Nethack help! (Spoilers)

Cafe Society
41

Hey, if you had to run a shop in the middle of a dungeon full of gnomes and quivering blobs and incubi, you wouldn’t have a sense of humor either.

Actually, you ‘a’pply touchstones, you #rub lamps.

You can find them lying around occasionally, too. Non-gnomes and non-archeologists need to bless them before they’re useful, though. They can identify luckstones and flint stones, too. (Though apparently the programmers don’t know that flint is white, not gray . . )

Aside from selling the gems, (a great way to make a lot of money relatively fast) you can throw them at friendly unicorns for a huge luck benefit. Three ‘real’ gems, any type, will kick your luck up as high as it can go.

Try applying a whip at an opponent wielding a weapon. :slight_smile:

Archeologists (and Healers, my other favorite) are very weak until they find some good equipment, but with a little luck and a few levels, they both get quite impressive . . . If arch’s could advance in clerical spells, (remove curse) they’d be absolutely perfect . . .

Don’t even think of messing with fountains until you have poison resistance, though. You can blank scrolls or spellbooks by taking off your armor, wielding them, and walking back and forth over a rust trap, though.

You can also dig down on top of a fountain. This won’t attract snakes or water demons, but will usually make a few pools of water for you to play with. You can then either use boots of Water Walking to ‘dip’ things, or just strip down and dive in.

Man, I HATE Winged Gargoyles. There’s two waiting for me downstairs. I think I’ve gotta head back upstairs, find that black unicorn, max out my luck, and ‘guess’ at a writing a blessed scroll of genocide. Teach him to @#$!! with a wizard . . .

–
Shouldn’t offering your pet prove your devotion, that you’d sacrifice something you love?

42

I’m surpised that no one has yet mentioned the usenet newsgroup rec.games.roguelike.nethack as the ultimate forum for all things hacklike. There is no question that can’t be answered here. My favorite part is reading the YASD posts.

What’s a YASD? Read the newsgroup and find out.

Oh, and if r.g.r.n has been mentioned here, then, well, I’m not suprised I overlooked it. :rolleyes:

43

Everything was going great, the second level of the dungeon had both an altar AND a general store, I was third level, went down to the third level…and stepped onto a trapdoor leading straight to 9th level. ::cries:: I had a really good starting character, too. Found a couple of nice spellbooks that I was gonna read, I found a cloak of displacement (at THIRD LEVEL). But nothing saves a third level human barbarian’s ass when she walks into an opulent throne room full of bugbears who resent the interruption.

44

A backpack full of amulets of lifesaving, mebbe…
My most recent YASD, before the current game:
Testing*, the Lawful Human Priest died on level 4 of the Dungeons of Doom, killed by boiling potions.

I have never, ever, run across that before.

Hit by a wand of fire, carrying all my holy water (4) and two unidentified potions in my main inventory, because I still hadn’t found a container light enough to carry with me.
*[sub]Well, I’d just gotten around to getting v3.4.2, and wanted to see if there were any major visual changes to the GUI, since 3.4.0.[/sub]

45

Wuf the Valkyrie (second edition) has roamed the dungeon some more, finding Snickersnee, Ogresmasher, some nice dwarven mithril armor and seems to be bashing up a storm. She sacrifices two (count 'em, two!) grey unicorns on an altar to Tyr.

She finds the ghost of Wuf (first edition), and she dutifully slays it and finds Mjollnir laying there, cursed. So off she goes looking for holy water, or a scroll of enchant weapon, or something to clean that right up.

And steps on a polymorph trap and becomes Wuf the Homunculus, suddenly overburdened and forced to drop all armor and weapons. She begins dropping more items to eventually be able to move, and a gnome wanders by and begins hitting her.

Finally she gets to the point where she can zap it with a wand of fire, and sheds the rest of her useless gear and sits in a corner to wait out the polymorph. Then, kerblam, she’s freaked out by a kaleidoscope of light.

So now Wuf is a hallucinating polymorphed homunculus being chased by gnomes.

I just want a goddamn way to wield Mjollnir. I’m going to go to sleep and try my luck tomorrow.

46

You know, on the street it’d cost you big bucks for a night like that.

47

Is THAT what I’m supposed to do with that large nonhostile demon that keeps following me around?

I decided to play around in Explore mode. Went into gnomeland, and found a temple. Hmmmmmm, that altar is lawful. I angered the priestess. So I killed her and sacrificed her. Well, that altar is no longer lawful, after being stained with human blood.Now what I REALLY need is to find a general store so that I can sell off all the stuff I don’t want. I haven’t found a bag of holding yet.

But I’m having loads of fun.

48

The reason why you really don’t want to convert an altar with a human is you’ll summon a Demon Lord. He’ll constantly teleport right next to you, waiting for you to screw up and accidentially attack him, at which point he’ll devour your soul. All &s can follow you downstairs, as well, so they’re hard to get rid of.

Most of them from AD&D make an appearance eventually. If you see Demogorgon, run very fast.

I don’t think &s leave bodies, anyway, so you couldn’t sacrifice them, either, even if you could kill them at this stage, which you probably couldn’t.

If you go down to level 7 or 8, (usually the one right after Delphi) and take the second up stairway, you can play the old-school computer game Sokoban by pushing boulders around. After four levels, you’ll be rewarded with either a Bag of Holding or an Amulet of Reflection, both very nice items.
My mage got eaten by a Troll. Those guys can be a real bitch if your AC isn’t good. Did I mention I’d gotten to level 11 of the dungeon, finished sokoban AND the gnome mines without finding a SINGLE suit of non-metal armor? I could even cast Identify . . .

You CAN use a cursed ONE HANDED weapon with no real ill effects, unless you need to change your gloves or rings. It probably won’t even have any penalties to hit.

A cursed two handed weapon, though will totally screw you. You won’t be able to open your Sack to get out the Holy Water or the scroll of Remove Curse. Always best to stash one somewhere for a true emergency. Or, just stick to one handed weapons.

At least they changed the poison death message so it no longer reads ‘killed by a dead Jackal’

49

The reason why you really don’t want to convert an altar with a human is you’ll summon a Demon Lord. He’ll constantly teleport right next to you, waiting for you to screw up and accidentially attack him, at which point he’ll devour your soul. All &s can follow you downstairs, as well, so they’re hard to get rid of.

Most of them from AD&D make an appearance eventually. If you see Demogorgon, run very fast.

I don’t think &s leave bodies, anyway, so you couldn’t sacrifice them, either, even if you could kill them at this stage, which you probably couldn’t.

If you go down to level 7 or 8, (usually the one right after Delphi) and take the second up stairway, you can play the old-school computer game Sokoban by pushing boulders around. After four levels, you’ll be rewarded with either a Bag of Holding or an Amulet of Reflection, both very nice items.
My mage got eaten by a Troll. Those guys can be a real bitch if your AC isn’t good. Did I mention I’d gotten to level 11 of the dungeon, finished sokoban AND the gnome mines without finding a SINGLE suit of non-metal armor? I could even cast Identify . . .

You CAN use a cursed ONE HANDED weapon with no real ill effects, unless you need to change your gloves or rings. It probably won’t even have any penalties to hit.

A cursed two handed weapon, though will totally screw you. You won’t be able to open your Sack to get out the Holy Water or the scroll of Remove Curse. Always best to stash one somewhere for a true emergency. Or, just stick to one handed weapons.

At least they changed the poison death message so it no longer reads ‘killed by a dead Jackal’

50

I thought I’d wander for a brief moment before work to see what Wuf, the newly-reverted-to-human formerly-hallucinating-polymorphed-homunculus could find.

Wuf the Rock Piercer, blind and overtaxed.

Man, I love this game.

51

Something about stupid deaths?

52

Yes, Yet Another Stupid Death

53

Unless I’m greatly mistaken, the first human sacrifice on a lawful altar will only convert it, without summoning a demon.

It’s the subsequent ones that do so.

That said, the named demons (Jubilex, Demogorgon, et al) are unique for each session of NetHack. The more of them you summon up as peaceful, non-hostile conjurings, the fewer you’ll have to deal with as active hostiles deeper in the dungeons.

And, again IIRC, you can ditch them, so long as they’re not standing adjacent to you when you go up or down a staircase, much like your pet has to be next to you to travel along with you.
And on trolls: Anyone know for sure of a definitive way to kill 'em dead? The only thing I’ve ever found to keep them from regenerating is eating them completely before they can do so.

Going by traditional D&D lore, which the game generally seems to do, I’d think a wand/scroll of fire, or mebbe a potion of acid, used as the killing blow would do for them. Don’t recall ever actually trying this out though.

Time for a little wizard-mode experimenting, thinks I.

54

Yeah, I managed to ditch my demon on a higher level. It’s above the store and altar that I usually use, so I’m no longer bothered by him, for this part of the game at any rate.

55

A few further spoilers:[ul][]Potions and scrolls, as most people have figured out, have different effects depending on whether they are blessed, normal or cursed, and whether or not the player is confused:[]Enchant armor can make an item rustproof if read while confused.[]A blessed potion of gain ability will attempt to raise all six abilities.[]Dead cockatrices make a decent weapon until they rot away (assuming you have gloves on, otherwise it’s a one-way trip to Statue-ville, unless you have a dead lizard on hand to eat quickly)[]Wands of striking can be useful in the maze levels; many mazes have a giant boulder at the end of a corridor with a wand of wishing underneath (or did that go away in a past version?? I can’t remember), and a wand of striking will reduce the boulder to rocks.[]Dragons can be pesky with their breath weapons, particularly in the castle if you can’t fly over the pit traps[]Water walking or flying is mandatory for some levels, so be sure to hang on to that ability via magic if you can[]Xans can be annoying if you’re close to being burdened. They can prick your leg and reduce your load carrying capability. Less of a problem with a bag of holding or gauntlets of power.Minotaurs in the maze levels always carry wands of digging[/ul]For more addiction, you might also be interested in ADOM or Omega (the latter doesn’t work, AFAICT, on Windows NT/2K/XP machines).

56

I never could get into Nethack, for some reason, but I LOVE ADOM. It feels more like a traditional RPG, with the overland map, towns, various dungeons, etc. Has 200 race/class combinations to play with, too.

57

Besides eating them, you can:

Have your (carnivorous) pet eat them. Pets eat much faster.

Tin them.

Drown them. If you toss their corpses in a body of water they’ll regenerate and then drown, which is a bit amusing. Doesn’t work on water trolls, obviously.

Bury them, i.e. toss their corpse in a pit (or kill them while they’re in a pit) and fill the pit with a boulder.

Drop 'em in lava, if lava is handy.

Polymorph them into something that doesn’t regenerate, and then kill them. (Unlike player characters, polymorphed monsters don’t revert to their original form when they die.)

And finally, I think disintegrating them would also work. I’ve never been able to test this one, however…you’d need either a black dragon or an altar and a really angry god (not recommended).

58

Whoops, I forgot one: you can also petrify trolls.

59

Helpful hint for those who think it’s fun to wield a cockatrice corpse and are burdened under the load of stuff they’re carrying back to an altar to identify cursed/blessed status:

Don’t fall down a flight of stairs with a cockatrice in your hands.

Just don’t.

60

“Hey, what idiot put this statue of a reclining man right at the foot of this staircase?”