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Yup.

65 (12.2%)

Not even close.

391 (73.4%)

Almost . . . but didn't

26 (4.9%)

Maybe managed halfway

51 (9.6%)

Total Members Voted: 530

[kcwong]

I love this game but its a bit of a sucide mission with me playing, usually i die after getting blinded by some trap. Starvation is the next big killer.

To cure blindness, you can (in order of effectiveness):
1. [a]pply unicorn horn. Blessed ones will have a much higher chance of success than uncursed ones. The problem of course is to get hold of one.
2. [e]at a carrot. Carrot contains vitamin A, which is essential for a good vision Carrots can be a rare drop though.
3. #pray. For a new character you can pray once about every 600 to 700 turns without angering your god.
4. Wait it out. Try to position yourself into a safer spot; like a closet (one tile room with a door) or a corridor with pets on both sides.

To fight starvation:
1. Eat corpses. Old corpses will cause food poisoning (which is fatal), so eat only fresh corpses you just created. Some corpses are not fit to eat anytime - like rats and kobolds. They are dirty creatures.
2. Lichens. They are vegetables and never rot, so if you get lichen corpses, consider saving them as emergency food.
3. #Pray. When hunger is your only problem, praying will fix it. A lot of players managed to ascend (not me) without ever eating anything by praying and drinking (which gives a tiny bit of nutrition).
4. Don't waste nutrition by:
- Casting spells without being a wizard of 17 or higher Int
- Keep wearing that harmless but still unidentified ring
- Same for amulet.
- Jumping (both spell or Knight's ability)
- Hanging around on a level (you really should move on)

Finishing Sokoban should remove your food problem for a very long time, since it contains a lot of food. Check under all boulders!

[Quincunx]

Inspired in part by this thread, I decided to try NetHack again.  8 tourists and a valkyrie later, I ascended for the first time, as a human neutral female tourist, placing 1881st on nethack.alt.org.  It took 76604 turns and a very long time, mostly because I was playing very cautiously.

I have been playing NetHack for about a year and a half now (not continuously), so a win was more than welcome.  This was my 98th game of NetHack on nethack.alt.org, and probably about my 120th in general.  It was my first game ever to make it past the castle.  I never wished for artifacts and wouldn't have changed form if it weren't for an annoying polymorph trap.  I used 5 wishes, genocided 12 types of monsters, polymorphed 284 items (it didn't help much) and survived (I was never brought back to life by an amulet of lifesaving).

[JoshuaFH]

I don't remember rats being unsafe to eat KC. I've eaten rats of every variety without poison resistance and have never suffered ill effects. Wererats are an exception though, they'll convey rat lycanthropy (a not cool ailment to have) and, if you're a human, counts as cannibalism, which'll net you the aggravate monster intrinsic (the opposite of stealth, basically) unless you're a caveman.

EDIT: I just looked it up, and every type of rat except Rabid rats are safe. Rabid rats are poisonous, don't convey poison resistance, and shouldn't be eaten.

But yeah, don't eat any corpse after it's about 50 turns old. 50 turns is a very short period of time, and food poisoning is fatal. Food poisoning is not the same as regular poison, any old corpse can give you food poisoning. If you DO contract food poisoning somehow, pray immediately, and your god will help you if your prayer timeout is zero. The exception to this rule are lichens, which never rot or cause food poisoning. They're an inefficient alternative to rations or lembas wafers though.

Never carry around corpses either, most are very heavy and will fill up your weight allowance very quickly.

Ontop of what KC said, you can avoid hunger by wearing a ring of slow digestion, a fairly rare ring that greatly slows the rate at which you consume nutrition.

Also, there are a number of "poison" creatures which'll poison you and possibly lower your total strength or kill you outright. Killer bees, homunculi, giant cave spiders (normal spiders are alright), scorpions, soldier ants, giant beetles, and pretty much any non-garter snake fall into this category, and shouldn't be eaten unless you have poison resistance.

Congratulations Quincunx, you've done alot better than me. Just curious, what'd you use your wishes on? and what did you genocide?

[Quincunx]

Genocided or extinct species:
  liches
  demiliches
  master liches
  arch-liches
  rust monsters
  disenchanters
  soldiers (extinct)
  erinyes (extinct)
  jellyfish
  piranhas
  sharks
  giant eels
  electric eels
  krakens
  12 species genocided.
 2 species extinct.

I wished for silver dragon scale mail (from a lamp, I needed it to do my quest, in which there were two wands of death), a cloak of magic resistance, a magic marker (none were randomly generated), seven candles (I forgot to bring some with me), and something else which escapes me.  The only wand of wishing generated was in the castle, and I finished the game with that wand at (1:2).

The dumplog is here:
http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/seahorse/dumplog/1242436252.nh343.txt

[JoshuaFH]

Wow, that's an impressive log. I never played a tourist seriously, how do they handle?

My Orcish Wizard is doing really well. Beat the bejeebus out of that Balrog with the help of magicbane, I'm trying my hardest to try and get crowned and get all those useful intrinsics, I found a throne room (didn't give me anything again!) a zoo, a leprechaun hall, I danced with a succubus a few times, danced with a nurse (who disappeared inexplicably!), and I was just messing around, and I used my last potion of holy water on this spellbook I found, and it turned out to be a spellbook of identify! The best spell in the game in my opinion.

I found a second bag of holding also, not that it's useful when I have the first one.

Found another zoo after that, and, in all the chaos, I found a cockatrice corpse, picked it up, and started stoning monsters left and right. There was an Elvenking with a wand of death and... BOING, the ray bounces off me and nails him in the face, and after wrestling the wand out of the hands of a lich that picked it up, I have a wand of death with 2 charges left.

I did the rogue level for the first time, really makes me paranoid when I don't recognize the things around me. Then I found a co-aligned temple. So now I have tons of money, and I'm at experience lvl 12 IIRC and I have a ton of money to give to the priest, maybe.

I'm gonna have to hike back up to Mine Town and buy some candles before it's too late. Also, I can't decide what to wish for next when I get another wish. I'm thinking the master key of thievery, which'd give me half physical damage, but that's it.

Maybe I should go out of my way to bless my luckstone, so my luck doesn't time out and I can get crowned more easily.

[cowofdoom78963]

I just realised is very much possible to beat the game without eating anything, sure it would take a bit of luck. But you could probably go the whole game on prayer alone. And mabey later on when you cant, you bring the ring of slow digestion with you.

[JoshuaFH]

Of course CoD, the foodless conduct wouldn't exist if it were impossible. There's apparently a glitch that involves switching a ring of slow digestion between your left and right finger ever 12 or 20 turns or something, because the way the game calculates the hunger rate, this would prevent you losing ANY nutrition at all.

You can also quaff potions (which give a small amount of nutrition) without breaking the foodless conduct.

Also, if you're a wizard, you can engage in something called "hungerless spellcasting" where if your intelligence 17 or higher, you don't incur a nutrition cost for casting spells. This is important because casting any spell costs a certain amount of nutrition depending on the level of the spell and whether or not you're holding the amulet of yendor.

[beorn080]

If you get two rings of slow digestion, you actually lose more nutrition then with just one, UNLESS, you remember to take the rings off every 20 turns after the turn you put it on. So if you put one on your left hand at turn 10 and one on your right hand at turn 20, you would remove and put back on every 10 turns alternating hands.

[ToonyMan]

*Rarg*  ToonyMan's brain hurts. *Ergh*

[BishopX]

My Orcish Wizard is doing really well. Beat the bejeebus out of that Balrog with the help of magicbane, I'm trying my hardest to try and get crowned and get all those useful intrinsics, I found a throne room (didn't give me anything again!) a zoo, a leprechaun hall, I danced with a succubus a few times, danced with a nurse (who disappeared inexplicably!), and I was just messing around, and I used my last potion of holy water on this spellbook I found, and it turned out to be a spellbook of identify! The best spell in the game in my opinion.

Getting crowned isn't a good idea, you can get most of the benefits by eating right (especially as an orc with poison resistance) without the drastically increased prayer timeout. I'd recomend wishing for gauntlets of dex or silver dragom mail.

[ToonyMan]

I think gr(ae)y dragon scale mail looks the best.

[getter77]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/unnethack-12312/  What's the good word so far with this one folks?  Can they go the distance where Slash 'em fell into sheer madness?

[LegoLord]

Josh already has magic resistance and reflection (I was actually wondering what had happened . . . I found the tales of the orc mage very interesting).  Silver DSM and Cloak of Magic resistance (I only just read that bit).

[cowofdoom78963]

wish for an angel!

[JoshuaFH]

My Orcish Wizard is doing really well. Beat the bejeebus out of that Balrog with the help of magicbane, I'm trying my hardest to try and get crowned and get all those useful intrinsics, I found a throne room (didn't give me anything again!) a zoo, a leprechaun hall, I danced with a succubus a few times, danced with a nurse (who disappeared inexplicably!), and I was just messing around, and I used my last potion of holy water on this spellbook I found, and it turned out to be a spellbook of identify! The best spell in the game in my opinion.

Getting crowned isn't a good idea, you can get most of the benefits by eating right (especially as an orc with poison resistance) without the drastically increased prayer timeout. I'd recomend wishing for gauntlets of dex or silver dragom mail.

I don't care much about the increased prayer timeout, I'm cautious and well-prepared enough that I NEVER have to pray for divine saving. The only times I've prayed so far were in a bid to get crowned or for blessed holy water. I've netted telepathy this way, but nothing else of note.

wish for an angel!

A blessed archon figurine is tempting, but there's that 10% that it'll be hostile, and that could spell certain doom seeing as how I don't have any way of actually FIGHTING an archon. They're non-genocidable, have a guaranteed shield of reflection, a stunning gaze, can summon an infinite number of other monsters (including other archons), they spawn with a blessed erodeproof longsword (which has a chance of being a sunsword or a demonbane), they are fast and strong, can fly, can teleport to levels with you, regenerate hitpoints, can see invisible, and they have the the second highest difficulty of any monster in the game (arch-liches come in first place, but are genocidable). Best to leave my fate out of the hands of the RNG.

If Couatls are the weakest of the angels, I DREAD the day I go up against one of these

http://sourceforge.net/projects/unnethack-12312/  What's the good word so far with this one folks?  Can they go the distance where Slash 'em fell into sheer madness?

Wrapping my mind around the original is difficult enough, I probably won't be checking out any of the mods.