Dammit…I touched a chickatrice corpse. And I was doing SO WELL, too. I drank from a sink or from a fountain, and was rewarded with some pink stuff that made me feel better. I don’t know what it was.
When I obtain a wish, what should I wish for?
The usual (first) wish is blessed +3 gray dragon scale mail, which is light, has AC up the wazoo and gives all sorts of nice resistances.
I’m currently playing SLASH’EM (Nethack with extra goodies, IOW) and don’t remember that the werecreatures were this much a pain in the ass in the former versions. They’re calling in more help all the time and changing to their animal form, which usually means that when you kill them, they just change back to the human form. Have they been changed or something?
Unless something in the pile is cursed, in which case good luck getting your pet to step in there.
Don’t be burdened if you can possibly avoid it. You can’t afford the reduction in speed.
Learn how to identify things without an identify scroll. This is almost impossible for rings and amulets, so I try to save my identify scrolls for those (and for gems, of course). Armor is easy: just wear it, provided that you know it’s not cursed. Wands can be engraved with (one letter at a time, though). Potions are harder: don’t drink any cursed or blessed potions, or any potions that a monster previously threw at you, and don’t drink unidentified potions while wearing armor!. As for scrolls: just collect them until you find a room where you can lock all the doors (Mine Town has several). Don’t read scrolls unless you know they’re not cursed. Finally, before you read unidentified scrolls take off all armor except a helmet (in case of scrolls of destroy armor; keep the helmet for scrolls of earth) and drop and walk away from anything that will burn or boil (scrolls of fire). Do not drop weapons or keys (in case you read a scroll of create monster or a scroll of teleport). If you’re careful, the worst thing that can happen is that you read a scroll of punishment and that only lasts until the next rust monster or scroll of remove curse (and in the meantime you can bop monsters on the head with the iron ball).
Note also that scrolls of identify can be identified in shops by their price (although it varies from game to game, it’s always in a certain range not shared by any other scroll) and scrolls of earth are always lying around on the first level of Sokoban.
On the subject of ghosts: you pretty much need an enchanted (or in a pinch, blessed) weapon to have any affect on them. If you don’t have such a weapon, don’t fret: ghosts are sloooow. Attack 'em, run away, wait for them to follow, then run around them and loot the pile of crap they were sitting on.
Finally if you ever play a character with a healing spell, heal your pet frequently. They don’t regenerate hitpoints anywhere near as quickly as you do.
I don’t know that this last caveat is necessary. Whenever you pick up a new potion, try to activate it, then if nothing happens #dip an unimportant object in it. This will let you know if it’s a potion of oil or polymorph. Don’t do this in a shop though; you’ll be charged extra for messing with the merchandise.
Personally I avoid drinking unidentified potions until I’ve found a unicorn horn. It will cure the effects of most of the bad ones.
On the subject of shops, credit fraud remains the best strategy for ripping them off. Drop all your gold inside and then have your pet steal it back. You’ll keep the cash and the credit. This should allow you to buy up everything in the shop. (NOTE: This advice only applies to the game. It does not work nearly as well in real life.)
Lynn, you mention drinking from sinks and fountains. This is a risky proposition for any low-level character. There are just too many bad things that can happen. It’s best to wait until your character is tougher, then use fountains for dipping and sinks for kicking.
Skeezix’s comment about making holy water is very important. It’s particularly advantageous to bless certain items, such as unicorn horns, bags of holding, and luckstones.
To be successful you must develop good habits and learn what not to do. Many challenges have to be bypassed until you have the right tools to deal with them. Take a few moments to think before you act in any situation. YASD may lurk around any corner.
You can "a"pply potions? I thought when you did that it just asked you “what do you want to dip into it” or somesuch.
Clearly I have some Nethack to play tonight.
Get used to that feeling. Nethack is like love. The tiniest mistake can leave you with nothing but a lot of wasted time, some bittersweet memories, and a lot of irritation, and the chance of success is absurdly small.
The traditional first wish is ‘+2 blessed greased gray dragon scale mail.’ (Black or silver are popular too) Dragon mail is the best armor. It barely weighs anything, doesn’t interfere with spellcasting, has the best protection, (AC 1 if unenchanted) and each kind gives you a free resistance.
Black: Disintegration
Grey: Magic (touch of death, magic missle, a few other oddballs)
Blue: Lightning
Red: Fire
White: Cold
Yellow: Acid
Green: Poison
Orange: Sleep
Silver: None, gives reflection instead. This will make ANY kind of ray attack bounce back to the castor and protect you, but won’t help against area of effect or touch attacks.
You can make your own by killing a dragon, wearing its scales, (Which give the resistance, but is only as protective as studded leather armor) and then reading a scroll of Enchant Armor. Then eat the dragon’s body, if you can, unless it’s yellow. (There’s no easy way to get Acid Resistance. Yellow Dragon armor and Alchemist Smocks (‘aprons’) are the only way.
Be warned that it has a # level of 0, so wear a good cloak over it.
The second choice is usually an artifact weapon. ‘Grayswandir’ if you’re a Archeologist, ‘Frost Brand’ or ‘Fire Brand’ if you’re a samurai or knight type, ‘Mjollnir’ if you’re a Valkerie, Cleric, or Barbarian, (the ‘brands’ work great for them too) ‘Magicbane’ if you’re a Mage, Tourist, Rouge, or Ranger (the latter two might want to go with ‘Stormbringer’ instead) You can usually get these eventually by sacrificing, though, and some people consider wishing for an artifact cheating.
Of course, sometimes a non-artifact weapon works just as well. A ‘silver dagger’ is a great off-hand weapon for a Rouge, a ‘tsurugi’ is a great weapon for a Barbarian who likes two handed swords, and a ‘crysknife’ works great for a Healer or Rouge. The first is incredibly rare, the second never appears randomly, and the third requires you to kill a long worm first. It’s not that hard to kill one, but FINDING one is a huge pain. Always proceed the name of the item with ‘blessed +2 rustproof.’
‘Boots of Speed,’ ‘Gauntlets of Power,’ ‘Gauntlets of Dexterity,’ and a ‘Helm of Brilliance,’ are all very useful. A ‘Shield of Reflection’ or ‘Amulet of Reflection’ will protect you from all kinds of things. ‘Amulets of Life Saving‘ protect you from bad typing. 
A ‘blessed Bag of holding’ will make your life a lot easier, as well. Just don’t put a Wand of Cancellation, Bag of Tricks, or another Bag of Holding in it. Magic Markers let you write scrolls.
Actually you can only ‘apply’ one type of potion, Oil.
–
“My beautiful dream from my childhood of exploding another human being . . .’
Nobody mentioned floating eye corpses yet? Eating one enables the character to detect nearby monsters and all monsters on the level if blinded (e.g.: wearing a blindfold). Floating eyes are hypnotic so killing one can be a problem, best to already be blinded prior to attacking.
All NetHack/Slash 'Em fans should try NetHack TNG. Playing a Lightsaber-weilding Geek can be quite fun. Be warned that the command system is a bit clunky; Sebastian Klein must have derived the game from an early version of NetHack.
Most potions don’t do anything when applied. Oil ones will be lit on fire, though. If this happens you can either apply it again to snuff it out or throw it like a grenade (preferably while yelling FIRE IN THE HOLE! and giggling maniacally).
cough polymorph cough
–
Justin
Don’t do this if you’re chaotic. It’s against your alignment.
(Yes, it sucks. I like playing elves, and I like my pets.)
My favorite thing to do as soon as I find a polymorph wand is zap my pet with it until I get something tough. Once I got a Fire Elemental, and this was really cool. Har… no pun intended.
But be careful. Sometimes too tough is bad. Once I got a Titan, and the damn thing was so fast, and so powerful, that I couldn’t keep up with it. It would kill everything before I could, leaving very little experience points for me.
In old versions of Nethack, you used to be able to get Excalibur by naming your longsword “Excalibur.”
In not-so-old versions of Nethack, this trick wouldn’t work, but you could get Excalibur by dipping your longsword in a fountain if you were lucky.
In more recent versions, this trick doesn’t work for me. How do you get Excalibur as of Nethack v. 3.x? Do you need to be Lawful?
Read the rest of my post. You can rule out polymorph by dipping an object in unknown potions before you quaff them. If the object changes into something else then you know what not to drink.
Unless things have changed recently you have to be lawful and experience level 5 or higher.
Generally, I use ranged attacks on floating eyes. I nearly always regret it when I don’t. Ranged attacks also work well on blue jellies and red molds(?)(whatever it is that has a heatbased counterattack). I #untrap dart traps, just to get the darts. I’ll #untrap arrow traps, too, if I have an uncursed bow. Otherwise, I generally don’t bother.
Y’know what?
Even if you’re chaotic, killing nonhostile critters is bad karma. This can be offset if you’re able to sacrifice them, however.
Just don’t do it with Stormbringer. Especially if they’re a horde of friendly Gremlins.
Well, they were multiplying so fast that I couldn’t get more than three steps into the level, so I hadda whack a bunch just to make walking space.
Killing neutrals is bad. Killing them with a single blow is extremely bad.
/zap a wand of enlightenment
You have transgressed. Set is VERY angry with you.
Oops.
A chaotic altar, a wand of create monster, and a cursed scroll of same helps you get back in the gods’ graces, however. I commited more sacrifices than you see in three seasons of major league baseball.
I probably should have titled this thread Nethackers Anonymous.
On the other hand, I DID convert a couple of altars last night, so I’ve learned and applied something from this thread.
You fiends!
You’ve drawn me into your clutches. Now I’m playing NetHack all night. I hope you’re proud of yourselves.
Jones the Archeologist and his little dog Indiana made it all the way to Level 10 before being killed by an endless fountain of water moccasins. Well… he did hate snakes.
What the heck’s a ‘touchstone,’ and why/how should I use it?
A big benefit of the archeologist class.
Try rubbing it against any gems you find. Then, sell an identified gem in a shop.
Wuf the Valkyrie, equipped with Mjollnir and Werebane after a fortuitous altar experience on level three, died when kicking in the front door to a wand shop.
I swear, shopkeeper, I didn’t know it was your door.
Ah, the memories. After Random the orcish ranger completed her quest, she found herself wondering “Will Orion get angry if I teleport him off that treasure chest so I can look inside?”
Yes, yes he will. And so will all of his flunkies.
She escaped the quest level but Orion and many of his flunkies…didn’t. It was then that Random discovered that her alignment was so far out of whack that Stormbringer was blasting her when she tried to wield it. Fortunately a wand of create monster spit out a titanothere which had the good grace to die on top of a chaotic altar, and Random eventually ascended.
Shopkeepers just have no sense of humor about kicked in doors. Or about getting accidently hit while one is blind or hallucinating. I figure that using one’s pet to steal just evens things up in the Nethack universe.