auto-id when you engrave with them; when you engrave with them you get a message that gives you a hint to what the wand does (most of them are pretty easy to guess, at least if you know what the possibilities are). There's a full list of the messages in the spoilers (and I'd assume in wikihack somewhere, possibly in the engrave entry (or identification entry) if it isn't in the wand entry) - I won't spoil this specific one for you in case you want to guess.

-CG

edit: it's the wand entry.

edit2: if you're having trouble seeing what's what with the tiles, try ASCII. It's better.
 
Re: OT: Nethack

My latest character died to a gnome that kept shooting me with an ice wand. I used a scroll of scare monster the first time (after realizing the healing potions healed me less than the wand damaged me) and got away. I retreated to higher dungeons and gained a level or two, but when I came back down I was still destroyed in two hits. My spell of protection did not seem to make a difference, and I could not get close enough to him to hit him.

If something like that happens, does that just mean I have to head for the mines first? I had not yet reached the oracle, so I was holding off on the mines.
 
Re: OT: Nethack

My latest character died to a gnome that kept shooting me with an ice wand. I used a scroll of scare monster the first time (after realizing the healing potions healed me less than the wand damaged me) and got away. I retreated to higher dungeons and gained a level or two, but when I came back down I was still destroyed in two hits. My spell of protection did not seem to make a difference, and I could not get close enough to him to hit him.

If something like that happens, does that just mean I have to head for the mines first? I had not yet reached the oracle, so I was holding off on the mines.

Sometimes the game forces your hand and you have to be willing to change things up. In this case, backing up to gain some levels was a very good thing. One thing you could try next time is go down to the mines and hopefully find a pick-axe. Then go back to the main dungeon and instead of going down the stairs to the "gnome of freezing death" level, dig a hole from somewhere else on the level above. That would make you appear randomly on the "gnome" level (and hopefully out of harms way). Dig another hole and now the gnome can wait until you're a lot stronger (and hopefully have gained the cold resistance intrinsic or an amulet of reflection). I'm sure there are other ways to get out of the situation like using scrolls of teleport, etc.



 
Re: OT: Nethack

The only thing I'd have to add is that wands have a limited number of charges - if you can survive one hit with certainty (while on the stairs or otherwise able to guarantee that you'll only take that one hit), take the hit, go upstairs and heal, go take another hit. Eventually you'll have a (relatively) defenseless gnome with an empty, rechargable wand of cold.

In most cases a random early attack wand on a monster results in a pretty nearly unavoidable death, though.

-CG
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Smips, I think I've updated your entry correctly. Feel free to correct me if I haven't. :D

Code:
-[B]SPF Leaderboard[/B]-
Forum Name           Char Name      Role    Attempts       Score
----------           ---------      ----    --------       -----
CG                   Larzuk         Bar            3     4354274A
CG                   Kashya         Rog            2      138880
midnightvulture      Trogdor        Bar            6       55224
Smips                Smips          Bar            6       41037
CG                   Ormus          Pri            1       40631
OHG                  Joe            Pri            3       35405
NacRuno              Qual           Bar           12       17040
TRM                  Moar           Bar           11       12737
Hp_Sauce             Hp_Sauce       Bar            8        9119
SiTro                SiTro          Bar            2         706
Vildecor             Ilana          Val            1           0

Code:
[b]Competition #1 - Role(Barbarian), Race(Any), Align(Any), Gender(Any)[/b]
End Date for Creation of New Chars: [b]3/31/09, 11:59 PM local time[/b]

Forum Name           Char Name      Attempts      Score  Current Progress
----------           ---------      --------      -----  ----------------
CG                   Larzuk                3    4354274A
midnightvulture      Trogdor               3      55224
Smips                Smips                 7      41037
NacRuno              Qual                 12      17040
TRM                  Moar                 11      12737
Hp_Sauce             Hp_Sauce              8       9119
SiTro                SiTro                 2       1302  DLvl = 1

Code:
Competition #2 - Role(Priest), Race(Elf), Align(Chaotic), Gender(Any)
End Date for Creation of New Chars: [b]4/15/09, 11:59 PM local time[/b]

Forum Name           Char Name      Attempts      Score  Current Progress
----------           ---------      --------      -----  ----------------
CG                   Ormus                 1      40631
OHG                  Joe                   3      35405

Code:
[b]Competition #3 - Role(Rogue), Race(Any), Align(Any), Gender(Female)[/b]
End Date for Creation of New Chars: [b]4/30/09, 11:59 PM local time[/b]

Forum Name           Char Name      Attempts      Score  Current Progress
----------           ---------      --------      -----  ----------------
CG                   Kashya                2     138880

[OT]Played some ADOM today. An orcish barbarian character. My normal play is to go to Terinyo, and if the PC has either the healing or herbalism skill, choose the quest that gives you the other. If they have both or neither then I go with the quest from Rynt (healing). After that, I go to the outlaw town, try to kill a mugger or a beggar, then head to the small cave for the waterproof blanket. Descend through the UD for the easy access to the high mountain village, then go back and complete whichever quest from Terinyo I chose. This time, I got that far, then got killled by a random wilderness encounter while headed to the Caverns of Chaos (the main focus of the game, for the uninitiated).[/OT]

Starting a new character for Nethack now. Not sober however, which could work against me...

Will edit this post if I die quickly.
Edit: Bah. Died to Rothes on Dlvl 3 or so. Pants. By the by, I use the TTY view, so am not sure how they look on tiles. :p
 
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Re: OT: Nethack

I've got a question that I could find the answer to in the Wiki(or I just read over it :D). How long does it take for corpses to go bad? I know sometimes(usually early game), I'll take 2 turns to kill 2 jackles, then move over the corpse of the first one, eat it, and it's rotten already. Do different corpses have a different amounts of time before going bad? I got food poisoning when playing last night for a corpse I though was still pretty fresh.

Also, what are the chances of a level being loaded from a Bones file? I've been seeing a lot of them lately...One that had two ghosts on it!...Both of which were oddly a named Smips... ;)
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Corpses go "bad" after 50 turns (though I believe there's further stages of "bad"). However, rotten food just happens (and is different than the corpse having gone bad). For things carried, being cursed (or being an egg or a tripe ration) makes it more likely to be rotten, but anything randomly can be, including corpses. There is no way to tell, but it isn't really that bad for you.

-CG
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Corpses go "bad" after 50 turns (though I believe there's further stages of "bad"). However, rotten food just happens (and is different than the corpse having gone bad). For things carried, being cursed (or being an egg or a tripe ration) makes it more likely to be rotten, but anything randomly can be, including corpses. There is no way to tell, but it isn't really that bad for you.

-CG

Ahh, I thought when it said the food was rotten, you had a chance of food poisoning.


 
Re: OT: Nethack

I'd make an update to the tables, but only one number would changed: my attempts. :banghead:

17 overall tries, and 17 uber failures. I've now gotten to Minetown twice, but things keep going wrong while I'm there. Yesterday was bad luck and rash decisions. I had all my weapons stolen by a nymph, so I attempted to get a Cleaver by converting the altar with only a 5/9 chance. I spawned a demon. The only weapon for sale was a long sword, so I ran away, bought it, and attempted to dip into fountains for an Excalibur. Five water demons spawned: deeds. Today was all out stupidity: I got busted for kicking down doors twice, so I defended myself against the watchmen. Little did I realize that I had an xbow equipped with zero bolts, rather than my standard two-hander. Wrecked SO quickly. I think my dog was dead, too, since he kept attacking a watchman in the altar room (unaligned again) and was too upset to be on a leash for long.

I've learned how to manage the very beginning of the game, but by the time I hit the Oracle or am ready to backtrack to the mines, something always goes wrong. I'll admit my patience is starting to wear thin, but I also know that failure is inevitable and unavoidable for a noob like me. Deep breaths and beer will get me through the trying times. ...I hope!

@Hp_S: Thanks for the heads-up about installing the larger tiles. I tried it, and I hate it! :D I'll learn to live with the small icons.

Question: do the ghosts of your former attempts always drop cursed items? Seems that way to me so far. I haven't read up on bones files on the wiki yet.
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Bones files: Things you find in them have a high chance of being cursed, but not everything is always automatically cursed. Please note that only the B/U/C is changed while the former enchantment is left as it was (regular cursed equipment has a high chance of being negatively enchanted, bones cursed equipment is the same as it used to be except for now being cursed) - a (formerly blessed, now) cursed rustproof +5 gray dragon scale mail is still probably a good thing to put on, even if you can't take it off in the forseeable future. Don't know the odds of bones files being left and being loaded off the top of my head.


A list of don'ts:

Converting the minetown altar causing the priest to become hostile and (a) kick your @$$, and (b) not offer protection anymore: Don't.

Sacrificing corpses of your race (or humans, forget whether it's humans or members-of-own-race that causes it - both are a bad idea IMO) causing a demon to appear and preventing whatever good outcome you were hoping for from having any chance: Don't.

Dipping in fountains for excalibur when not lawful (which won't work): Don't.

Kicking down doors or otherwise pissing off the minetown watch: Don't. Use a key/lockpick/credit card on the doors (and stop if they tell you to) and stop drinking from/dipping from fountains when they "reduce to a trickle". Please note that receiving excalibur from a fountain will always immediately dry it up without a warning first, so receiving excalibur in minetown will always piss off the watch.

Getting impatient and making stupid mistakes: Don't. Instead, save your game and start a new one to screw around with/go play some d2/etc. If you're routinely able to get to X point, but at X point you start to get impatient (because you've been playing the same game for a few hours) and always kill yourself, just stop playing at X point until you're feeling more patient. It took me a while to learn this lesson.

-CG

edit: Five days left in the barb comp! (give or take a bit depending on your time zone).
 
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Re: OT: Nethack

Wow, that's a lot I was doing wrong. My thoughts were that the priest in Minetown would turn hostile only if you attacked him, so that was obviously stupid. And I had forgotten only lawfuls can get Excalbur; that was all me, I was completely drained and had been playing for hours. I'm thinking either orcs or chaotics may be immune to the "don't-sacrifice-own-race" rule, but who am I to say? I forget the really important things to know, so no one should take those assumptions as truths: grin:

My mistakes today (getting busted by watchmen and physically attacking with an xbow) were completely dumb, too. Not rash persay, but YASD to the nth degree. I thought I was clear for a kick, but I was wrong. Then I forgot I had killed a nymph with my last bolt a minute beforehand to avoid the same death I had yesterday. ...Believe me, I learned a lot the last two days.
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Chaotics (but not non-chaotic orcs) are able to have the demon that appears be peaceful (not a pet) rather than hostile, but it's still undesirable as compared to any of the positive outcomes of sacrificing.

-CG
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Code:
-[B]SPF Leaderboard[/B]-
Forum Name           Char Name      Role    Attempts       Score
----------           ---------      ----    --------       -----
CG                   Larzuk         Bar            3     4354274A
CG                   Kashya         Rog            2      138880
midnightvulture      Trogdor        Bar            6       55224
Smips                Smips          Bar            6       41037
CG                   Ormus          Pri            1       40631
OHG                  Joe            Pri            3       35405
NacRuno              Qual           Bar           12       17040
TRM                  Moar           Bar           11       12737
Hp_Sauce             Hp_Sauce       Bar            8        9119
SiTro                SiTro          Bar            2         706
Vildecor             Ilana          Val            1           0

Code:
[b]Competition #1 - Role(Barbarian), Race(Any), Align(Any), Gender(Any)[/b]
End Date for Creation of New Chars: [b]3/31/09, 11:59 PM local time[/b]

Forum Name           Char Name      Attempts      Score  Current Progress
----------           ---------      --------      -----  ----------------
CG                   Larzuk                3    4354274A
midnightvulture      Trogdor               3      55224
Smips                Smips                 10     41037
NacRuno              Qual                 12      17040
TRM                  Moar                 11      12737
Hp_Sauce             Hp_Sauce              8       9119
SiTro                SiTro                 2       1302  DLvl = 1

Code:
Competition #2 - Role(Priest), Race(Elf), Align(Chaotic), Gender(Any)
End Date for Creation of New Chars: [b]4/15/09, 11:59 PM local time[/b]

Forum Name           Char Name      Attempts      Score  Current Progress
----------           ---------      --------      -----  ----------------
CG                   Ormus                 1      40631
OHG                  Joe                   3      35405

Code:
[b]Competition #3 - Role(Rogue), Race(Any), Align(Any), Gender(Female)[/b]
End Date for Creation of New Chars: [b]4/30/09, 11:59 PM local time[/b]

Forum Name           Char Name      Attempts      Score  Current Progress
----------           ---------      --------      -----  ----------------
CG                   Kashya                2     138880

Did three attempts last night. As usual, they were going well until something horrible happened. Two deaths were on bone levels(black unicorn killed me on one, the other my HP just got slowly depleted and Elbereth failed). The last one was pretty dumb. I was looking for a wish and drank from the fountains in Minetown. I didn't know that pissed off the guards =/.

@CG: 2k spam posts, I see ;).
 
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Re: OT: Nethack

It only pisses the watch off if you completely deplete the fountains. Excalibur aside (see above), you will always get a message ("The flow reduces to a trickle") one quaff/dip before the fountain expires, so it's safe until that point.

And, you've gotta watch out for bones levels. They can be a huge bonus (free gear, yay), but whatever killed your last char is still going to be hanging around. If you're feeling fragile, it's not a bad idea to back off until you consider yourself capable of handing whatever killed you last time.

For the record, bones files are another reason why it's a Very Bad Idea to summon demons at altars. It's extremely gg when your new char is looking promising and is moving along quite nicely only to unexpectedly run in to Asmodeous in minetown.

-CG
 
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