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Have you beaten Nethack?

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


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Author Topic: Nethack  (Read 179267 times)

Quincunx

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Re: Nethack
« Reply #390 on: June 03, 2009, 10:31:45 pm »

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

Tourists are fairly difficult in the early game, but are arguably the easiest class once they complete their quest.  They start with no intrinsics and an AC of 10.  Their only starting weapon is a stack of +2 darts which quickly disappear, and they start with mediocre strength and intelligence. They are always human and neutral, so they have no infravision or any other advantages lawful and chaotic players receive.

However, tourists tend to start with fairly good charisma and a fair amount of gold.  They start with an expensive camera that will cause most monsters to run away from you when you use it, allowing you to escape.  Of course, it will also blind them, rendering Elbereth ineffective.  They can reach basic in almost every weapon and can #twoweapon.  They reach expert in dagger and short sword, so collecting daggers early on is almost essential. Short swords are commonly found in the mines and make good first weapons.  Tourists can also reach skilled in unicorn horn and saber, so wielding unicorn horns is a decent strategy until a better weapon is found.  Later in the game, double wielding a silver saber and something else (like Grayswandir) is a powerful combo.

Tourists are amazing post-quest because of their quest artifact, the Platinum Yendorian Express Card.  Not only does it provide telepathy, magic resistance, and half spell damage, which are all very useful, but it can also be invoked by tourists for blessed charging.  This means that your 1 or 2 wands of death can easily last your whole game, and your first wish does not need to be for a blessed scroll of charging.  Once they find a spellbook of identify to identify their wands and permanently reveal the charges remaining and number of recharges on all their tools,  tourists can easily afford to spend more of their charges on their wands and tools.  Of course, a wand of death won't help very much against an Archon or an Archon's even more annoying incarnation, the Archon with the amulet of lifesaving:

You hit the invisible Archon.  You kill the invisible Archon! --More--
Maybe not...  The invisible Archon hits!  The invisible Archon hits!--More--

In the early game, it seems like it would be impossible to survive without staying a reasonably low level and relying on your pet.  My general strategy as a tourist was to level my starting pet up to a large pet, gaining as many additional pets as possible along the way, then dive into the mines, letting my pet take care of as many monsters as possible, mapping dark levels, scaring away monsters while my pet was eating, and making it down to minetown as quickly as possible, hopefully low enough level to buy protection.  Early stores are very helpful, especially used armor dealerships, which can usually net you a decent starting AC.  Starvation is almost never an issue due to the huge amount of initial food.  Tourists usually start with vegetables and tripe rations, making it easy to recruit more pets.  They also start out with some potions of extra healing.  USE THEM if your HP is low.  Better to use the potions and run away than to hoard them and die with them left in your inventory.

Once you find decent armor and a stack of daggers, acquire poison resistance and hopefully fast speed, the most difficult part of a tourist's game is probably over.  Always remember that a pet can help to sort out cursed equipment, and use this to your advantage when trying on random equipment from the ground.  Run away when you see an opponent that is too tough (check a spoiler if you don't know) and get reflection before you do your quest (soldiers and centaurs like to carry wands).  The quest nemesis isn't hard at all and you can probably get some levels off the succubi or incubi that reside on the last level of the quest.  After that, play smart, take advantage of your PYEC, and hopefully you can win.  As for a first wish, I would go for silver dragon scale mail if you don't already have reflection.  The quest artifact provides magic resistance, and a cloak of magic resistance can help to back up this source of magic resistance by the time you reach the Wizard and Vlad.
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umiman

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Re: Nethack
« Reply #391 on: June 04, 2009, 01:19:38 am »

Vlad? Who cares about Vlad? I could defeat the guy with a smelly sock.

JoshuaFH

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Re: Nethack
« Reply #392 on: June 04, 2009, 02:21:22 am »

Thank you for taking the time to write all that Quincunx. Getting all the scrolls to enchant all your gear must have been a real hassle.

Hey Umiman, you said you beat the game, didn't you? Did you get one of those cool dumps?
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umiman

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Re: Nethack
« Reply #393 on: June 04, 2009, 03:54:11 am »

Cool dumps? What do you mean? I have a screenshot of the event that I've posted twice on the boards I think. Female human wizard. Level 20 something. Most used weapon was spellbook of finger of death until the final stretch. After that it was a ring of conflict.

Let me tell you, the moment you actually get your hands on the amulet is the moment you go, "holy shit, I thought this game was hard before...". In fact, getting stuck in the realm of earth with just a pick was the hardest part of the game for me.

I've kinda forgotten most of the stuff about nethack now though. Just the general idea.

If you ever decide to stop just genning one new character per day, here's another useful piece of advice: if you don't care about your score, don't ever bother taking money with you because it's way too heavy and will come back to bite your ass when you run out of essential stuff that you were sure you wouldn't run out of.

"HAHAHA! Why on earth would I need more than 20 wands of digging?"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yeah, fun times. I won't want to do it again though. It was truly very intense.

Sowelu

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Re: Nethack
« Reply #394 on: June 04, 2009, 01:06:36 pm »

Yeah.  One bad thing about non-roguelike RPGs is that you hoard stuff all game that you never use.  In Nethack, OH YEAH, you're gonna use it ALL.
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JoshuaFH

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Re: Nethack
« Reply #395 on: June 04, 2009, 11:42:51 pm »

I keep getting this vibe, every time I try a priest, that priest's only exist to cause me pain and suffering.

I'm like "Oh, I'm sure it'll work better this time." and it never does, it only gets worse. It builds me up, just to let me down.
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JoshuaFH

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Re: Nethack
« Reply #396 on: June 05, 2009, 10:59:33 am »

I finally got a good priest going. I guess I finally learned my lesson (lessons which include: 1. Don't zap a wand of cold at a wall when at low health. 2. Always make sure that the door your kicking down ISN'T the door to a shop. and 3. Gargoyles are alot tougher than they look.) and my neutral human priest is doing pretty well for himself.

I got a bag of holding from Sokoban, but I've yet to get any source of reflection or magic cancellation, so I'm pretty sure that death can still come from anywhere, at any time.
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ToonyMan

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Re: Nethack
« Reply #397 on: June 05, 2009, 11:30:14 am »

Kicking shop doors down....ahhhh brings back painful memories.
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cowofdoom78963

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Re: Nethack
« Reply #398 on: June 05, 2009, 01:43:50 pm »

Kicking shop doors down....ahhhh brings back painful memories.
At least their usualy on the edges of levels, so you know witch doors not to kick eventualy.
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LegoLord

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Re: Nethack
« Reply #399 on: June 05, 2009, 04:45:13 pm »

Kicking shop doors down....ahhhh brings back painful memories.
I managed to get away after doing that once.  I forgot what happened after, though.  I don't think I even got to mine town or sokoban.
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kcwong

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Re: Nethack
« Reply #400 on: June 06, 2009, 03:45:47 am »

Kicking shop doors down....ahhhh brings back painful memories.

I remember how my 36th character, a valkyrie, found out about the kick command. Locked doors could no longer stop her! I even got into the habit of kicking unlocked doors... everyone of them. Kicking doors into pieces was so badass.

And then I found a shop's unlocked door.
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umiman

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Re: Nethack
« Reply #401 on: June 06, 2009, 03:56:29 am »

Doesn't kicking doors also damage your feet or something? If I remember right, it has a chance of abusing some stat.

kcwong

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Re: Nethack
« Reply #402 on: June 06, 2009, 04:01:28 am »

Doesn't kicking doors also damage your feet or something? If I remember right, it has a chance of abusing some stat.

I checked wikihack... kicking an empty space will have a chance of straining a muscle (wounds your leg, carrying capacity goes down) and abuse your dexterity and strength.

Other uses exercise your dexterity, and as a monk or samurai kicking exercises martial arts skill.

Also I've wound my leg before by kicking at secret doors and corridors and failing to kick them open.
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JoshuaFH

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Re: Nethack
« Reply #403 on: June 06, 2009, 09:55:48 pm »

I've personally gotten into the habit of (u)ntrapping doors, in order to check whether or not they'll explode in my face. Trapped doors stun you and abuse strength.

Kicking, unlocking, or opening a trapped door will hurt you, but knocking a trapped door down from afar with the force bolt spell will give you the message "The door explodes!" or something to that effect, with no harmful effect to your character.

Also, always try to deduce whether random boxes or chests are trapped by untrapping them, or you could be sorry!
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cowofdoom78963

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Re: Nethack
« Reply #404 on: June 06, 2009, 10:00:32 pm »

I've personally gotten into the habit of (u)ntrapping doors, in order to check whether or not they'll explode in my face. Trapped doors stun you and abuse strength.

Kicking, unlocking, or opening a trapped door will hurt you, but knocking a trapped door down from afar with the force bolt spell will give you the message "The door explodes!" or something to that effect, with no harmful effect to your character.

Also, always try to deduce whether random boxes or chests are trapped by untrapping them, or you could be sorry!
Traps are few and far between in nethack, at least its not like adom where every other door has a c4 straped to the other side.
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