OT: Nethack

Re: OT: Nethack

Edit: Tonight I realized that - since I was recording the turns at which I prayed with a pencil - I could just erase my last record, and write it again, instead of scratching it out and writing a new record. I guess this is like what the difference is like between NASA (inventing gravityless pens, and Russia, just taking pencils to space). I'm the smartest man alive.

If you don't feel like keeping a pencil and paper handy, try (N)aming your armor or pickaxe or something to "p(turn)", and then just renaming it when you pray again. This is mainly handy if you're likely to put the char aside for a little bit and you're prone to losing little scraps of paper with numbers written on them. I used to keep all my notes (prayer, intrinsics, stash locations, genocides, etc) in notepad or on paper nearby, but after a lot more than once where I saved a promising game then came back to having no idea whether it was safe to pray, I started taking all my notes on my equipment instead.

-CG


 
Re: OT: Nethack

Well RL reared it's ugly head and I haven't played Nethack since. My Barbarian and my Priest are both still alive (and unplayed). I would like to take this brief moment of free time I have (at 3am) to bow out of this event. Perhaps I will play them again, but not within a reasonable length of time, I just have other **** to do and it sucks.

I would also like to thank Smips for creating the thread. I had heard of and attempted to play Nethack in the past, but never quite appreciated it. I have always been and always will be a guy who supports gameplay first, and graphics second. Anyone who spends a year designing the graphics and then a week designing the game doesn't get my money.

This time around (thanks to some healthy advise) I caught the bug properly, and dived in.

Nethack has now raised the bar, and not just a little bit either... It's way up there in the clouds, I have to put my glasses on to see it properly. If you can't kick in the shop door in D3 only to find a very, very angry merchant who was trying to do inventory, I will be disappointed.

*goes to make some more money, so that he can buy a new computer that will run D3, because of the damn graphics.*

-hps
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Nethack has now raised the bar, and not just a little bit either... It's way up there in the clouds, I have to put my glasses on to see it properly. If you can't kick in the shop door in D3 only to find a very, very angry merchant who was trying to do inventory, I will be disappointed.

*goes to make some more money, so that he can buy a new computer that will run D3, because of the damn graphics.*

Hahaha, I concur. I want to see the wrath of a peeved shop keeper when he realizes you've stolen the most valuable item in his store. Mimics in D3 FTW.

I, too, will have to get a new computer for D3, but in the meantime I've got a couple good games to keep me occupied.

I haven't played NH in a while myself, but not for lack of desire. I've been semi-busy myself, and this isn't a game where I can devote only a half hour of my time. I'll fall back into it for sure; the icon is directly beside my D2 shortcut. :thumbup:

Thanks to those who turned me on to NetHack. Why are all the best games as old as NH and D2? :scratchchin:


 
Re: OT: Nethack

It seems I wasn't the only to be distracted by RL :p. School's been hectic lately, so I've had no time for D2 or NH. I think this thread will deserve a good necroing at some point...It was a lot of fun :)
 
Re: OT: Nethack

It has been a looong time since I played Nethack, like 10 years ago lol. I have really fond memories of it though. Probably the first game I wasted unnecessary time on :)
 
Re: OT: Nethack

I have to say, this thread left an impression on me I was never able to fully shrug off. Last night, when I should have gone to sleep, I installed Nethack.

da da DUM! :whistling:

I'm not good enough for a tournament yet, but I figured this thread is still good for some OT nethack action and noob questions, right?

I'm playing a human barb, trying to be careful to not do tempting things like attack floating eyes or mess with fountains. I'm level 5 atm. My pet got killed by a boulder very early on though :(

Question: are shops useful for buying from legitimately, or only good for stealing?
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Both :)
Shops do sell great stuff. Especially as you go down deeper and deeper in the dungeon. However, there's a few perks... like if you are wearing an hawain tshirt or are level 20 (?) or less Tourist, you will be charged a Sucker tax of 33% on any listed price. Or if you are buying food while hungry, price will increase by every hungry level...

As for stealing... I do really advise against it unless you have a good tamed pet, or teleport. Pets can steal for you if you stay at the doorway and the pet is inside. Any item the pet picks up and drops right in front of you can be safely picked up. But this happens rarely and will consume a lot of time. A teleport wand on the other hand allows you to steal virtually any item and escape by teleporting the shopkeeper. He will become hostile and summon a lot of what's-their-name. That level will become much harder for you. Only do it if you have finished exploring and do not plan to go back to that level and have an easy route to the level exit.
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Thank you for the advice!

I think I'm doing pretty well for my first attempt. I'm now level 9, made it down to the oracle, and decided to loop back and do the mines. I'm on the level below minetown now.

Fun things:
1) I'm on my third cat pet. RIP Rex and Fluffy.
2) I painstakingly killed a floating eye before I got my towel by throwing my single dagger at it over and over again.
3) Telepathy is neat!
4) Nymphs are annoying as hell. Eventually had to track it down naked and bash its skull in with my bare hands.
5) Unicorns are also annoying; took forever for my pet and I to kill this one (cross-aligned of course). But I have a horn now!
6) I've found 2 altars so far, counting the one in minetown, and they're both lawful! Grrr.
7) The praying-for-nourishment trick mentioned earlier in this thread is super handy.
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Nerigazh, it seems we continue to get drawn to the same games. I love Nethack!


If I do not have a pet, I will often buy stuff anyway if I am rich enough and I want the items. Especially some tools and armor items that looks to be magical (but I won´t try them on unless I have some way to determine they are not cursed). I love playing Archaeologists for several reasons. They can ID gems (great source of cash) from the start.

Oh yeah, and when I do buy something, I will always drop that amount of gold on the shop floor and buy from the credit. If I later have a pet, I can have it steal the gold back. Or some intelligent creature (orc, etc.) may enter the shop and pick up the gold. If that creature then leaves the shop, I can kill it and get the gold back.

Shops are also great for price-ID of items. Useful if you don´t have a lot of Identify opportunities.

Throwing stuff at floating eyes is a good way to kill them. I once blinded myself with a cream pie ((a)pplied it on myself) and then killed it in melee. :yes:

Nymphs are indeed annoying as hell. In the early game, I usually move around my pet, so it can kill the nymph. Later on, I use ranged attacks. Wand of Striking is a bad idea, though, as it will usually break their mirror (which means -2 to luck).

Having your pet kill a co-aligned unicorn incurs no penalty (you can even eat the corpse, but DO NOT sacrifice it!).

If you have a positive alignment score (killing a lot of monsters and generally staying away from 'offensive' activities usually means your alignment is high) you can try converting altars to your aligment (by sacrificing a fresh (within 50 turns old) corpse). High luck helps (if you fail, you will have some bad luck for a while). Avoid converting altars with a priest, though, unless you are really strong or have a monster pet (like a dragon or so...).


Happy Hacking! :thumbup:
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Thank you for the tips!

I'm level 10 now, on Cat #4 (Rufus got teleported to the great unknown), and have beaten the mines and got my luckstone.

I went back up and converted the altar on dlvl 4.

So now I really really want an artifact. I've sacrificed over a dozen monsters (thanks, bag of tricks!) but no dice yet, just the four-leaf clover messages.

Rant time: I HATE polymorph traps. They have by far been the most difficult thing in the game so far. And the damn things destroyed the only two sets of mithril armor I found :( :(
 
Re: OT: Nethack

OK, I am going to enter with a character. I have an urge/desire to do some nice write-ups, so I hope someone will read them.

Even if I am going to play pretty much as safely as I can, I am going to try to roleplay this character a little bit more than usual. Maybe not always doing the 'optimal' thing, because my character may have a will of her own.

Meet Laura (last name is Kraft, just for the joke aspect of it), the Human Archaeologist.

Bad traits of an archaelogist
* Really not an early game combat monster! They are permanently unskilled with many good weapons: swords (with the exceptions of scimitar and sabre, and when they get crowned they will be able to reach basic skill with longswords), axes, polearms, the common ranged weapons (bow, crossbow). Can just get basic with dagger (so no extra daggers per round when throwing). And they start with really poor armor, just a leather jacket that lowers AC by 1...
* Permantly unskilled in three spell schools, and can just reach basic in three others (including attack spells).

Good traits of an archaeologist
* Can become Expert with pick-axe, sabre and Divination spells. Can become skilled with scimitar and unicorn horn. They start with a pick-axe, so they can train with that and become good at it, which is really useful once they find a dwarvish mattock (the most damaging non-artifact weapon in the game). The mattock will serve them well until they can start using the great combo of a nice one-handed artifact and a silver sabre (both highly enchanted, of course).
* Can dual wield (imo, this is a huge advantage in the mid-late game).
* Starts with a tinning kit. Among other things, this makes it quite easy to become poison resistant. Many of the corpse types that can give poison resistance are poisonous themselves to eat, but tinned corpses are never poisonous. And if a giant mummy/zombie leaves a corpse, you can tin that and get STR instead of food poisoning.
* Starts with a touchstone, and the ability to use uncursed touchstones as blessed. So they will be able to ID all gems from the start, which is good for building cash and getting luck from throwing gems at unicorns.
* Starts with at least 3 food rations. Always a plus.



(BTW, I take the opposite approach compared to Colorless Green when it comes to magic, at least for the late part of the game. No matter what role I play, I aim for gear that gives the maximum spellcasting ability. I dump the metallic armor items when I can. Instead, Robe and +5 Helm of Brilliance are mandatory.)
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Mwahaha! You got sucked in :thumbsup:

I will (as always) follow your exploits with eagerness, jiansonz! Also fun to see that you like dual-wielding in this game but not in BG (a point that I unfortunately have to disagree with you on, as my BG1 warriors who've dual-wielded have always been real monster-shredders, at the fairly small cost of having to go to the inventory screen to switch to a bow)... but I digress :crazyeyes:

Obligatory Noob Question: Now that my Bag of Tricks is out of charges, how should I go about finding monsters to sacrifice? It seems you can only use corpses fresher than 50 turns, which is not a long time... I think it pretty much rules out carrying corpses from different levels to the altar.
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Wands and scrolls (and spells, for that matter, but if you're stripping out of your armor to cast them you're asking for YASD) of create monster also work. There's also the terribly low-tech solution of just sitting by the altar until stuff wanders up to sacrifice.

What you should really do, though, is forget about trying to brute force an artifact out of the altar and just move forward - in a couple more levels you'll likely have a large number of spare create monster wands (if you're diligent about engrave-id'ing) and scrolls (if you manage to identify them).


Speaking generally, it's very easy to fall into the trap of "it's an artifact, it must be gg, and without it I am fail" - I spent years of this game wielding sting with almost every char I played while discarding longswords and such. This isn't diablo where uniques are all many, many times better than regular weapons. Plain, unenchanted weapons are quite effective. Many of the artifacts are actually worse than other normal weapons due to weapon skill problems or only being effective against certain types of monsters (that aren't currently common). Also, regular weapons can still spawn enchanted (though the only way short of identify to be sure is by price-id, but it's a very simple price-id). I'd rather have a +2 longsword than a +0 trollsbane any day of the week.

-CG
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Thanks CG. I agree about moving on; I'm going to try Sokoban after lunch.

That makes sense, re: artifacts. However, from earlier reading in this thread, I was under the impression that Barbarians are guaranteed Cleaver as their first gift, which really would be significantly better than what I have now.
 
Re: OT: Nethack

To be honest, I didn't bother looking back at what you were playing before speaking generally. Barbarians are guaranteed cleaver as a first gift, which is better than most of the generic stuff (though a two handed sword with >basic skill is probably better than a basic cleaver, but that is remedied 60 hits later). Even still, cleaver does you no good if it kills you (generally through starvation) trying to get it.

After sokoban, you should have a pretty large reserve of food, so you're fully able to try to get cleaver that way - just "n100." (rest x100) and then put on a blindfold to see what monsters spawned (you do have both telepathy and a blindfold/towel, right?). Definitely do not deplete your entire food stores doing this.

-CG
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Whew!

Just completed Sokoban, hit level 11. Remarks:

1) I hate Sokoban :steam: I'm not a huge fan of puzzles in general, especially this sort (it reminds me of those puzzles where there's a scrambled picture on squares and you have to unscramble it only having one free space). Also, on the fourth level I accidentally made a couple of movement-key typos and moved a couple boulders to bad locations. I eventually had to cheat with a wand of striking :(

2) The zoo at the end was fun though! I got a bag of holding.

3) On my way out, a Titan spawned! And I think he can summon monsters, because there were a ton of weird beasties I had to get through to escape (didn't feel like going hand to hand with him).

4) I had a lycanthropic encounter. :thumbsdown: Had to pray to fix it; being a werewolf sucked, though I have a pet wolf now.

5) My pet wolf became a ghoul after eating a chameleon corpse :\ Thank goodness for magic whistles.

Question: Which should I try to go for first, magic resistance or reflection? I want to be prepared in case I get a wish.
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Magic Resistance definitely. Reflection should be a concern too (try to wish for Silver Dragon armor) and be on the lookout for amulets and weapons that may carry this property. A shame the Sokoban levels didn't reward you with one. I hear the chances are very high you get an amulet of reflection somewhere inside.

In any case, consider Magic Resistance as da Property in NetHack.
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Sokoban has a 50/50 chance of either a bag of holding or an amulet of reflection ("oR).

Medusa's lair frequently spawns with a shield of reflection (to be technical, there's a 50/50 chance of two different maps. One map has a 75% chance of the shield, the other map has a 25% chance of the shield).

The other common sources of MR and reflection are GDSM (gray dragon scale mail - MR) and SDSM (silver dragon scale mail - reflection) and cloak of magic resistance.

Your endgame options (simplified) are GDSM with either "oR or the shield or SDSM with a cloak of magic resistance. The shield plus GDSM is the simplest option if you're willing to use a shield, which you shouldn't (though using it temporarily until you can wish for a "oR is an excellent idea).

What you should wish for with your first wish is either SDSM or GDSM - there isn't a "right" answer since it's purely personal preference unless you find a source of reflection/MR before you find a wish. If you use the GDSM, you need to get reflection from either an amulet (prevents ESP and life saving) or a shield (prevents #twoweapon). If you use the SDSM, you need to get reflection from a cloak (prevents displacement).

There is a guaranteed wand of wishing in the castle which will allow you to have both options before entering gehennom (assuming you can get to it).

Personally, my first wish is GDSM nearly 100% of the time (it's far easier to get non-wish sources of reflection than MR, and wishes are precious). The only exceptions are when I've already got a cloak of magic resistance or I'm playing a monk.

-CG
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Whew!
Question: Which should I try to go for first, magic resistance or reflection? I want to be prepared in case I get a wish.

Well, since you said you hated polymorph traps, magic resistance should be nice for you.



Really lucky start for Laura. STR 14, INT 16, and magic marker! (0:50) First time ever I´ve started a NH game with a magic marker (the chance is 6.75% for an Archaeologist).

Hmm, it sucks being human at the start! Can´t see more than one square in the corridors, and it´s hard to keep track of my cat unless I push him in front of me. And when the corridor branches, I can not know where he went...

Big room with a violet gem, a wand, a black potion and the stairs down. Worthless violet glass, and a Wand of Striking.

Early DL 3: Gustaf (my cat - it´s the Swedish name for the cartoon Garfield) took two hits from a large kobold. "Are you hurt, sweetie?" He purrs. Seems he´s OK...

Annootok's General Store at DL 3 (11x3 squares packed with juicy items!). Looks like a Mimic just diagonally inside the door. Search. Find mimic. Kick mimic. Flee out. "Gustaf! A little help here!" Nope, he is busy eating an egg. Stupid cat...

Ah, I forgot to mention one important thing about this role. Archaeologists start with intrinsic speed (and stealth, and they get searching at level 10).

OK, back off. Hit the mimic twice when it gets next to me, back off again, etc. Mimic dead, I hit level 2, but gained only 2 HPs. Grrr.

Let´s see what´s in this shop (once Gustaf ate the egg and the tripe in there...): bolts, crystal plate mail, banded mail, two-handed sword, dwarvish mattock (!), plumed helmet, tin opener, 4 potions (2 of one kind), 5 scrolls, a wand, an amulet, a leash, a fortune cookie, a food ration, three spellbooks, a lantern, a blue gem and two rings

Price testing. My scroll I had found was identify (nice!), and there is one more in the store. Black potion had a base cost of 250, which means it´s acid or oil. Easy to test - apply it. If it is oil, it´s IDed this way. And it was. Can be used as a small light source, or thrown at an enemy (like a bomb) in a pinch.

Time to put Gustaf to use. I bought the leash, leashed Gustaf and led him into the store.

Plumed helmet was +3! (it was not helm of brilliance or of opposite alignment)

Magenta potion was expensive. Paralysis or gain level/ability.

A +2 Ring of Protection!

Amulet. I could see rat and grid bug through walls. Amulet of ESP! Gustaf became a housecat after fighting the rat and grid bug.

White spellbook is level 7. Whoa! I sold it for the time being. I´ll get back when I have monster INT and have gained some levels. And Magenta spellbook is level 6! Third spellbook was level 1, so I read it. Healing. I have Power=5, so I can actually use it. 37% fail.

Scroll with base price 200. I name these <start of cryptic scroll text> CrM/Tam/Amn/Earth (Create Monster, Taming, Amnesia, Earth). When I know three of these, I can deduct the fourth. Plus these are the scrolls I usually ID first (because taming is so good and amnesia is so bad).

DL5 - Delphi
Had to flee vs black naga hatchling. Remembered that I know healing. Used that. Killed a kobold shaman. Fought the hatchling close to stairs - it escaped upstairs.

Hobbit dropped combat boots. Gustaf moves only reluctantly on them so they are cursed. In this case, I suspect Levitation- or Fumble boots. So I name them so they look like this in inventory:
- a pair of boots called combat, found one cursed pair named these are
If I now find a second cursed pair of these, I am almost sure it´s the ones that are usually generated cursed.

DL 6
I made a temporary storage pile by sokoban stairs

Sokoban 1 (DL 5)
Had to go down and bring Gustaf to fight off two killer bees. No corpses. Black naga hatchling. Left corpse. Acidic, but I ate it anyway. "You feel healthy!" Whee!

Sokoban 2
Screwed up, had to destroy two boulders. The bad luck will go away.

Sokoban 3
Brown mold wedged in between boulders in such a way that I had to temporarily move boulders so my wand of striking wouldn´t destroy any boulder. Mold left a corpse => Cold resistance!

Sokoban 4
2 Giant mimics! (probably out of my league at the moment)
I healed Gustaf several times, but the second mimic still killed him! Gaah!!!

(I´ll get a new pet. I´ll be back!!!



Problems - can´t attack the mimic without being next to it.
DL6 has a werewolf somewhere, so I dare only move between upstairs and sokoban stairs.

Laura was now skilled with pick-axe, so she went to pick up the dwarvish mattock (I had to buy this in the store earlier, it was too heavy for Gustaf to pick up)

Mines are dark, and I have no pet to help me with trap detection. (Pets whimper when they are next to a trap square.)
Enter mines anyway. Level 8, 51 HP, AC 3.
Dwarf read teleport scroll. Right, I´ll go and get my such scroll from the storage pile, so I have SOME way to flee!

DL 5 (Delphi) now has a white unicorn, so I have to be careful there.


Mines level 1 (DL 5)
Not much trouble, but fell into a trap door before finding the stairs. Only fell one floor, thankfully.

Mines level 2 (DL 6)
Soon found the upstairs. Back on Mines 1, explored it fully. Fought a gnome mummy, and had practiced enough to become Expert in pick-axe. Advanced with it.

Minetown (DL 7)
Through the walls, I see a peaceful priest of Camaxtli! The neutral god. My god.
Crazy gameplay in minetown, with nymphs, a white unicorn, two peaceful monkeys getting in the way all the time, etc.
And the tin I found in sokoban contained sauteed floating eye. Yummy! :)


Moved nearly all my temporary stash here, and BUC-tested it. One of my ID scrolls was blessed. Read it, IDed +0 helm of brilliance, ring of conflict, amulet of change. Diluted several potions in minetown. On the last one , 5 water moccasins showed up. Tough fight. Prayed to Camaxtli with 6 water bottles on the altar. Blessed two ID scrolls, my 13 poisoned darts (these were a side result from dip-IDing potion of sickness), my unicorn horn and my magic lamp (yep, Ichzak had one).


Back to Sokoban 4. Smoked out the giant mimic with a scroll of stinking cloud. Mattock + wand of striking did the trick after that. Defeated the zoo (tinned a red naga hatchling corpse in the thick of battle). Amulet of reflection as prize. Later, I got fire resistance eating that tin. Also tinned a corpse from elf mummy, but no sleep resistance that time.

Back to minetown, tamed a housecat with tripe, blessed two scrolls with sales price 80 (figuring it was a useful thing to do either way. Picked up all cursed stuff I wanted to uncurse and wore my helm of brilliance. The scroll was enchant armor (helm went to +2). I used some marker charges to write an uncursed scroll of EA, read it, then read a blessed one, and my HoB went to +5. Yay!

With a reflection ammy in my hands, I wanted to wish for GDSM, but the djinni just vanished. Crap...

Missy the housecat is now level 5 with 24 HP. I am "training" her to be big and tough, so she can kill some soldiers for some nice armor and maybe a silver sabre. Other plans include dipping those cursed boots in a fountain to get rid of the curse and see if they are levitation boots.

Laura the Neutral Human Archaeologist, level 10, 68 HP, AC -2, wearing/wielding
- an uncursed amulet called ESP
- a blessed dwarvish mattock (it got blessed when I did my water prayer. I suspect it´s +1 or so, but I don´t really know (didn´t pay attention to what I needed to buy it for - my CHA is only 8 so that messes up prices as well))
- a blessed +1 pair of hard shoes
- an uncursed +0 leather jacket (where´s the darn mithril when you need it?)
- an uncursed +0 hooded cloak (for the cancellation ##)
- a blessed +5 helm of brilliance
- a blessed +2 ring of protection
- an uncursed ring of protcetion from shape changers

Ranged weapons are 10 uncursed daggers (advanced to basic), 13 blessed poisoned darts (unskilled) and a wand of striking (I guess it has about 5 charges left, but I really don´t know).

Fleeing tools are a wand of digging, 2 scrolls of teleportation and one cursed scroll of teleportation (for when I really need to get away...far away)

Currently known spells are only healing, at 3% fail. Maybe it´s time to raid the centaur statues in Delphi? Laura doesn´t care much for 'historic' statues, but her god doesn´t like them getting destroyed. But I think she can take that alignment hit now...it´s not like I need to convert any altars now, eh?



 
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Re: OT: Nethack

I died :( :(

First but not last time, I'm sure..

And of course there was something I could have done. Should have read my teleport scroll. Sigh. (Situation was a big room with a ton of monsters. After killing some, I retreated up but was followed by two "sergeants." They hit HARD. I stupidly tried praying (though I remember in the past that had protected me from hits... guess that's not a sure thing.) and got killed while helpless.)

Oh well, pretty good first run.
Code:
No  Points     Name                                                   Hp [max]
  1      67021  jcooper-Bar-Hum-Mal-Neu died in The Dungeons of Doom
                on level 9 [max 10].  Killed by a sergeant, while
                helpless.                                               - [120]

@jiansonz: :surprise: you progress so fast!
 
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