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?