OT: Nethack

[jiansonz]

Re: OT: Nethack

Technically, the game is still winnable I think, as I still have the bell on me, but now I'm naked, broke, etc... What should I do?

Your items are still one that square, I think!
(although scrolls will be blank, potions will be diluted, some things have probably rusted, etc.)

You need to do one of the following things to get your items back:

* Find an amulet of magical breathing, so you can stay on that square.

* Polymorph yourself into something that can swin, or doesn´t need to breathe, so you can stay on that square. This form needs to be strong enough to carry your stuff, though. Stone Golem? Crocodile?

* Freeze the water (with a wand of cold, polymorph into something with a cold breath (use #monster ability), have a winter wolf zap you from the other side of the pool, etc.) and then dig a pit in the ice with a pick-axe.

* In a similar vein, get the water to burn (evaporate) somehow. Will likely damage some goods, though.

* (This one, I am not sure of) Zap a wand of teleportation on that square. I think that will scatter your items on the level.



Before you can do this, you need to retreat up and find leftover items so you can survive. Don´t you have a stash somewhere?

 

[Nerigazh]

Re: OT: Nethack

Lol! Well, I certainly wish I had read your post before trying out MY stupid idea...

Oh man, I feel like such a moron... so, I kinda thought, for some reason, that maybe filling the water hole with a boulder would restore the square, somehow...

 

[jiansonz]

Re: OT: Nethack

Lol! Well, I certainly wish I had read your post before trying out MY stupid idea...

Oh man, I feel like such a moron... so, I kinda thought, for some reason, that maybe filling the water hole with a boulder would restore the square, somehow...

Boulder? Of course, it´s much easier than my ideas!

What happens if you dig a pit on that square?


If the boulder got lost in the water (and didn´t restore the square to normal floor), try filling it with another boulder.

 

[Nerigazh]

Re: OT: Nethack

Oh, jiansonz, you are a LIFESAVER!

I thought sure they were gone forever once that bolder turned the square back to normal; I never would have thought of digging a pit.

Not everything made it (I will especially mourn the speed boots) but I got my Cleaver, my GDSM, and my BoH back, which I'm more than ecstatic about!

Thank you thank you thank you thank you

 

[jiansonz]

Re: OT: Nethack

Ah, so it´s back to (almost) normal now? Great!


I think a Nethack player should never give up. You should always try to win.

There is only one thing that always means 'game over', and that is if you convert yourself to another alignment before being allowed to start the quest. Helm of opposite alignment doesn´t count - it needs to be a true conversion. You get converted if:
- you sacrifice a corpse at another god´s altar when you have negative alignment
- you sacrifice a unicorn of your alignment at another god´s altar

 

[azn_apocalypse]

Re: OT: Nethack

It amazes me how the NH developers thought of every single possible situation when making this game. I would have thought the items would be gone too, but digging a pit actually makes perfect sense.

 

[Nerigazh]

Re: OT: Nethack

It amazes me how the NH developers thought of every single possible situation when making this game. I would have thought the items would be gone too, but digging a pit actually makes perfect sense.

Tell me about it!

So, midgame questions:
1) I'm clvl 17 now after cavorting with a succubus. It seems to take a pretty ungodly amount of xp to level--I take it "just killing monsters" isn't going to do it. What clvl should I be aiming for?

2) I've heard Cleaver is a bad weapon for Gehennom because it's 2-handed. What weapons and other gear should I be aiming for?

So basically, aiming questions

 

[jiansonz]

Re: OT: Nethack

So, midgame questions:
1) I'm clvl 17 now after cavorting with a succubus. It seems to take a pretty ungodly amount of xp to level--I take it "just killing monsters" isn't going to do it. What clvl should I be aiming for?

2) I've heard Cleaver is a bad weapon for Gehennom because it's 2-handed. What weapons and other gear should I be aiming for?

So basically, aiming questions

1) I think it takes an 'ungodly amount of XP' already at clvl 10-12! After that, it´s all about gain level potions, wraith corpses and sex.

I would say that as long as you have
- magic resistance
- reflection
- magic cancellation ###
- a great weapon
- great AC (like -35 or so)
- lots of HP
- ways to uncurse stuff
then the sky is the limit, really. I aim for level 30, because every bit helps for casting the high-level spells, and extra skill points can be handy.
Even at level 30, extra level-ups will still give you more HPs and power, and there is no limit to this!

2) I am not sure why a 2h-weapon necessarily is bad. OK, you will probably dish out more damage per turn if you dual wield (which Barbarians can do).

You do not want Cleaver to get cursed while you wield it, because there are a lot of things you can´t do when both hands are welded to something (and you can´t pray in Gehennom to remove the curse (except in Vlad´s tower)). But if you keep Cleaver blessed (dip it in holy water after a fight if it went to uncursed during the fight) you should be OK, I think.


As for backup weapons, I think silver sabers are great. Either two of them, or one in combo with a good 1-h artifact weapon. Silver weapons do an extra d20 damage to vampires, lycanthropes and demons. They can´t rust or corrode either.


To get three-star cancellation, you want one of the following cloaks: cloak of magic resistance (redundant other effect since you have GDSM), oilskin cloak, cloak of protection, robe or elven cloak (you must have seen some of these at this point).

If you don´t have an oilskin cloak, you need to have something else to deal with grabbing water monsters (giant eel, electric eel and kraken). Note that levitation will not prevent them from grabbing you.
The easiest way is to genocide them (blessed scoll, choose monster class ; ) but good ranged weapon/spells is another way (means you never need to stand on a square next to them), great AC in combo with a wand of teleportation (if one grabs you, you can teleport it away, even on no-teleport levels) is another way, wearing amulet of magical breathing is yet another way (they can still pull you down, but you won´t drown). Polymorph wand can also work.

 

[Colorless Green]

Re: OT: Nethack

You do not want Cleaver to get cursed while you wield it, because there are a lot of things you can´t do when both hands are welded to something (and you can´t pray in Gehennom to remove the curse (except in Vlad´s tower)). But if you keep Cleaver blessed (dip it in holy water after a fight if it went to uncursed during the fight) you should be OK, I think.

This is exactly why a two handed weapon is bad. There's enough things in gehennom that curse weapons that it will come up at some point, and there's a lot of chances for it to come up at a place that may result in YASD when you stop being able to use basically any of your items.

For the record, bad does not mean an impossibly fatal idea. My barb in the barb comp a month and a half ago ascended using cleaver all the way through. I did definitely wind up without the use of my hands on more than one occasion, though (even while keeping my weapon blessed at all times while out of combat). IIRC, one of them even happened with a (hell hound/red dragon/etc) around that took out all my scrolls that were in my inventory. That was a fun walk back to the regular dungeons to pray.

You can read (blessed) scrolls of remove curse without using your hands. If you're diligent enough to make sure that you have multiples of those in your inventory (not in a bag, and preferrably named different things so they don't stack) and you're willing to risk that the cursing thing curses your weapon and your scrolls at the same time (or has a fire breathing pet or something), it's thoroughly doable, but just using one handed weapons is a lot safer.


If you choose not to use cleaver, #twoweaponing some gg artifact weapon and a silver saber is the generally accepted best setup. A long sword can be substituted for the silver saber (mainly useful if you're low on skill slots or you just can't find a silver saber for whatever reason), but you'll lose out on the extra damage against silver-hating monsters (i.e. most of the scary things in gehennom). GG artifact weapons generally include either grayswandir or frost brand as the top slot (depending on who you ask), though there's 20+ viable options.

-CG

 

[Trim]

Re: OT: Nethack

Three Ranger attempts down today and three deaths. One of them was totally my fault (lost track of HP...) but once while descending the mines a watch captain blew a whistle as soon as I entered the level and I got swarmed. I don't know what made him angry, but I felt his wrath!

I've had good and bad luck with Rangers so far: the Ranger that died to the watch captain ended up stealing spellbooks and scrolls to amass +2,000 gold and be at clvl7 in dlvl2, found a cloak of protection, and also had a blessed magic lamp... but never found a single potion to dilute or altar for holy water/check for blessedness.

It's kind of sad, actually. I read the article 'gazh posted, and with the exception of everything after Sokoban all of it seemed to be basic knowledge... and I still die early. I'm [usually] cutting down on stupid deaths, but I'm 25+ attempts in now and no better than I was fifteen tries ago. I like the game and I recognize that I'm still in noob status, but it frustrates the pants off of me that I suck so badly. ...Practice makes perfect? I must be a sucker for punishment, 'cuz I'll probably try again tomorrow! :whistling: ...No need to reply, I just needed to get stuff off my my chest.
[/rant]

 

[Nerigazh]

Re: OT: Nethack

I've never played a ranger (I tend to shy away from "ranged weapon" classes in games, for some reason, unless they have unlimited ammo a la Titans for a javazon), but I do imagine they are tougher than a barb, valk, or samurai. So no worries; you should see how my attempts to play a priest have ended up

Also FYI I didn't find an altar other than minetown till like dlvl 12 on my current game... sometimes they are elusive. But actually it's kinda neat when they are down deeper, because that means later on there's less stairclimbing to use em.

I get the most frustrated when I've spent a lot of time price-IDing etc. on a new character and then he dies soon after.

Anyway I do hope you stick with it... we newbies shall triumph!

 

[smips]

Re: OT: Nethack

Going against my better judgment, I started playing Nethack today even though it's still exam week. Pretty much more of the same from when I played before; tons of stupid deaths . I decided to start with a barbarian because I'm out of practice. Things were going well until I got stunned, fell through a trap door, then got mauled by a homunculous. Next up, another barbarian. Died on Dlvl 2 because I thought a fox was my cat. Whoops.

This time through is a bit more successful, but the game isn't giving me any breaks. On Dlvl 3 I ran into a Werejackal and contracted lycanthropy. I went down two more levels before realizing it doesn't cure itself, then prayed.
Up next, I see a wimpy Lichen in front of me! Oh wait, that was a green mold. Yay, rusty axe. I switch to my sword and make it to the Oracle level. Since Sokoban would be WAY to easy with my incredible AC of 7, I started to head back up to go to the mines.
Along the way, I run into some giant ants. I was also 'Weak' and didn't notice. After eating and retreating from battle twice, I see a tasty corpse of a giant ant for me to eat. "You feel deathly ill." Hooray. So, I crossed my fingers that my prayer timeout was over and prayed. Aha! Saved by my God!
The mines treated me a bit better and the monsters in Minetown dropped some new equipment for me. It's nothing out of the ordinary, but my AC is -3 now. The altar wasn't co-aligned, so I'm SOL there and no wishes yet either.

Also, having a number pad makes moving much more convenient. I can move diagonally now!

 

[Nerigazh]

Re: OT: Nethack

Died on Dlvl 2 because I thought a fox was my cat. Whoops.

There's an option to highlight your pets, btw, that is very helpful. Hit shift-o to set it

Also, having a number pad makes moving much more convenient. I can move diagonally now!

Y,U,B,N aren't SO bad once you get used to them Of course I often play on a laptop so the numpad is no-go.

 

[jiansonz]

Re: OT: Nethack

Laura the Archaeologist, report #4: Second Thoughts, Jumpiness, Firmness and Cannibalism.

I changed my mind about taking on my quest nemesis without magic resistance. Even though I was pretty sure it was not high enough in level to have the Touch of Death ability, I figured it would probably take me a number of rounds to win, and then my 116 HP would probably be dangerously low when I am vulnerable to spell damage (as well as melee damage).

So I only played the quest levels up to the last one. Found plenty of rings and spellbooks. The monsters there are really wimpy: snakes and mummies.

Back in minetown, I IDed one of the rings (it had base cost 300, so I thought it was interesting) as teleport control. Cool, let´s see if I can get intrinsic teleport control with this tin of tengu meat I had saved. Nope, got teleportitis instead! OK, so this ring needs to stay on for now...

I had also found my first genocide scroll. Blessed it and wiped out liches.

I continued down the dungeon, in search for magic resistance. Vault on dungeon level 13, and YES, it had the portal to Fort Ludious. Here, my silver dragon mail saved my life, because one of the soldiers had a wand of death. (So now I have a wand of death, Bwahahaha!).

Four dragons as usual here. Interesting colours - one gray, one black. Unluckily, the gray one left no scales (otherwise I would´ve had my magic resistance right there). I tinned the corpse of the black dragon.

Read a scroll of earth so I could reach the fort´s door at a safe distance from the eels in the moat. I wasn´t really paying attention to my HPs when I was fighting Croesus, until I was down to something like 35! Retreat! Croesus had a wand of summoning, and he sure wasn´t shy about using it...

When I had cleared up the summoned mess, Croesus had fled away around the fort. I chased him down and spanked him in two rounds. I breathed a sigh of relief and decided to eat that tin of giant meat I had made in the hectic fight. It was in item slot 'Y'. I ordered Laura to e(at), and then I thought the game asked me "what do you want to eat?" to which I answered 'Y', meaning to refer to the tin of giant. But, the actual question was, in fact, "There is a Croesus corpse here, eat it?". :badteeth:

Oops...

Hmm, what are the penalties for cannibalism? Check it up. Some bad luck, and I gain aggravate monster. That´s not so bad - at least Camaxtli isn´t angry.

I went to Delphi and ate a tin of violet fungus, just so I could see some humorous messages. :crazyeyes: When you hallucinate, eating a tin of black dragon meat (i.e. gaining disintegration resistance) produces: "You feel totally together, man". I also managed to see the Oracle level random message "You here someone shouting: 'No more woodchucks!'". Heh.

Not long after, I killed another tengu and it left a corpse. I removed my ring of teleport control, so I would know if I gained teleport control from eating the corpse, and I did! Yay, that ring slot is now free for something else.

Now I had enough money to pay the minetown priest for as much protection as you can easily get. I think I even scored the 1/9 chance of going one step further. This priest has now outlived his usefulness. Since I have not found any robe yet, I need his! This means I need a level 10+ pet that is capable of killing him. Eve would work, but I still have no way of taming her. Would it be too much to ask to find an apple or carrot? I guess so...

Another expedition downwards. Got surprised when I did a telepathy scan of DL 15. Talk about mimic infestation! And what´s the deal with that flock of couatls?

General store on DL 16, and I bought some tripe there. The plan was to recruit a cat/dog, then use my leash to pull it into a polymorph trap on the Home 1 level. Worked out reasonably well, as Alf the dog turned into a Stone Giant. I levelled up that giant, but it never grew larger than level 9. Not good enough, back to the polymorph trap! Fire elemental, how about that? Well, it certainly is powerful enough, but priests often have some nice spellbooks, and those may burn from fiery hits. Keep trying...Silver dragon, yay!

Alf the silver dragon grew quickly. Level 18, level 20, 21! Over 150 HP. Minetown priest was soon history, and I got my greedy hands on a robe, which unfortunately was cursed.
Priest had four spellbooks, including three that were new to me. Very nice!

DL 17 had a throne room. While Alf was eating a troll, I sat on the throne...and got a wish! Didn´t need to think long - blessed fireproof +2 cloak of magic resistance (forgot about the option to make it greased as well...).

Minion of Huhetotl got wiped out in two rounds, and that was without any hits from Alf.

With MR now on a carried artifact (Orb of Detection), I put my MR cloak in the bag of holding. Some spellbooks were found in the Minion´s lair, including remove curse. I wielded my cursed robe and uncursed it with the spell (worked on second try). Now Laura is a very respectable spellcaster. She learned Charm Monster, 0% fail on it. This made me confident enough to leave Alf in minetown (if he were to go feral, I can charm him back) and move down a level to find the incubi I had left there. Long, LONG and boring session with the three incubi on this level.

Laura was getting hungry from all the sex. She ate a pitahaya and started to cast some create monster spells. Mostly small critters that left no corpse or unfilling corpses, but then she lucked out and four hill giants emerged! Ate one corpse as it was, and tinned the others.

Much more sex, and the levels started to come thick and fast. First incubus self-cancelled early, but the other two had amazing stamina. In fact, they took Laura all the way to level 30!

And when I returned to minetown, Alf the dragon was still my pet. Yay!

Time to read my high-level spellbooks. Holy smokes, those fail percentages rock! Polymorph at 0%! That basically means that both the possibilities and my resources are endless. And cancellation that works almost 2/3 of the time is just awesome. I am just itching to polymorph some of my blank scrolls, useless rings, magic armors, magic tools (I´ve saved all unicorn horns) and spellbooks for spells I don´t care about. Then I need to go back to Fort Ludious and polymorph the gigantic junk pile on the square the majority of the soldiers died on. I should get a shirt form that, eh?

I still need to be careful, but as long as I have enough nutrition and power for her spells, Laura feels unstoppable now.

(Oh yeah, I found a second genocide scroll, so now the h class (mind flayers) are wiped out. I have also gotten the "By thy imperious order, Dame" thing on thrones twice. Decided to wipe out disenchanters and electric eels.)

 

[Nerigazh]

Re: OT: Nethack

Wow... wow! Congrats. I'm especially envious of your luck with thrones, as all the ones I've found have just been "out of place."

I guess I should get back to cavorting with succubi. Can you only ever summon one from a given sink?

(man, nethack with tiles is pretty hideous... I almost think ascii is more attractive!)

 

[Colorless Green]

Re: OT: Nethack

(man, nethack with tiles is pretty hideous... I almost think ascii is more attractive!)

Ascii is definitely the correct and best way to play.

-CG

 

[maareek]

Re: OT: Nethack

Glad to hear things are going so well for you, jiansonz! Also glad I'm not the only one running tiles.

As for myself, I've gotten my new archaeologist down to minetown, but I'm currently holed up in the temple with an owlbear, a panther and some orc captains waiting outside. Still doing extremely poorly on items since my cat walked into a teleport trap as soon as we entered the mines and I could never track him down.

I prayed earlier to cure lycanthropy and bless some water, then shortly thereafter offered a corpse to check my timer and ended up getting Demonbane. Bleh. Was expecting to use my first wish on armor, but now I'll probably end up using it on Grayswandir to make sure I get it. I'm pretty sure unskilled Demonbane gets owned by skilled pick-axe, so I'll keep using that for now.

Immediate plans are to fight my way out and gain a new pet (I have a wand of polymorph, so if I can track down something I can hopefully morph something to take me through to Mine's End) then price ID my scrolls, sell some gems and hopefully buy protection. I'd place good odds on me dying shortly, though, assuming I don't get a strong pet. Being dwarven really hinders your ability to pick up loot in the Mines.

 

[Trim]

Re: OT: Nethack

I play with tiles, too. They may be ugly, but ASCII hurts my eyes trying to deciper everything...

@'gazh: Thanks for the support. The only time ammo has become an issue with my ranger was when I hit an early throne room filled with bugbears, but the good thing was that no one attacked me before I hit them first. The [insert correct name] Diana's bow creates arrows when you #invoke, so I'm not so worried about the later part of the game. Plus, I've read that after getting a blessed luckstone, keeping a big stack of +7 blessed poison-tipped arrows rarely "break", so it's mostly about picking up the ammo you've spent. Besides, I like being able to attack multiple times per turn when enemies are still five spaces away. So obviously there are advantages... but not nearly as beefy as the Barbs I'd been using before. It's odd scrambling away from monsters when they get close.

@jian: Your story, however, isn't very inspiring at the moment. :grin: It seems so effortless! Really, though, congrats; that's one sexy looking character. Love the writeups.

 

[Nerigazh]

Re: OT: Nethack

@TRM: I love that you call me gazh; you're the only one who's ever done that

Well, things have been going well since jiansonz saved my bacon! Fun things:

1) After much succubussing, got to clvl 19
2) Did a water prayer, and in so doing got crowned! Yay for resistances and the Vorpal (I know some don't like this, but I think its effect is cute). Combined with my silver saber, I can twoweapon now if needed.
3) Got to over 18/50 strength, so I'm now at max carrying capacity and got another +1 to hit. Will get 18/75 soon.
4) Found a pair of blessed +3 iron shoes A poor substitute for speed boots, but better than nothing.
5) Got my first genocide scroll, which I blessed and used to wipe out L.
Side question: When you use tiles, do you still specify the ascii character when genociding?

 

[Trim]

Re: OT: Nethack

[OT] I randomly truncate forum names for people, and it seemed the easiest way to shorten yours. Additionally, I'm a fan of the old-ish cartoon Invader Zim, and lots of the characters have single syllable names on there. There's Zim, Dib, Gir, Spoo, Tak, Torque... and also one named Gaz. So it's also in homage to a great, weird show. Either way, even if you didn't like it, I'd still probably do it. Glad you enjoy! [/OT]

As for genociding, I think that's a no. It might still work, but I'd guess that you'd write 'litch' for genocidal purposes.