OT: Nethack

[Nerigazh]

Re: OT: Nethack

Wow, that was a crazy ascension!

I love wishes too much to try wishless conduct. Genocide-less appeals more to me.

Thanks I probably wouldn't do it again; I love wishes too!

Yeah, style points for the black dragon scale mail indeed. Other than for the AC, useless as well (I assume you ate the corpse of the dragon the scales came from).

Yep, useless. However, the only non-useless DSM (I think) would have been Silver, and I know I ran into at least one (in the castle), but it didn't drop scales

Unless you have a crystal ball, 4 scrolls of dold detection is highly recommended for the elemental planes. In your situation, I would probably have written the remaining two. They are cheap - only 4-7 magic marker charges each.

Hmm, come to think of it, I think there was a crystal ball in a shop somewhere. That would have been a good idea. And you are right--I'll never be gold-detection-less again!

Interesting that you kept Magicbane as main weapon. I usually go with something bigger (although I have only ever lived long enough to choose with two wizards so far...).

I've thought about it, and it's hard to say: I definitely would have enjoyed increased attack power, but post-castle you can't believe how useful it is to have Magicbane equipped: it negates 95% of cursing attempts directed at you. I literally never had anything get cursed, even though I saw the message many times. One-turn Elbereth came in handy as well, though I wouldn't have had to wield it for that I don't think.

 

[smips]

Re: OT: Nethack

Gratz on another ascension!
Just curious, what's the purpose of using gold detection scrolls in the planes?(not that I'll ever get there )

 

[Nerigazh]

Re: OT: Nethack

Gratz on another ascension!
Just curious, what's the purpose of using gold detection scrolls in the planes?(not that I'll ever get there )

You will get there! The beginning is the hardest part.

When you read a scroll of gold detection while confused, it reveals all traps on the level. Since the portals to get to the next plane are "traps" (the ^ symbol), this is by far the best way to locate these initially-hidden, randomly-placed exits.

And lemme tell you, without a reliable way to find the exit portals, the planes can be a bummer! The monsters that spawn there aren't exactly easy, so it's not desirable to hang around a long time. Plus the Wizard of Yendor keeps appearing and trying to steal the Amulet, so you want to get through them as fast as possible.

Addendum: Btw, it's quite easy for any character to obtain a way to confuse himself at will: just read a spellbook towards the beginning of the game (read a blessed one if you aren't a spellcasting class, so that you won't fail to learn the spell) and then after 20k turns, whenever you try to cast that spell, you'll get confused instead. So just cast the forgotten spell, read the scroll, then apply your unicorn horn to fix the confusion.

Edit 2: Sigh. I'd just started my first monk, and things were going quite well. Then I saw a heavy corpse I wanted to sacrifice, and so in an effort to reduce weight, I hit '.' to put everything into my bag of holding. Veterans won't need to be told that "everything" included a single unidentified wand that of course turned out to be cancellation...

 

[maareek]

Re: OT: Nethack

Edit 2: Sigh. I'd just started my first monk, and things were going quite well. Then I saw a heavy corpse I wanted to sacrifice, and so in an effort to reduce weight, I hit '.' to put everything into my bag of holding. Veterans won't need to be told that "everything" included a single unidentified wand that of course turned out to be cancellation...

T_T. Sorry to hear about that. But yeah, don't do that (doubt you need the added reminder, though ). That's why I always engrave test a wand before I put it in my bag of holding (if the Elbereth disappears, the wand doesn't go in). Apply the bag and click every item tab manually except for unID'ed wands if you have to. It doesn't take that long and it doesn't completely screw you over. Getting a little lazy will screw you over harder in Nethack than just about any game. ;(

Congrats to all the recent ascensions/ascendants. Especially the wishless wizard is pretty crazy. I assume you used altars to good effect to load up on spellbooks, no?

No progress from me; all my gaming time is going to D2 right now.

 

[Nerigazh]

Re: OT: Nethack

Yeah; I'd never done something so daft as "select all -> bag of holding," and I won't do it again. (Especially ironic was, even after losing all my stuff, I wasn't able to lift the corpse up the stairs.)

Re: altars--I did get a spellbook or two from altar prayers, but the majority came from random finds + polymorphs. I was lucky enough to find 2 wands of polymorph, and got some good spellbooks from that (and a magic marker from a unihorn!)

 

[jiansonz]

Re: OT: Nethack

I have started another character. This time, I randomized everything. Ended up with a chaotic male elven priest. Named him Beren (it´s a common elven name in Tolkien´s more obscure work).

My starting spellbooks were Remove Curse and Cure Blindness. Both have been useful.

I am down to Minetown and I think Dlvl 4 in the main dungeon. Temple in minetown is not of my alignment. My starting cat is still with me (no leash or magic whistle to help with controlling it, though). I also had a pet pony for a while, but it´s dead now.


Gear is something like this:

blessed +3 mace (found an EW scroll (IDed by price testing), which I blessed and read)
bow
about 40 blessed arrows (disarming traps can yield good piles of arrows)

blessed +1 orcish helm
blessed +0 GDSM (found a cursed lamp. Price testing said it was magic. Removed the curse with spell, and blessed it with a holy water)
+0 robe
blessed +1 iron shoes
+2 elven shield (cool find, I think)
+0 leather gloves

Even with the shield and my metal items, remove curse is still at 0% fail (it´s the priest 'special spell'). Cure blindness is at 80% fail but it goes down to 20% when I take off the shield. I´ve needed this spell a few times when yellow lights have exploded on me.


around 1000 zorkmids
pick-axe
1 holy water
1 potion of extra healing
1 ID scroll (IDed by price testing)
uncursed unknown level 4 spellbook (chance to read is only 65% now - too dangerous to try!)
wand of magic missiles
wand of secret door detection
Lots of food. I found a Horn of Plenty and used up all the charges, then sold the horn. Got a lump of royal jelly and some juice or booze from the horn, too.

I was using crossbow and bolts for a while, but I switched over to bow. I want to train to basic with it, and I hope to find elven bow+arrows, because I will then be able to often fire two arrows at once.

No poison resistance yet, which has me worried. I am still slow so I doubt I can kill a unicorn (unless I get crafty with magic missile bounces).

Scariest moment was on DLVL 2. I was still a level 1 priestling with only 13 HP. I engrave-IDed a wand my pet stole from a store. I was standing just outside the store. The wand was secret door detection, and it detected a mimic in the store. Now revealed, the mimic came after me. I tried to kill it by throwing daggers, but couldn´t. I was faster than the mimic, but it still managed to hit me for 10 of my 13 HPs! Prayed, got healed and got +2 max HP. Had to flee but the corridor was blocked by a hobgoblin, a jackal and a kobold. At one time, I was sandwitched between mimic and kobold. Got hit for more than half of my HPs again, but killed the kobold and could flee out. Really close call there.

 

[Nerigazh]

Re: OT: Nethack

Glad to see you are at it again, jiansonz

You'll have to let me know how being a chaotic priest goes; I consider the lawful-ness of my ascendant priest to have been a great boon: Sceptre of Might (why are cavemen lawful? In my mind they are more chaotic... whatever), titans and A are friendly, etc. Though I suppose you won't have to deal with the mysterious force, which is almost worth it right there!

Mimics are indeed nasty when you don't have the space to do hit-hit-move! Also bad is finding a large one at low levels, especially when emergency prayer only breaks their hold and doesn't heal.

I hope you can find some more useful spells soon! Cure blindness will soon be confusion-fodder. Nothing like a good magic missile, even unskilled...

It seems like I usually end up getting poison resistance in Sokoban. Cave spiders and nagas like to spawn there, and of course non-teleporting unicorns. A 2nd-tier pet will damage them a lot, if you manage to find a magic whistle to pull them away before they get the killing blow...

 

[jiansonz]

Re: OT: Nethack

Beren had a chance to become poison resistant, becuase he ate a tin made from soldier ants. No luck.

Having pets in Minetown is bad if you don´t have a leash, magic whistle or ways to heal them. My starting cat and a new dog got killed there. At least they managed to steal a wand of teleporting first. Always nice to have one of those.

Sokoban sounds like a plan at the moment. I have tripe and carrot, so I may get some chances to tame another pet. Because of this awesome store, I could really use one right now.

There is a white unicorn on this level. Maybe I´ll do what I did one time - dig a multitude of pits in one of the large rooms and try to lure the unicorn in there. When it tries to avoid standing on the same line as me, it may get stupid and trip into a pit.

 

[smips]

Re: OT: Nethack

I was just thinking of this thread and thought it may deserve a necro Would anyone be interested in another Nethack tournament? Or even just to start it up again and have some discussions?

 

[jiansonz]

Re: OT: Nethack

I was just thinking of this thread and thought it may deserve a necro Would anyone be interested in another Nethack tournament? Or even just to start it up again and have some discussions?

I tend to get bitten by the Nethack bug every now and then, so I might be game for a new tourney, or even general discussions about this fascinating game.

 

[smips]

Re: OT: Nethack

Well I'm certainly glad someone is interested, but I'm afraid two isn't enough for a tourney . I really do urge anyone who sees this to check out the first post in this thread and to give the game a shot. Threads don't make it to 350 posts for no reason .

 

[Colorless Green]

Re: OT: Nethack

I'd follow the thread closely and sit around to give advice and/or heckle, but I'm not really too sure I'd actually participate in a tourney at this exact moment. I'm also not really too sure I wouldn't participate in a tourney at this exact moment.

-CG

 

[mattinm]

Re: OT: Nethack

I've downloaded the game many times, but never really sat down and played it. I really, really need to change that.

 

[tavaritz]

Re: OT: Nethack

Read trough this thread and as an old time NetHacker I have two comments to Jiansonz:

1. No monster digs up things. So burying the Vorpal Blade was enough. To protect something above ground, like leaving the Bell behind, burn Elbereth, put the Bell on top, put a cursed item on top of that and then roll a boulder on. The cursed item is needed so that your pet hill giant won't pick up the boulder.

2. Never ever have any edible item in inventory slots y and Y. You found out what happens when trying to eat 'y' and standing on corpse. But imagine this: You have rubber chiken in 'y' and the corpse you tried to eat rots away. I've never done that, but I've read someones account on doing it. I have attacked cockatrice when polymorphed to a dragon and I've attacked an incubus with a rubber chicken.

EDIT: About item disposal. If you really want to get rid of an item or items the easiest way is to use The Trash Compactor (tm) aka a cursed bag of holding. Put the items to be disposed in and repeatedly apply the TC and eventually all those items will disappear.

Another way, but more costly on resources, is polymorph the items. Gather one big pile and polymorph. Some items shudder and disapear and others fuse to form a golem. Now polymorph the golem until it's a paper golem. Then kill it and collect the scrolls. Rinse and repeat until the items you wanted to get rid off have all disappeared.

Why someone would like to dispose items? Because in certain cases, extinctonist and pudding farmer come first to mind, the amount of items are so great that they bloat the save file and slows the loading of the game.

Two other observations from this thread:

Altars:

Mine Town altar is never unaligned. It's either coaligned or crossaligned. There are five (or six or eight) types of altars in the game: lawful, neutral, chaotic, unaligned and Molochs (there are also normal and high altars of at least three of those, might be one for Moloch also, so nine it is.) Crossaligned and unaligned altars can be converted. Moloch altars cannot, mainly because where they are your god cannot hear you.

BoHs:

Empty wands of cancellation and bags of tricks do not explode a bag of holding if put in.

If you want to lessen your load even more you migth try this: Put your blessed bag into a (oilskin) bag. Put that yet into another (oilskin) bag and repeat this so that you have seven normal bags on top of the BoH. Then put that bag into another blessed BoH. The chance of explosion has lowered so you might get away with that. If you need further weight reduction repeat. Why would you like to do that is another question. Usually people do this so that they might get all the gems and gold to the astral plane to maximize their score.

For a thought for you I presemt this situation, which is quite probable: You stumble on a bones file and found the items of the dead adventurer. In that stash there is a BoH that is too heavy for you to lift. Even when you don the gauntlets of power and drop everything else you cannot lift the BoH. Looting the BoH might result items to disapper as it definately is cursed. What to do to get your greasy hands onto the loot?

 

[jiansonz]

Re: OT: Nethack

Read trough this thread and as an old time NetHacker I have two comments to Jiansonz:

1. No monster digs up things. So burying the Vorpal Blade was enough.

Ah, thanks for clarifying that.

2. Never ever have any edible item in inventory slots y and Y. You found out what happens when trying to eat 'y' and standing on corpse. But imagine this: You have rubber chiken in 'y' and the corpse you tried to eat rots away. I've never done that, but I've read someones account on doing it. I have attacked cockatrice when polymorphed to a dragon and I've attacked an incubus with a rubber chicken.

I am very VERY careful around cockatrices, dead or alive. And I think I´ve learned not to keep food in slot y. Or to always use the mouse when eating stuff in inventory.

EDIT: About item disposal. If you really want to get rid of an item or items the easiest way is to use The Trash Compactor (tm) aka a cursed bag of holding. Put the items to be disposed in and repeatedly apply the TC and eventually all those items will disappear.

One time I over-Enchanted Vorpal Blade so it vanished.

For a thought for you I presemt this situation, which is quite probable: You stumble on a bones file and found the items of the dead adventurer. In that stash there is a BoH that is too heavy for you to lift. Even when you don the gauntlets of power and drop everything else you cannot lift the BoH. Looting the BoH might result items to disapper as it definately is cursed. What to do to get your greasy hands onto the loot?

Been there, done that. :nod:

First, I determine what other items on that square are cursed (pet-testing, drop stuff on altar, or Identify spell). Then I bring back the cursed items I want to uncurse to that square, and zap the square with cancellation wand/spell. BoH becomes uncursed, and I can loot it at my leisure.

 

[tavaritz]

Re: OT: Nethack

First, I determine what other items on that square are cursed (pet-testing, drop stuff on altar, or Identify spell). Then I bring back the cursed items I want to uncurse to that square, and zap the square with cancellation wand/spell. BoH becomes uncursed, and I can loot it at my leisure.

Right. Cancellation doesn't change a BoH into a bag, it only removes the blessed or cursed status.

I do not though recomend to cancel all items you want to uncurse as cancelling does also other things than removing BC-staus for certain items. For example it removes charges from wands and make them unwrestable, except for wand of cancellation. the full effects of cancellation can be found here.

 

[smips]

Re: OT: Nethack

I started up a new game last night and I can't say it's going too well. I decided to begin playing with a random class. I figured this will give me an opportunity to try out new classes and probably help me get a little better at the game. This time around, I've got a Lawful Human Archeologist who worships Quatzequatel. I played down to dlvl 5 and then backtracked to the Gnomish Mines. Most of my trip in the dungeon was pretty standard, but there was a severe lack of items around. I did find a shop that I bought a Scroll of Identify from though. Dlvl 3 marked the end of my pet. Unfortunately, he died from a Gas Spore explosion. I guess I shouldn't pray any time soon, eh? On dlvl 5, I encountered a Rothe. It pretty quickly drained my health, but luckily I am faster than it. I retreated to a doorway and dug a pit with my pickaxe(after hit myself with it first...*facepalm*). This killed the Rothe and about 5 Grid Bugs. I began resting since I was at about 1/4 my max health, but then a couple of Giant Ants showed up behind me. I escaped over the pit and the Ants piled on in. At this point, I decided it would be best to back track and head into the Gnomish Mines. Thus far, the Gnomish Mines haven't been too bad, but my lack of items is really starting to show in my AC. I really need to get to Mine Town to BUC my items soon...

Oh, I almost forgot; a monkey stole my Touchstone.

 

[Hp_Sauce]

Re: OT: Nethack

I quite enjoyed playing this game when this thread first popped up. I was terrible at it, but was starting to get better... then I got creamed at work and all my gaming fizzled. I'm still quite busy at work, but am considering having another go at it, but I'd have to re-learn everything all over again, I think. Not sure if I'm up for that tonight, I might just play something easier... though I wonder if I still have my Nethack saved game file.

Anyway, I definitely do enjoy reading about other peoples adventures (and follies) in this thread!

-hps

 

[smips]

Re: OT: Nethack

Well, the Archeologist has now been lost. I actually forget what killed him now...

Anyways, a Healer was up next. All was going well with my pet doing most of the killing. I got ambushed in the Mines by a pack of Killer Bees and somehow managed to keep myself and my pet alive through the whole ordeal. I made my way to Mine Town where my pet met his demise. I knew I was pretty screwed at this point and I died shortly afterward.

This time through, I went back to a Valkyrie. Things are going extremely well so far. Thus far I've made it up to the Oracle level in the dungeon. I decided to skip the Mines until I hit level 5 and got Excalibur. I fell through a trap door into the Oracle level and ran into about 6 Manes. This brought me up to level 5. I went into the Oracle's chamber, dipped into the first fountain, and was rewarded with an Excalibur. Yup, for once things are looking good for me in Nethack.

 

[Es Mors]

Re: OT: Nethack

Just started playing Nethack, because of this thread. I really like it. Currently stuck in the first level of the dungeon with my fourth or fifth character. Three empty rooms and two halways with no dead ends that are obvious to try to search in. Not sure what to do... :scratchchin: