And it involved a heap of levels. Just in case I didn’t get that point across.
Two questions:
What do you gain from clearing the mines? Do you have to in order to win the game?
How do I convert an altar to good or neutral?
Clearing the mines gives you experience, various items, some nice loot on the bottom level, and a city with assorted stores and a temple.
You can convert an altar to your alignment by sacrificing (#offer) fresh corpses on it. A good way to convert an altar (or to get in good graces with your god) is to stand on an altar and summon monsters in various ways (scrolls of create monster, bag of tricks, et cetera) and kill and sacrifice lickety-split.
lno covered the important bits, but I thought I’d clarify that it is quite possible to ascend without completing the mines. You will need to pick up some particular objects from Izchak’s shop if you can’t scrounge them elsewhere, however.
It’s also worth noting that priests and pristesses will get extremely cheesed off if you convert their altar. Stick to unoccupied shrines until your character is quite powerful.
That’s a fact.
Sir Dinkus, the Lawful Human Knight, just bought it at the hands of a priestess of … Well, whatever the neutral god of his pantheon was, in minetown. Sacrificing and then running like hell didn’t cut it.
And the last three games I’ve tried since then have all resulted in a massive bones file. There’s like four or five ghosts and piles of cursed crap in the Gnomish mines, now.
A lot of my characters are biting it long before I can clear out anything. The farthest character I’ve gotten (I’m a complete newbie) was someone who got down to minetown, but bought it in travels shortly after. He (Karl the gnomish archeologist) only survived so long because he got Sunsword from his God, after doing a wait-kill-offer routine for a while.
Give me some tips for keeping my precious archeologists alive.
Also: Other than finding an altar and sacrificing a lot, what should my first priority be in a game of nethack? I’m talking about… Which area should I clear, which items should I obtain… Etc.
Archaeologists are fun, but they start out pretty fragile. Your first move should be to wield your pick-axe as your primary weapon. It does more damage than the bullwhip and it’s good to build up your proficiency so that you can switch to a dwarvish mattock later on. Don’t throw away the whip though; apply it towards enemies with weapons.
As a rule of thumb I usually keep A’s out of the mines until they either acquire poison resistance or reach Delphi (the level with the snoring snakes and the oracle in the middle). This gives them a better shot at surviving the traps and nastier monsters down there.
Take advantage of all your equipment. Bag coins, scrolls, and potions to protect them. Use your tinning kit on corpses that aren’t safe to eat. Elf zombies and poisonous insects are good examples. Once tinned they won’t poison you, but may still confer helpful intrinsics.
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If I’m given an extroardinary weapon from my god, should I use it, or keep practicing pick-axe in order to use the war mattock? Where would I get the war mattock?
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Can you buy tinning kits, if so, where?
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What do I do about the ghosts of my former characters? Every once and awhile I run into a pack of them, or their zombies, and they utterly thrash me.
Thanks. If you have any other archeologist tips, they’d be appreciated.
- Archeologists always start with tinning kits and sacks. Apply your sack to your pick-axe and/or mattock before going into a shop. I always hate leaving my digging tools lying around where something (like an overly helpful pet) can pick them up and move them.
I didn’t know that last bit about tinning stuff…time to play another archeologist…
It is not spelled rouge – that’s a kind of makeup that makes you appear to be blushing. It’s rogue when you mean a thief or the game that preceded Nethack, and rouge when you mean the color or the Baz Luhrman movie.
The “gue” ending that makes the hard “G” sound is the same as in the words “intrigue”, “Hague”, and “tongue”.
Ack! I just spent an hour trying to track down and kill a wood nymph who stole everything from my wizard – including my Cloak of Magic Resistance.
I even resorted to throwing rocks at her – she stole the rocks!
errrrrrrgh…
They can occasionally be found in hardware stores and general stores, but not always.
**
I believe some advice about this was given earlier in the thread, back on the first page.
Some artifact weapons are worthwhile and some aren’t. You may want to check out some of the spoilers sites people have linked to.
Dwarvish mattocks are often carried by dwarves, oddly enough.
Here’s a very, very stupid question:
Can you sell things to the shopkeeper? If so, how? If not, should I just drop all equipment I’m not wanting to immediately equip?
Thanks, Lynn, for finding me a new addiction!
Daniel
Grr – that was me, not burundi. She’s far too sensible to get sucked into a computer game.
Daniel
Left Hand: Depends on the type of store, but yes, you can sell stuff.
If it’s a General Store, they’ll buy and sell anything except identified jewels that are “worthless glass.” Just drop the item you want to sell on the floor of the store (well, everywhere except that first square inside the door, ref: page 1 of the thread) and the shopkeeper will make you an offer.
There’s no haggling, so if you don’t accept his offer, you don’t sell.
There are also specialty shops (and this is all determined randomly) which only buy and sell armor + weapons, or scrolls + spellbooks, and so on.
They’ll only buy items of the same type as their stock.
And if you see a magic marker for sale, in any store, it’s worth it at twice the price.
Don’t recall this being mentioned in previous discussion of ghosts: If you’re having a night like I did, and every damn character who survives as far as (fer example) the minetown level of the Gnomish mines draws a Bones Level, and upon dying creates a new one, there is one option.
(I dunno the general opinion of this, if it’s considered as bad as “save scumming” but it’s your game, play it how you want, says I.)
Browse the Nethack directory, looking for files that follow the pattern of BonM0.T or somesuch. That’s the bones file where the dead character’s ghost, and inventory, are stored.
Delete it, or if you’re unsure, just back it up to a seperate directory, and let the dead (and the stupid, and the unlucky, and the bad typers) rest in digital peace.
[sub]Me, I finally got lucky, if you want to call it that. The NINTH poor schmuck who drew the overcrowded haunted Mining Town, and died in the process, didn’t leave a bones file behind.[/sub]
Bah! My best character so far, (I just started playing about a week ago) Hanzo the Samurai, just died to an ochre jelly on a low level of the gnomish mines.
I guess that even if (due to a wish) I have -5 armor class at level 7, I should still wait a little while to tackle the mines, eh?
A level seven samurai with -5 armor is a character I would be pretty comfortable taking into the mines.
If you were killed buy an ochre jelly, I would guess you weren’t paying enough attention to your HP and continued fighting when you should have just walked away. For the most part, an ochre jelly can’t kill you without your active participation.
The first rule of Nethack success is: If in doubt, run away and come back later.
No, that sounds strong enough to tackle the mines. It’s just always possible to be unlucky.
The mines in particular are never guaranteed to be safe. Your character could be a walking tank, but if one mine level has a polymorph trap then all of those gnomes and dwarves can potentially morph into liches and storm giants who will happily turn your walking tank into a beautiful set of cast-iron cookware.
Just play carefully. Playing a Samurai? You’ve got a bow, then, and there are plenty of arrows lying around. Soften up the nasty guys like the ochre jellies before you wade in with your trusty katana. And watch your hitpoints: if they get too low, go hide in a quiet corner for a while. Spend some time healing and thinking about what nasty wands and scrolls you have that you can apply to the situation. And, obviously, don’t get too confident even if you do have a kick-butt armor class. My characters who’ve ascended had armor classes in the -20’s and still got beat up a lot.
What’s the first things you should do in NetHack?
Finding some source of food is generally a good idea. There are ways to survive without ready food sources, but they’re difficult.
Find an altar as soon as possible. The sooner you find one, the sooner you can convert it and begin sacrificing to your god – and it lets you identify cursed items, which are vitally important to avoid. (This isn’t as important for the Priest(ess) class, but still vital.)
Find a key, lockpick, or credit card immediately. It’s important to be able to lock and unlock doors, boxes, and chests. Keys can be used quickly, but lockpicks exercise Dexterity, so it’s debatable which is better.
Once you have some way of sealing or unsealing locks, find a “closet”, chest, or box to store stuff. Ideally, a locked chest hidden within a locked closet – there are few monsters that can touch that. There’s also a way to grant even more protection to an area that’s hinted at in the final level of Sokoban – I won’t say more, the spoiler files explain it all.
Finding a portable container is vital – it allows you to protect delicate scrolls, spellbooks, potions, and wands. Some protect against water as well, and the Bag of Holding is extremely useful.