12-conduct ascension: possible? plan? been done?
TJR
stuffing? If yes, how, and has it been done? (I'm not saying I will
definitely try.)
I can find a statement of intent [1] and an excellent discussion how
to go about it [2] along with a NAO account [6]. Also, Shawn Moore did
a 12-conduct ascension by stuffing bones, which doesn't really count
[7]. There are no 12-conducts on NAO; Tenaya11 and Thewumpus come
closest.
Problems I do not know how to resolve:
* Survive the early and mid-game without Elbereth
* Making holy water
* Trap detection, in order to protect pets from polytraps, substitute
for fire/sleep/poison resistance.
* Gaining alignment unless chaotic
* Sokoban mimics attract and kill my pets early in the game. I could
lure them around at best.
* Obtaining stuff early enough: scrolls of scare monster, a magic
whistle, an instrument horn, a magic flute, a source of polymorph,
magic resistance, and enough wands of teleportation.
* What if a red/brown mold or a jelly blocks a critical corridor,
especially in Sokoban?
* Efficient travel, unless wizard or valkyrie. No cursed scrolls of
teleportation!
Problems that have impractial solutions:
* Get rings of polycontrol and slow digestion before starving.
Rerolling a wizard works, but you wouldn't survive without Elbereth.
* Identifying the ring of polycontrol, unless you also have a ring of
polymorph, a spare throne, or means of enlightenment.
* Enough pets. Throwing food at domestic animals and dancing on a
polytrap are very slow.
* Get a pet that can kill the Rodney, named demons, and arch-liches
reliably. Purple worms are too slow in practise, and you can't charm
monsters.
* Armor class. Looks like pet-testing the Ludios and castle armys'
gear.
* Getting magic resistance early enough unless a wizard. Needed for
polytrap dancing.
* Gehennom mapping. Your purple worm would kill teleporting monsters.
* Fighting cockatrices. You can teleport Medusa, but not all the c's
out there.
* Getting enough items. Death drops and detect treasure are
impossible. That leaves me with 1) bones loitering, and 2) collecting
potions of object detection from nymphs for Gehennom.
* identifying amulets, most importantly unchanging. Use-testing, curse
status, and probabilities go only so far.
* protecting polytraps. Boulders and scrolls of scare monster work,
but are scarse.
* levelling up. Sinks and magic fountains are not too plentiful, so
I'd let a water demon hit me to summon foocubi. This is harmless only
if you have Elbereth.
Solutions to problems not discussed in [2], [3], [4], [5]:
* Getting a pet that actually fights: polymorph starting kitten into a
vampire or demon in the Mines, once you can.
* Unholy water: fountain quaffing.
* Getting wands and potions: throne farming. Get a monster to read a
scroll of earth, confuse yourself with a cursed unihorn, stand on
scare monster, and have your non-eating pets fight. Best done in the
quest to reduce bad spawns.
* bump kills: use the _ and HUKILMJN commands
Do you have any ideas how to solve these difficulties?
[1] http://www.43things.com/things/view/1586154/do-a-12-conduct-nethack-ascension
[2] http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.nethack/browse_thread/thread/06051fbb38d6571f
[3] http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Pacifist
[4] http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Foodless
[5] http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Wishless
[6] http://alt.org/nethack/plr.php?player=Tenaya12
[7] http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.nethack/browse_thread/thread/d21dcd055424f9f6/93ab57c23d380a6b
Janis Papanagnou
> [ 12-conduct ascension ]
>
> Problems I do not know how to resolve:
> for fire/sleep/poison resistance.
Convenient, but is that necessary?
> * What if a red/brown mold or a jelly blocks a critical corridor,
> especially in Sokoban?
Teleport them away?
> * Efficient travel, unless wizard or valkyrie.
Is that necessary?
> Problems that have impractial solutions:
> * Enough pets. Throwing food at domestic animals and dancing on a
> polytrap are very slow.
Magic trap dancing is possible (though very risky).
> * Get a pet that can kill the Rodney, named demons, and arch-liches
> reliably. Purple worms are too slow in practise, and you can't charm
> monsters.
Zap speed monster at purple worms make them fast enough, I'd say.
You can charm monsters using magic traps.
> * Getting magic resistance early enough unless a wizard. Needed for
> polytrap dancing.
A magic whistle would suffice if your intention is to polymorph pets.
> * Gehennom mapping. Your purple worm would kill teleporting monsters.
???
> * Fighting cockatrices. You can teleport Medusa, but not all the c's
> out there.
Just leave them alone.
> * protecting polytraps. Boulders and scrolls of scare monster work,
> but are scarse.
Is it really necessary to "protect" the traps?
> * levelling up. Sinks and magic fountains are not too plentiful, so
> I'd let a water demon hit me to summon foocubi. This is harmless only
> if you have Elbereth.
That's dangerous.
> Solutions to problems not discussed in [2], [3], [4], [5]:
> * Unholy water: fountain quaffing.
Dipping potions of water is less risky.
Janis
Pat Rankin
wrote:
> TJR schrieb:
>> [ 12-conduct ascension ]
[...]
>> * Gehennom mapping. Your purple worm would kill teleporting monsters.
>
> ???
I assume he's referring to the bottom-up technique, where
you injure a covetous monster and track where it teleports to
heal, then go there and injure it again--if necessary--so that
it climbs up the stairs. Then you go up and repeat. That
won't work very well if it gets killed before teleporting or
before going up, so dangerous pets pose a problem or at least
an inconvenience. When going genocideless, there are usually
more high-end liches around to take over for lost ones though.
[...]
>> * protecting polytraps. Boulders and scrolls of scare monster work,
>> but are scarse.
>
> Is it really necessary to "protect" the traps?
This one seems obvious; defend them so that wimpy monsters
can't use them to transform themselves into dangerous monsters.
It's pretty hard to use them up yourself when you're trying to
maintain no-polyself conduct. However, with magic resistance
and a pick-axe you can easily get rid of them. Naturally that's
provided you're willing to get rid of them instead of trying to
keep them around for later use.
Actually, digging pits is probably a no-no for pacifist
conduct, since wimpy monsters could fall in and be killed and
you'd get the credit/blame. So using a pick-axe to destroy
traps isn't useful after all in this situation, unless there's
a boulder handy to fill in the new pit afterward.
TJR
> On Aug 25, 3:16 pm, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
> > Is it really necessary to "protect" the traps?
>
> This one seems obvious; defend them so that wimpy monsters
> can't use them to transform themselves into dangerous monsters.
> It's pretty hard to use them up yourself when you're trying to
> maintain no-polyself conduct. However, with magic resistance
> and a pick-axe you can easily get rid of them. Naturally that's
> provided you're willing to get rid of them instead of trying to
> keep them around for later use.
>
> Actually, digging pits is probably a no-no for pacifist
> conduct, since wimpy monsters could fall in and be killed and
> you'd get the credit/blame. So using a pick-axe to destroy
> traps isn't useful after all in this situation, unless there's
> a boulder handy to fill in the new pit afterward.
Rerolling for a ring of polymorph control would allow to use up
polytraps once you gain a few levels.
By digging pits you not only losing conduct, but also a lot of
precious alignment because peacefuls invariably fall in. However, you
could dig through and instead risk your pets going feral.
TJR
wrote:
> TJR schrieb:
>
> > [ 12-conduct ascension ]
>
> > Problems I do not know how to resolve:
> > * Trap detection, in order to protect pets from polytraps, substitute
> > for fire/sleep/poison resistance.
> Convenient, but is that necessary?
Sleeping off a trap without two tame archons around can be deadly.
It's impossible to acquire the intrinsics (except as a monk).
Extrinsics are difficult: one ring finger is occupied by slow
digestion, and the other likely with poison (orcs and arrows) or
something situational (telecontrol, free action, conflict, ...).
Rerolling for slow digestion, polycontrol, and magic resistance rules
out monks.
> > * What if a red/brown mold or a jelly blocks a critical corridor,
> > especially in Sokoban?
> Teleport them away?
Without a pick-axe or teleportation, sessile monsters with passive
attacks sometimes have been a bad problem for me. Often enough, my
previous pacifists get a wand of teleportation only after Sokoban and
Mine Town. (A pick-axe won't help you back out of Sokoban. Anyway,
your pets need to be large to go get one in the Mines.)
> > * Efficient travel, unless wizard or valkyrie.
> Is that necessary?
If your pet can't always take care of the monsters spawned in the
meantime, you don't have Elbereth, and you can recharge nutrition only
so many times, then efficient travel sounds much more attractive.
> > Problems that have impractial solutions:
> > * Enough pets. Throwing food at domestic animals and dancing on a
> > polytrap are very slow.
> Magic trap dancing is possible (though very risky).
You need holy water, a scroll of scare monster, and a source of fire
resistance before you can try that, but it's an option then.
> > * Get a pet that can kill the Rodney, named demons, and arch-liches
> > reliably. Purple worms are too slow in practise, and you can't charm
> > monsters.
> Zap speed monster at purple worms make them fast enough, I'd say.
> You can charm monsters using magic traps.
The late-game problem is: A hasted purple worm still won't defend me
from the minotaur while it's eating a newt. Orcus cannot be swallowed.
In the early game, before I have a leash or a magic whistle, my
results with purple worms weren't encouraging. More so since 12-
conduct means no Elbereth while the worm is crawling along and eating.
In any case, polytrap output typically won't survive Gehennom. Vampire
lords, balrogs are among the best they can produce, and vampire lords
only work reliably until about Medusa's. (Give them an elven cloak for
the castle liches.)
Polytrap dancing consumes nutrition because you displace the correct
pet onto the trap. Leaving good pets on another level isn't an option
- the walk to the stairs often consumes the 74 turns you get before
they lose tameness. Nutrition means you can't dance indefinitely:
Right after Sokoban and Mine Town, it's not that likely you already
have a means of polymorph. The chance of polymorph from Sokoban is
28.1% only, and you have to identify it.
A neat polytrap trick is to split tame puddings. That depends on the
chance of healer bones with lots of meatballs, though.
> > * Getting magic resistance early enough unless a wizard. Needed for
> > polytrap dancing.
> A magic whistle would suffice if your intention is to polymorph pets.
Or a lot of other things will also make polytrap dancing possible, but
you can't count on finding a magic whistle before dungeon level 10.
That's around the limit domestic animals are enough for. I don't
really know how to solve that problem.
> > * Fighting cockatrices. You can teleport Medusa, but not all the c's
> > out there.
> Just leave them alone.
With Elbereth, yes. Without, I don't know.
> > * protecting polytraps. Boulders and scrolls of scare monster work,
> > but are scarse.
> Is it really necessary to "protect" the traps?
It's usually necessary to protect polytraps, unless you can teleport
with control or have multiple pet vampires. Difficult monsters can
accumulate, leaving you stranded with no way to gain control.
> > * levelling up. Sinks and magic fountains are not too plentiful, so
> > I'd let a water demon hit me to summon foocubi. This is harmless only
> > if you have Elbereth.
> That's dangerous.
For the level gains, throne farming might work in the early midgame.
Both thrones and demon summons need a lot of preparation, which a 12-
conduct character might not have. For the alignment record, I don't
see much of an alternative. Foocubi are the only reusable way to gain
alignment without breaking any conducts, unless you start with a spell
of *-healing or charm monster, or unless you can coax peaceful
monsters to fall into pre-existing pits repeatedly. (Monsters learn
about traps.)
Just for the record: Letting water demons hit you is safe if you know
what you are doing and can reliably burn a few Elbereth. I suggest you
visit Juiblex' liar first, have a silver item to chase Yeenoghu up the
stairs, and try it on dungeon level 2.
> > Solutions to problems not discussed in [2], [3], [4], [5]:
> > * Unholy water: fountain quaffing.
> Dipping potions of water is less risky.
Both offer 1/11 chance of curses per fountain, but quaffing can boost
your stats. Magic fountains are typically available long before
alchemy. Unholy water nets you throne farming (cursed unihorn for
throne farming) and cursed gain level.
I estimated how often you get the crucial items holy water, scare
monster, and ring of polymorph lying around in dungeon levels 1-10,
the Mines, or Sokoban (including in containers). A sample size of 5
and simplified formulas don't make the statistics very accurate, but I
get roughly 25% chance of holy water, 34% ring of polymorph, 51% scare
monster, and 4% one of each.
Janis Papanagnou
> On 26 Aug., 00:16, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>> TJR schrieb:
>>> [ 12-conduct ascension ]
>
>>> reliably. Purple worms are too slow in practise, and you can't charm
>>> monsters.
>> Zap speed monster at purple worms make them fast enough, I'd say.
>> You can charm monsters using magic traps.
>
> The late-game problem is: A hasted purple worm still won't defend me
> from the minotaur while it's eating a newt.
Swallowing a newt shouldn't consume any time, and that seems true for
many monsters. I've only ever had problems with very nutricious/huge
monsters where purple worms can spend significant time eating. (And
of course, beware them from shape-changers and green slime.)
> Polytrap dancing consumes nutrition because you displace the correct
> pet onto the trap. Leaving good pets on another level isn't an option
> - the walk to the stairs often consumes the 74 turns you get before
> they lose tameness.
Where do you get that number from? Often I leave a level for many more
turns without the pet getting untame or worse.
>>> * Getting magic resistance early enough unless a wizard. Needed for
>>> polytrap dancing.
>> A magic whistle would suffice if your intention is to polymorph pets.
>
> Or a lot of other things will also make polytrap dancing possible, but
> you can't count on finding a magic whistle before dungeon level 10.
Again a number that I cannot derive from memory. I had games where I
reached Molochs Sanctum and didn't find a single one, and there have
been other games where I found even a couple of them until mine town.
> That's around the limit domestic animals are enough for. I don't
> really know how to solve that problem.
>
>>> * Fighting cockatrices. You can teleport Medusa, but not all the c's
>>> out there.
>> Just leave them alone.
>
> With Elbereth, yes. Without, I don't know.
It's simple, really. Even in ordinary I typically don't kill them on
my way down to have some instant deadly weapon later in the game when
it's worth using them. Works pretty well.
Janis
TJR
> >>> reliably. Purple worms are too slow in practise, and you can't charm
> >>> monsters.
> >> Zap speed monster at purple worms make them fast enough, I'd say.
> >> You can charm monsters using magic traps.
>
> > The late-game problem is: A hasted purple worm still won't defend me
> > from the minotaur while it's eating a newt.
>
> Swallowing a newt shouldn't consume any time, and that seems true for
> many monsters. I've only ever had problems with very nutricious/huge
> monsters where purple worms can spend significant time eating. (And
> of course, beware them from shape-changers and green slime.)
Just the type of monster that spawns down there. After throne farm for
potions to dilute, it becomes possible to rest on a blessed scroll of
scare monster. But that's only the late game. The problem is wide open
up till then.
> > Polytrap dancing consumes nutrition because you displace the correct
> > pet onto the trap. Leaving good pets on another level isn't an option
> > - the walk to the stairs often consumes the 74 turns you get before
> > they lose tameness.
>
> Where do you get that number from? Often I leave a level for many more
> turns without the pet getting untame or worse.
An abandoned pet loses one point of tameness on turn 75, see
Dog.c#line448. That's important for non-eating pets. Non-eating pets
are much more effective because they will actually fight, not eat when
you most need them.
> > Or a lot of other things will also make polytrap dancing possible, but
> > you can't count on finding a magic whistle before dungeon level 10.
>
> Again a number that I cannot derive from memory. I had games where I
> reached Molochs Sanctum and didn't find a single one, and there have
> been other games where I found even a couple of them until mine town.
You can't reach Moloch's Sanctum with only a large dog or cat as
weapon. Dungeon level ten is in my experience about as far as you can
go. Did you ever ascend a pacifist?
> >>> * Fighting cockatrices. You can teleport Medusa, but not all the c's
> >>> out there.
> It's simple, really. Even in ordinary I typically don't kill them on
> my way down to have some instant deadly weapon later in the game when
> it's worth using them. Works pretty well.
Cockatrice corpses are only good for improving a pet golem, and that's
near-useless. The important part is to keep the live ones from stoning
me or my pet while I'm waiting for the purple worm to finish eating
that10th big corpse. Wands of teleportation can be had from throne
farming, but what do you do before you clear the Castle or get Neferet
the Green off her seat? Granted, this problem can often be solved by
locked doors, but it can also be nasty.
Janis Papanagnou
>
>>> Polytrap dancing consumes nutrition because you displace the correct
>>> pet onto the trap. Leaving good pets on another level isn't an option
>>> - the walk to the stairs often consumes the 74 turns you get before
>>> they lose tameness.
>> Where do you get that number from? Often I leave a level for many more
>> turns without the pet getting untame or worse.
>
> An abandoned pet loses one point of tameness on turn 75, see
> Dog.c#line448. That's important for non-eating pets. Non-eating pets
> are much more effective because they will actually fight, not eat when
> you most need them.
Am I really misremembering that even non-eating pets don't necessarily
become untame far beyond turn 75?
>>> Or a lot of other things will also make polytrap dancing possible, but
>>> you can't count on finding a magic whistle before dungeon level 10.
>> Again a number that I cannot derive from memory. I had games where I
>> reached Molochs Sanctum and didn't find a single one, and there have
>> been other games where I found even a couple of them until mine town.
>
> You can't reach Moloch's Sanctum with only a large dog or cat as
> weapon. Dungeon level ten is in my experience about as far as you can
> go. Did you ever ascend a pacifist?
(We may have been talking about different issues. I thought you said,
there's no magic whistles until dungeon level 10, but there are. The
more important problem for your pacifist may be that polytraps don't
appear before dungeon level 9, or so, especially since you seem to not
have good luck with letting those initial pets survive beyond dungeon
level 10.)
>>>>> * Fighting cockatrices. You can teleport Medusa, but not all the c's
>>>>> out there.
>> It's simple, really. Even in ordinary I typically don't kill them on
>> my way down to have some instant deadly weapon later in the game when
>> it's worth using them. Works pretty well.
>
> Cockatrice corpses are only good for improving a pet golem, and that's
> near-useless. The important part is to keep the live ones from stoning
> me or my pet while I'm waiting for the purple worm to finish eating
> that10th big corpse.
Cockatrices would not stone your pet - at least if they are not confused
and if there's no conflict around (or similar corner cases) - I'd say.
I didn't mean to say that a cockatrice is of any use for your pacifist.
I said that I regularily circumvented those monsters in my games (for
the mentioned reason) without problems. You can as well circumvent them
in your pacifist game even if you (naturally) don't intend to use their
corpses as a weapon later on.
Janis
TJR
wrote:
> TJR schrieb:
> >>> Or a lot of other things will also make polytrap dancing possible, but
> >>> you can't count on finding a magic whistle before dungeon level 10.
> >> Again a number that I cannot derive from memory. I had games where I
> >> reached Molochs Sanctum and didn't find a single one, and there have
> >> been other games where I found even a couple of them until mine town.
>
> > You can't reach Moloch's Sanctum with only a large dog or cat as
> > weapon. Dungeon level ten is in my experience about as far as you can
> > go. Did you ever ascend a pacifist?
>
> (We may have been talking about different issues. I thought you said,
> there's no magic whistles until dungeon level 10, but there are. The
> more important problem for your pacifist may be that polytraps don't
> appear before dungeon level 9, or so, especially since you seem to not
> have good luck with letting those initial pets survive beyond dungeon
> level 10.)
Pacifist 101: The boundary between pure player skill and flaky luck is
somewhere between level 10 and the quest portal. Further down, tame
domestic animals seem to wear out faster and faster, until you finally
can't even make new ones grow up before they die. A quick dive down to
a polytrap is safe enough, but prolonged exposure leaves you
defenceless. The solution: you improve pets with a polymorph trap,
ideally into a vampire lord, balrog, or into things like a titan,
minotaur, jabberwock, mind flayer. Naturally, this procedure takes
very long and can go wrong, especially if you insist on a very good
pet. This means you have to find a leash or magic whistle above that
boundary, and it also handicaps classes that don't start with magic
resistance.
After running in circles for about 8 posts, let me state the problem
again: polytrap output doesn't cut it during the ascension run, and is
already flaky in Gehennom.
A magic trap can tame monsters, as you pointed out, but I still don't
see how to make it tame an industrial strength pet. It can provide
polyfodder. There is a reason almost every pacifist has an archon.
The impractial solution I had in mind writing the original post is a
posse of purple worms and foo-liches, each one painstakenly crafted at
a polytrap. A magic whistle is mandatory to manage the horde. Conflict
could make them attack Rodney, and the cursed Book of the Dead could
level the worms up enough to provide a safety buffer. For several
reasons, I doubt this "solution" is very practical:
1) You will likely #quit in aggravation before those worms and liches
materialize.
2) While you re-polymorph one pet for thousands of turns, the others
either get untame on a different level, or they run onto the polytrap,
get in your way, block access for the target pet, eat shapeshifters,
or otherwise troll you into insanity. Perhaps it's best to do this in
the quest locate level.
3) You would have to deposit Orcus and possibly also Juiblex,
Yeenoghu, arch-liches out of the way, e. g. in Mine's End, mainly
because your polytrap pets can't handle them. For starters, it's
difficult enough to get them to actually follow you when #invoking the
Eye. You can't teleport to the upstairs because their levels are non-
teleport, and you can't level teleport up and come down, either. Next,
those guys are really dangerous without Elbereth. While you perform
this feat, you also have to somehow juggle with trap detection (no, a
sleeping trap is not just "inconventient") and manage a precious horde
of pets that should not come near shapeshifters, polytraps, black
lights, hostile purple worms and what not. No, you cannot just sleep
those problem critters because you don't have the spell, and wands get
resisted.
4) Non-resistant pets generally die fast in Gehennom. I don't have
that much experience, but I expect purple worms to be no exception.
They won't level up sufficiently until after Rodney.
5) While your worm kills one monster, several others spawn and you
starve. Perhaps that's overblown, but I regularily lose my patience.
6) As Pat Rankin explained, it might be hard to keep a teleporting
monster alive for Gehennom mapping purposes.
7) You'll burn though boatloads of wands of teleportation in the
process because you can't contract teleportitis.
8) What do you do when you run out of holy water? Your 1-3 scrolls of
scare monster cannot be replaced, and you can't just leave your pets
alone.
9) Hope Rodney is juicier than pet arch-liches.
10) How you make them all come along to the Plane of Earth? Sounds
like preparing 16 boulders. Illiterate.
Regarding named demons, perhaps there is some way to exploit this bug
that simply deletes monsters that wouldn't fit onto the target level.
However, I can't see how to fill Vlad's with harmless monsters, and
how to come back out before your pets lose tameness.
Janis Papanagnou
>
> A magic trap can tame monsters, as you pointed out, but I still don't
> see how to make it tame an industrial strength pet. It can provide
> polyfodder. There is a reason almost every pacifist has an archon.
So it appears to be the most promising tactics to fountain dip for
a lucky wish on a blessed figurine of an archon?
> The impractial solution I had in mind writing the original post is a
> posse of purple worms and foo-liches, each one painstakenly crafted at
> a polytrap.
I had never been satisfied with any sort of liches as pets. Purple
worms, OTOH, are marvellous.
> A magic whistle is mandatory to manage the horde.
Yep.
> Conflict could make them attack Rodney,
Or a high monster level; the Valley will be the perfect ressource to
enhance one or two purple worms to their maximum level.
(The most severe problem with the worms is, as mentioned, that they
instantly get lost of they swallow green slime or a shape changer.
Even with a magic whistle you need quite some care.)
> and the cursed Book of the Dead could
> level the worms up enough to provide a safety buffer. [...]
It's fairly late when you get the book.
> 4) Non-resistant pets generally die fast in Gehennom. I don't have
> that much experience, but I expect purple worms to be no exception.
> They won't level up sufficiently until after Rodney.
As said, after the Valley one or two worms can be at maximum level.
They'll instantly swallow the Wizard and whatnot without hesitance
then.
> 5) While your worm kills one monster, several others spawn and you
> starve. Perhaps that's overblown, but I regularily lose my patience.
I guess patience is a prerequisite for a 12-conduct project. :-)
> 8) What do you do when you run out of holy water? Your 1-3 scrolls of
> scare monster cannot be replaced, and you can't just leave your pets
> alone.
Hmm.. - Scare monster is something I'd use stationary, e.g. on a
trap for the mentioned tasks. For other purposes, and to have an
object to carry around, a (surely rare) music instrument would be
helpful, or even a mirror (with seems to scare some monsters, too).
> 10) How you make them all come along to the Plane of Earth? Sounds
> like preparing 16 boulders. Illiterate.
(Here you're talking about not having a magic whistle, I presume.)
Janis
TJR
> > A magic trap can tame monsters, as you pointed out, but I still don't
> > see how to make it tame an industrial strength pet. It can provide
> > polyfodder. There is a reason almost every pacifist has an archon.
>
> So it appears to be the most promising tactics to fountain dip for
> a lucky wish on a blessed figurine of an archon?
A 12-conduct character can't wish.
> > The impractial solution I had in mind writing the original post is a
> > posse of purple worms and foo-liches, each one painstakenly crafted at
> > a polytrap.
>
> I had never been satisfied with any sort of liches as pets. Purple
> worms, OTOH, are marvellous.
I guess you have to take what you get. Arch-liches can reach level 37,
and they will kill Rodney.
> > Conflict could make them attack Rodney,
>
> Or a high monster level; the Valley will be the perfect ressource to
> enhance one or two purple worms to their maximum level.
So here is the challenge: How to make only one worm swallow all the
wraith, while the other 3-4 stand by idle. Any ideas?
> (The most severe problem with the worms is, as mentioned, that they
> instantly get lost of they swallow green slime or a shape changer.
> Even with a magic whistle you need quite some care.)
So what can you when your worms chase a slime? Whistle so that a
different pet worm eats the slime?
> > 8) What do you do when you run out of holy water? Your 1-3 scrolls of
> > scare monster cannot be replaced, and you can't just leave your pets
> > alone.
>
> Hmm.. - Scare monster is something I'd use stationary, e.g. on a
> trap for the mentioned tasks. For other purposes, and to have an
> object to carry around, a (surely rare) music instrument would be
> helpful, or even a mirror (with seems to scare some monsters, too).
Scrolls of scare monster are illiterates' Elbereth. You drop them,
enjoy their benefit, pick them up, and re-bless them. This way, an
iilliterate player can work in relative safety, like an Elbereth-
engraver but more costly. (Instruments and mirrors all have a chance
to fail, IIRC around 20% failure). Problems arise when you run out of
holy water in a tight spot. Remember: You can't level teleport back
before your pets go untame.
> > 10) How you make them all come along to the Plane of Earth? Sounds
> > like preparing 16 boulders. Illiterate.
> (Here you're talking about not having a magic whistle, I presume.)
I was erronously thinking of faster pets. Even with a magic whistle,
it's a pain to get 3 archons to stand still around you, let alone more.
TJR
Surviving Sokoban and then Mine Town without Elbereth turns out to be
surprisingly easy. Learn the crucial and subtle art of luring pets
(and opponents) around. Many of the tactics are documented in Maniac's
Ascension Guide: Dance around your pets, put them between you and the
attacker. If you suspect a monster ahead, travel with one pet going
ahead in the corridor. As opposed to Maniac's, you never lead. Beware
dead ends - run in circles if your pets goof off while a monster is
chasing you. Doors and keys are important escape items. Don't displace
your pets too often - in this test, that made me hungry by turn 10254.
Pick up all food and tame as many animals as you can because your pets
will eventually hit a trap door or die.
You can't protect your pets with Elbereth from the Sokoban mimics. Two
fully grown cats/dogs can handle them one at a time, but you are dead
if they wake them up right next to you. Alone, you throw gold at them,
lure them to a better position, let them recloak while you are around
a corner, and go get your pets. As always, you displace one pet into
the zoo, but this time you retreat behind the other one instead of
waiting on Elbereth.
A level 3 wizard can normally only survive for long below Mine Town if
treading on a string of Elbereth, or by extension on scare monster.
(The same thing goes for bones, BTW.) You won't find two scrolls,
you're lucky if you find one, but you really need scare monster
eventually. So you should collect all scrolls. Instead of drop-
testing, you stash them in chests. As soon as you can, you should
price-identify the scrolls, one by one in a container, and bless one
of each $100 type. That way, you get to keep your first and only
scroll of scare monster. If your pet likes a clear potion you find and
dipping doesn't wet your starting quarterstaff, it's holy water.
I'm not sure if it's worth continuing down the Mines unless you have
both a scroll of scare monster and a stack of holy water. Essentially,
the numbers suggest a 12-conduct run is scumming for holy water, scare
monster, rings of slow digestion and polymorph control, a magic
whistle or a leash, and some means of polymorph. Why deal with out-of-
depth levels if you can just retry?
I haven't tested any further, especially not the thorny issue how to
get an industrial-strength pet.
Rast
> * Getting enough items. Death drops and detect treasure are
> impossible.
What's wrong with death drops? I think a good (though horribly unfun)
strategy would be to pudding farm once you have a pet capable of killing
them. You'll also need poly+control to avoid starving. A few hundred
thousand turns later you have pretty much a full AK, not to mention
massive HP gain from alchemy.
--
But my situation is not entirely desperate. The Flatlanders are, I
have learned, edible, with a taste something like very moist smoked
salmon. It takes quite a few of them to make a meal, but they are
plentiful, and they are easy to catch. - Rudy Rucker
TJR
> TJR wrote on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:38:53 -0700 (PDT):
>
> > * Getting enough items. Death drops and detect treasure are
> > impossible.
>
> What's wrong with death drops? I think a good (though horribly unfun)
> strategy would be to pudding farm once you have a pet capable of killing
> them. You'll also need poly+control to avoid starving. A few hundred
> thousand turns later you have pretty much a full AK, not to mention
> massive HP gain from alchemy.
Pet kills don't generate death drops. Alchimized full healing is still
available because most healing potions are generated along with the
monster, not as death drop.
Rast
> Pet kills don't generate death drops.
Interesting; I did not know that. Presumably conflict doesn't either?
Janis Papanagnou
>
>>> Conflict could make them attack Rodney,
>>
>> Or a high monster level; the Valley will be the perfect ressource to
>> enhance one or two purple worms to their maximum level.
>
> So here is the challenge: How to make only one worm swallow all the
> wraith, while the other 3-4 stand by idle. Any ideas?
I've done that more than once with a magic whistle and a stethoscope;
works pretty well. I don't bother doing it but you can also just name
them instead of using the stethoscope; that's more effective with many
worms. In practise, though, it turned out that there are enough wraiths
in the Valley and it doesn't matter whether you only try to feed all
wraiths to a single purple worm or let a few of them grow up. The
purple worms in my games seem to have mostly started with experience
level 22, so you require only 15 wraiths per worm to get to the level
37, the value in your example. It's amazingly easy to get the high
level worms, much easier than getting a worm in the first place - if
you cannot tame/charm them as in your conduct game.
>
>> (The most severe problem with the worms is, as mentioned, that they
>> instantly get lost of they swallow green slime or a shape changer.
>> Even with a magic whistle you need quite some care.)
>
> So what can you when your worms chase a slime? Whistle so that a
> different pet worm eats the slime?
Maybe. Better try to keep them at distance from the slimes. Thinking
about it, it might be a possibility to speed up the low level worms
for that purpose, in case you have those many spare worms you've been
talking above.
Janis
tenaya
wrote:
them behind while you scout ahead and just make sure they don't go
feral. Maybe use a demon (i.e. non-eater) for your full-time
bodyguard.
tenaya
> I can find a statement of intent [1] and an excellent discussion how
> to go about it [2] along with a NAO account [6]. Also, Shawn Moore did
> a 12-conduct ascension by stuffing bones, which doesn't really count
> [7]. There are no 12-conducts on NAO; Tenaya11 and Thewumpus come
> closest.
Hey! I had forgotten about all of these. Actually I think that
discussion summed up about everything that I knew. I put a bunch of
thought into it and after rereading I would really only add one thing:
in looking at Conducty's dump log, one can notice that his inventory
is full of wands of sleeping and teleportation; and for good reason.
I just answered each one as posted. Sorry if I repeated someone
else's response.
>
> Problems I do not know how to resolve:
> * Survive the early and mid-game without Elbereth
pets, run away, sleep, teleportation, and charm monster(if you have
it)
> * Making holy water
you have to find it. once you have 2 different stacks of water then
you either have holy or unholy.
> * Trap detection, in order to protect pets from polytraps, substitute
> for fire/sleep/poison resistance.
play slowly, but not too slowly.
> * Gaining alignment unless chaotic
Check the spoilers for your limited options. The only thing I see
missing from the spoiler is using a helm of opposite alignment. But
basically chaotic is the way to go, IMO.
> * Sokoban mimics attract and kill my pets early in the game. I could
> lure them around at best.
Bring a stronger pet or just more of them.
> * Obtaining stuff early enough: scrolls of scare monster, a magic
> whistle, an instrument horn, a magic flute, a source of polymorph,
> magic resistance, and enough wands of teleportation.
Just luck. If you don't start scum it, then it won't be guaranteed.
> * What if a red/brown mold or a jelly blocks a critical corridor,
> especially in Sokoban?
Use a wand of tele or strong pet
> * Efficient travel, unless wizard or valkyrie. No cursed scrolls of
> teleportation!
There's nothing wrong with walking.
>
> Problems that have impractial solutions:
> * Get rings of polycontrol and slow digestion before starving.
> Rerolling a wizard works, but you wouldn't survive without Elbereth.
Yes, you can survive without Elbereth. Use your pets.
> * Identifying the ring of polycontrol, unless you also have a ring of
> polymorph, a spare throne, or means of enlightenment.
Just use price id: conflict is trivial, tele control is easy enough;
that just leaves poly and poly control, both of which you need.
Eventually (maybe) you find a spare so throw the extra down the
drain. And if you get to starving and only have 1 of either poly or
poly control then go ahead and quaff that potion of polymorph since
you'd be dead anyway.
> * Enough pets. Throwing food at domestic animals and dancing on a
> polytrap are very slow.
Tame all domestic animals and leave them all on a safe level to go
feral and collect later as needed.
> * Get a pet that can kill the Rodney, named demons, and arch-liches
> reliably. Purple worms are too slow in practise, and you can't charm
> monsters.
Purple worms for the ones you named and a balrog for full-time
bodyguard duty.
> * Armor class. Looks like pet-testing the Ludios and castle armys'
> gear.
You're going to be vulnerable for the entire game, so yeah, every bit
helps.
> * Getting magic resistance early enough unless a wizard. Needed for
> polytrap dancing.
Why play anything other than a wizard? I could see playing a monk for
resistances but gear is more critical than resistances.
> * Gehennom mapping. Your purple worm would kill teleporting monsters.
Leave the worm behind when finding the stairs. Don't map Gehennom,
just locate the stairs.
> * Fighting cockatrices. You can teleport Medusa, but not all the c's
> out there.
Don't fight them, or maybe get a yellow dragon as a pet.
> * Getting enough items. Death drops and detect treasure are
> impossible. That leaves me with 1) bones loitering, and 2) collecting
> potions of object detection from nymphs for Gehennom.
You get what you get. Don't quaff the potions of Object Detection;
you might need the extra water.
> * identifying amulets, most importantly unchanging. Use-testing, curse
> status, and probabilities go only so far.
Unchanging? Is that for protection from polytraps? Yet another
reason to play a wizard; that way amulets are just gravy.
> * protecting polytraps. Boulders and scrolls of scare monster work,
> but are scarse.
Leave the level.
> * levelling up. Sinks and magic fountains are not too plentiful, so
> I'd let a water demon hit me to summon foocubi. This is harmless only
> if you have Elbereth.
Use a pet on the water demons and have fun with the foocubi.
>
> Solutions to problems not discussed in [2], [3], [4], [5]:
> * Getting a pet that actually fights: polymorph starting kitten into a
> vampire or demon in the Mines, once you can.
Right.
> * Unholy water: fountain quaffing.
Hmm? No, fountain *dipping* of uncursed water to get unholy water.
> * Getting wands and potions:
Just grind away in the quest and let a purple worm eat the xorns and
wraiths. I think both of them carry loot.
> * bump kills: use the _ and HUKILMJN commands
I'm sure the Dev Team will improve the UI soon :)
tenaya
> After running in circles for about 8 posts, let me state the problem
> again: polytrap output doesn't cut it during the ascension run, and is
> already flaky in Gehennom.
Oops, sorry. I should have just skipped ahead to this post. Here is
my advice: don't use up all of your pets. You don't need to have your
purple worm be massive until you need to kill something big. Until
then use a balrog to collect as much loot as possible. If you see a
graveyard room or some wraiths, let them live (err, unlive) until you
need to buff up a purple worm. You will need to conserve your purple
worm resources for Rodney and the endgame.
Another kind of general statement: once you have the Polyring/PCring
enginer in place, there is no limit on the game. If you are willing
to do the ring trick every 17,000 turns then you can spend as long as
you like doing whatever you like in the game.
>
> A magic trap can tame monsters, as you pointed out, but I still don't
> see how to make it tame an industrial strength pet. It can provide
> polyfodder. There is a reason almost every pacifist has an archon.
Forget about magic traps. You need precisely 1 strong pet throughout
the game, that should either be a strong demon (NOT a lich because
they fight with cold) or it should be a purple worm.
>
> The impractial solution I had in mind writing the original post is a
> posse of purple worms and foo-liches, each one painstakenly crafted at
> a polytrap. A magic whistle is mandatory to manage the horde. Conflict
> could make them attack Rodney, and the cursed Book of the Dead could
> level the worms up enough to provide a safety buffer. For several
> reasons, I doubt this "solution" is very practical:
There are enough wraiths in the game to level up several purple
worms. One needs to be parsimonious, though.
>
> 1) You will likely #quit in aggravation before those worms and liches
> materialize.
.... maybe you should take a break from it for a while? :)
>
> 2) While you re-polymorph one pet for thousands of turns, the others
> either get untame on a different level, or they run onto the polytrap,
> get in your way, block access for the target pet, eat shapeshifters,
> or otherwise troll you into insanity. Perhaps it's best to do this in
> the quest locate level.
There is an art to this process. And yes, eventually your pet turns
into a lich and is useless. Abandon your waste pets somewhere safe
(for you, that is) and keep trying.
>
> 3) You would have to deposit Orcus and possibly also Juiblex,
> Yeenoghu, arch-liches out of the way, e. g. in Mine's End, mainly
> because your polytrap pets can't handle them. For starters, it's
> difficult enough to get them to actually follow you when #invoking the
> Eye. You can't teleport to the upstairs because their levels are non-
> teleport, and you can't level teleport up and come down, either. Next,
> those guys are really dangerous without Elbereth. While you perform
> this feat, you also have to somehow juggle with trap detection (no, a
> sleeping trap is not just "inconventient") and manage a precious horde
> of pets that should not come near shapeshifters, polytraps, black
> lights, hostile purple worms and what not. No, you cannot just sleep
> those problem critters because you don't have the spell, and wands get
> resisted.
So, just walk. Don't have a horde of pets.
>
> 4) Non-resistant pets generally die fast in Gehennom. I don't have
> that much experience, but I expect purple worms to be no exception.
> They won't level up sufficiently until after Rodney.
Quite simply: don't fight unless it's useful to you.
>
> 5) While your worm kills one monster, several others spawn and you
> starve. Perhaps that's overblown, but I regularily lose my patience.
That's overblown.
>
> 6) As Pat Rankin explained, it might be hard to keep a teleporting
> monster alive for Gehennom mapping purposes.
Just walk
>
> 7) You'll burn though boatloads of wands of teleportation in the
> process because you can't contract teleportitis.
Use a ring set, but you'll need those wands for Astral. You can take
off slow digestion for periods of time; it's no big deal. Doing so
just means that you need to do your polyself sooner.
>
> 8) What do you do when you run out of holy water? Your 1-3 scrolls of
> scare monster cannot be replaced, and you can't just leave your pets
> alone.
Running out of holy water loses the game if you aren't near the end.
>
> 9) Hope Rodney is juicier than pet arch-liches.
Arch-liches are useless. A purple worm with conflict will eat
Rodney.
>
> 10) How you make them all come along to the Plane of Earth? Sounds
> like preparing 16 boulders. Illiterate.
You only need 1 purple worm. Purple worms can be fed and left behind
provided that you return in time.
>
> Regarding named demons, perhaps there is some way to exploit this bug
> that simply deletes monsters that wouldn't fit onto the target level.
> However, I can't see how to fill Vlad's with harmless monsters, and
> how to come back out before your pets lose tameness.
Two of the named demons can be bribed, remember, and Juiblex is
trivial to kill with a pet. That leaves just Orcus: conflict, leave
him scared but alive?
And don't forget to have fun! As far I know, no one else has done a
non-bones stuffed 12-conduct ascension. If it was easy I would have
succeeded already!
Janis Papanagnou
> On Aug 25, 11:47 pm, TJR<tilmina...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> After running in circles for about 8 posts, let me state the problem
>> again: polytrap output doesn't cut it during the ascension run, and is
>> already flaky in Gehennom.
>
> Oops, sorry. I should have just skipped ahead to this post. Here is
> my advice: don't use up all of your pets. You don't need to have your
> purple worm be massive until you need to kill something big.
Just mind, though, that purple worms won't swallow dragons and other
very huge monsters. Instead they melee-fight them and you don't want
them to do that.
> Until
> then use a balrog to collect as much loot as possible. If you see a
> graveyard room or some wraiths, let them live (err, unlive) until you
> need to buff up a purple worm. You will need to conserve your purple
> worm resources for Rodney and the endgame.
Janis
TJR
and would be rerolling for holy water, slow digestion, and polymorph
control. This is about the maximum you can reroll for. The wizard is
because of the cloak and the starting gear, the elf because of
infravision and sleep resistance, and females get more matching
foocubi from water demons. Branchporting, ESP, intrinsic warning, and
teleport control are good but less important arguments. In (46+-10)%
of all games, a scroll of scare monster will show up by Sokoban and
Mine Town, the rest I will #quit. So I simulated this with a bones
file and played like in my previous test report. (Perhaps I should
also consider restarting if no magic whistle shows up.)
Much of this post is about strategies for when you don’t get the
perfect set of equipment. You never will get all of it early unless
you stuff a bones file, as Eidolos did.
==Polytrap dancing==
The first task is to get a pet good enough to survive any further
down. In this game, a good deal of luck gave me a magic whistle and
three known polytraps. I did eventually use up two of them for
nutrition.
You want to find polytraps fast to secure them before a gnome turns
into a black dragon. A nearby boulder works, or you leave the level
quickly after use. What are good strategies to locate them, especially
if you don’t have the luxury of a herd of pets, an amulet of ESP +
blindfold, a leashed pet, a ring of searching with high Luck, a
crystal ball, or a wand of secret door detection?
All eligible squares in each single ordinary room or an entire open
level are equally likely to have a trap. Polytraps aren’t that rare:
Each mines filler level has expected 0.737 polytraps and 54.4% chance
of at least one. In normal rooms and corridor levels, there are
expected 0.0182 polytraps per room, roughly 0.14 per level, and 13%
chance of at least one on levels 8-11; 0.0219, 0.16, 15% on 12-17;
0.0273, 0.20, 18% on 18-23; 0.0365, 0.27, 23% on 24-29. The wizard
quest home has expected 0.84 polytraps and 59.5% chance of at least
one. “Roughly” means I counted the rooms per level in a few wizmode
games.
It’s best to displace the correct pet onto the trap despite the cost
in nutrition. You can always use up the trap for nutrition and search
exhaustively for another one. Before Gehennom, I believe a mix of
eating and non-eating pets works best. Eventually, you will also want
a stoning-resistant one in case you need to stay on one level for a
long time. One option for Rodney is a wraith-powered purple worm, but
I’m not sure if an alchemized titan isn’t better. It helps to keep
track of pet tameness and abuse count, especially if you split
puddings. You don’t want your titan to be resurrected hostile.
I’m going to start taming and locking away spare cats/dogs/ponies.
This could help getting a purple worm later on.
In this game, a huge streak of luck gave me a titan, a balrog, and
some weaker ones. They wielded the unicorn horns I wanted to have,
which might be a blessing in disguise. At least, my magic whistle
turned into an instakill weapon and a replacement for Elbereth spam.
Is it worth the bother to price-identify enchanted weapons for pets?
What are your ideas of the “best” polytrap pet?
==Nutrition==
The second task is to find a source of polymorph. Surprisingly, many
games do not have any sinks at all. The chance of a ring of polymorph
in Sokoban, the Mines, or the first 10 levels is only around 50%. In
this game, I used up spare polytraps until I could throne farm for a
wand of polymorph.
==Throne farming==
You still can’t get any death drops, but monster inventory items can
be safely and quickly made as common as you like, once you can loot a
throne while confused.
So the third task is to find one, preferably at a shallow dungeon
level. The chance of a random throne room is 95-97% above Medusa, and
70-75% above level 14. Both are within reach if you have a good
polytrap pet. If there is none or you need silver/green/red dragon
scales, you may have to clear the Castle (see below). It would help if
someone could find a way to get Neferet the Green off her seat before
quest permission.
You need powerful pets, the scroll of scare monster, holy water to
pick it up afterwards, an uncursed scroll of earth from Sokoban, a
reusable source of confusion, some gold, and optionally a cursed bag
of holding. Farming is heavy lifting for your pets, so they should
regenerate or heal themselves. At least one should be non-eating so it
will actually fight. If your starting spells have not yet expired, a
cursed unicorn horn can provide confusion.
Dispose of all chests. The scroll of scare monster (and you) goes on
the throne. You need to discourage monsters zapping fire at you, so
you need a boulder fort to keep monsters adjacent. Give a wimpy
monster an uncursed scroll of earth and a metal helmet if needed.
Earth counts as “ranged” attack; so just let it tickle you.
Paste to farm as usual.
Don’t overwork your pets. If you lack a stethoscope, you may have to
wizmode-test how fast you can go. Don’t whack pets with healing
potions; that counts as abuse.
You get lots of healing potions, gain level, wands of teleportation
and sleeping, wands and potions of polymorph, and other stuff this
way. See the monster inventory spoiler for the full list. Most things
have some specialty use.
In this test drive, I saved some typing work with a constructed bones
file.
== Fountains, object identification, armor class, alchemy, Luck, and
other housekeeping chores==
The fourth task is to prepare for the more dangerous sequel.
You price-identify and use-test what you find, carefully not to waste
anything monsters’ inventories won’t replenish. Potions: price-
grouping; food store; #dip a unihorn, a poisoned, a non-poisoned
missile, and an amethyst; apply oil; nymphs bring object detection;
monster inventory; alchemy products. Don’t accidentally polymorph
objects. It is hard to tell monster detection and gain energy apart
without wasting them. See the wiki for rings and amulets.
All the usual chores apply: make pools near your main stash, type-
named gems and unicorns, stealing for cream pies, escape items,
collect one of everything in case you get mind flayed, drop holy water
and a cursed object on your stash, etc.
You have to pet-test and try on all armor you come across. It takes
the least amount of testing if the likelihood of a cursed object in
the stack is 50%. That means 5 pieces of armor, with known-uncursed,
marked junk on top for pets to play with or (not) wear themselves. If
applicable, binary search to single out one cursed object, then swap
it out for one untested piece of armor. A stethoscope can tell you the
total enchantment of what you later find on a monster’s corpse. In the
test run I didn’t manage to get below AC -2 while wearing silver
dragon scales. Helpful people on IRC have told me this is normal.
Before you level up, you might want to max out your stats. You gain
more power and health points this way, and you need less foocubi. With
Luck and safety measures in place, I usually quaff from each fountain
until I know if it is magic. A sack protects things from curses; lots
of individually named gems distract nymphs; the magic whistle or The
Scroll deal with snakes. (Don’t drown your pets.) Speed boots let you
exploit a free turn. It is wise to continue dipping on shallower
dungeon levels: You need unholy water anyway, the enlightenment effect
is useful to identify jewelry, and you may depend on water demons to
summon foocubi.
Alchemized full healing takes the place armor class normally would.
Use up gain level, not gain energy. Magic fountains probably become
available before blessed gain ability. You also might want huge
amounts of holy water for The Scroll, one blessed see invisible, and a
few enlightenment for later. Object detection probably is best saved
for maze levels.
Much later, when you need a buff pet and can cancel, you can use the
multistep recipe for gain level. Levitation is the only input you
cannot directly make from monsters’ potions. If you dip stacks of
water into anything else, you need “only” expected 190 tries to get
levitation. Save two blessed bottles for the endgame to free up a ring
or armor slot. (Random water alchemy becomes remarkably efficient with
huge stacks, even better than polymorph. But we’re not extincting
djinn here.)
==Gaining Alignment==
Gaining alignment is the hardest task. Even with a helm of opposite
alignment, the only ways to gain alignment repeatedly without breaking
any conducts are:
* Foocubi interaction as a chaotic,
* Stealing as a chaotic, repaying as a lawful,
* Angering a cross-aligned priest, if you start with charm monster,
* Healing spells on pets as a lawful, if you start with any,
* Untrapping peacefuls from pre-existing pits as a lawful.
Foocubi are the only method you can rely on. Ways they can be created:
* Kicking sinks, if your dungeon has any.
* Randomly in the dungeon. Protect them.
* Monsters reading or zapping create monster. Assuming experience
level 3 and dungeon level 13, 0.41% of all spawns are incubi. You need
about 19 cursed scrolls per foocubus.
* Graveyard population in the Valley of the Dead. Expect about 0-2
such demons.
* Demon summoning. Water demons work well above dungeon level 16
provided you have a plan for Yeenoghu and Juiblex.
The main problem is protecting the demons from your pets, while
protecting yourself with your pets.
In my test game, I played through the last three methods. Creating
monsters was an accident waiting to happen. Besides, those damn
monsters just didn’t want to read, and I didn't have a stethoscope to
make them.
Going to the Valley of the Dead didn’t work out well. I would have
returned by a level teleport trap. Medusa stoned my balrog, and I fell
through a trapdoor and got stomped by the minotaur. Finally, in the
Valley, I couldn’t spot a matching foocubus. Worse, the lich made sure
battle ensued, and I would not be able to level up a purple worm
later.
Interestingly, water demons were easiest.
==Water demons summon foocubi==
When a demon hits the player, it has a 1/13 chance of summoning a
demon. Usually, the result is the same species, but there is a 1/7
chance of a random demon. Above dungeon level 16, these are
predominantly foocubi. Incubi get summoned twice as often as succubi,
due to rn2(2) in Makemon.c#line1336. The least difficult summoning
demons are water demons, which coincidentally can be released from
fountains.
Have reflection, over 100 hit points, and a good supply of holy water,
healing potions, and wands of teleportation if you try this. You need
to lock your pets away; else they will kill your entire crop of
demons. Movement tactics are a bit tricky. You need to avoid getting
surrounded away from The Scroll. The biggest problem is the abysmal
healing rate of a low-level wizard. While you are waiting, random
monsters will spawn, you need to patrol with one of your pets, and it
will kill some of those precious foocubi. It is a good idea to leave a
few water demons on a different level as a backup.
Also, you need a good plan for Yeenoghu and Juiblex.
I was not sure my pets were high-level enough to attack Yeenoghu and
Juiblex. My plan was to take a water demon down to Mine’s End to my
pets as fast as possible (zapping a wand of digging). I would chase
the named demons up the stairs with a silver wand while standing on
The Scroll. It turned out silver damage was enough to kill them, but a
towel worked perfectly fine. To return, I would have displaced my pets
onto the level teleport traps, and finally used one myself. (With
teleport control from leveling up. Even without telecontrol, it is
unlikely to land on the demons’ level, and I could have tried again or
quaffed cursed gain level.) Such return plans were not even necessary:
my titan and my balrog reliably killed both named demons.
All in all, demon farming proved to be remarkably safe.
==Miscellaneous==
At this stage of the game, a ring of levitation provides a fast method
to travel down with several pets. Float over your hole, assemble them
around you, and remove the ring. Wands of digging are available at a
throne. Pick-axes don’t work because you can’t guarantee you will back
to fetch your pets within 74 moves, and tameness cannot be increased
for some pets. On the other hand, if you fall down a trapdoor in the
early game and lose sight of your pet, you are likely hosed.
Medusa can shoot herself with a wand if you are blindfolded, or
invisible and reflecting. Without ESP, it takes some practice to pull
off.
This is how far my test game has progressed. I’m still not quite sure
what pets I will take to Gehennom, and from where to get the patience
polytrap dancing for a specific monster takes. Avoiding battles seems
like a good basic plan.
==Resistances and trap detection==
If you have reflection and poison resistance, only traps remain an
issue with resistances. Unfortunately, trap detection is very limited,
and extrinsic-granting jewelry is not that common. (In my test game, I
am missing poison, conflict, polymorph, free action, and less
important ones.)
Perhaps advancing slowly and carefully is the only option for a long
time.
Poison: Avoid orcish line of fire. Magic cancellation helps cut down
on instadeath from poisoned weapons. Dispose of all poisoned weapons.
Orcs could even be extincted at a throne. Testing for poison
resistance gear is not that obvious: You can alchemize poison using a
non-recipe, and quaff it.
Traps: Rings of levitation and searching can help evade some traps in
Gehennom.
Extrinsics: Various combinations of rings, amulets, dragon scales, a
shield of reflection, an alchemy smock, and Firebrand yield the three
crucial extrinsics poison, fire, and reflection. Dragon scales of
choice can be made at the Castle throne. If the game gives you
nothing, a foolhardy way to get a guaranteed shield of reflection is
to summon an archon out of sight. It takes around 23 cursed scrolls or
22 wands on the castle level, which even has an Elbereth you can use.
==Good ideas that don’t work==
Magic trap taming an archon is remotely possible, but more than
foolhardy. If your AC is -4, it deals around 31 damage per turn. The
trap has 59% chance of taming it before exploding. It takes expected
12.2 tries for either to happen, not counting the chance to escape the
trap. For an archon to spawn on the Castle level, you need to create
expected 297 monsters, that means 22.8 cursed scrolls read by
monsters. Also, it summons lots of nasties itself. Now imagine the
beating your pets are going to take.
Purple worms can be leveled up using the cursed Book of the Dead. You
have to do it on dungeon level 1; else you get tough zombies and dead
pet worms. (You might even extinct master lichs that way.) Given how
easily worms die, they might be a bit flaky as a Rodney tool. Leaving
them behind most of the time sounds like a plan. (In this game, I
don’t have conflict, and it doesn’t seem likely I will get it.)
==Doesn’t fit elsewhere==
Reading Tenaya’s log, I was struck how similar his approach was to
what I did in my 8- and 11-conduct runs. Independently coming up with
similar ideas means good ideas.
TJR
* Somebody on IRC suggested I level up beyond XP30 for the hit points.
I could try that. If it spells too much trouble for my pets, I could
get level drained and keep the boost.
* I can make potions of speed and wands of tele. If I get jumping
boots, pets could be less crucial on the Astral Plane.
* Pet testing: Pet in a corner in Sokoban. I block one square, stash
+boulder another one, the test items block the third adjacent square.
* Inventory full of wands of sleep and tele. Triple bounces: off wall
and then off me, for high-MR monsters.
* Give a few water demons cursed teleportation scrolls as a backup in
case my crop gets killed.
Janis Papanagnou
>
> ==Throne farming==
> So the third task is to find one, preferably at a shallow dungeon
> someone could find a way to get Neferet the Green off her seat before
> quest permission.
I've occasionally managed that; I think it was due to wearing speed
boots, so that he didn't get his turn in time. (Maybe displacement
works as well if he mistakes your position as not being adjacent?)
> [...] You need to discourage monsters zapping fire at you, so
> you need a boulder fort to keep monsters adjacent.
Erm.. - what?! Adjacent monsters (like dragons) certainly won't
breath, but intelligent monsters seem to happily zap wands at you.
> Give a wimpy
> monster an uncursed scroll of earth and a metal helmet if needed.
> Earth counts as “ranged” attack; so just let it tickle you.
> [...]
> Much later, when you need a buff pet and can cancel, you can use the
> multistep recipe for gain level. Levitation is the only input you
> cannot directly make from monsters’ potions. If you dip stacks of
> water into anything else, you need “only” expected 190 tries to get
> levitation. Save two blessed bottles for the endgame to free up a ring
> or armor slot. [...]
Why two? One seems enough, even if considering that you cannot read
scrolls and looking for the portal on the Plane of Water the hard
way.
> Going to the Valley of the Dead didn’t work out well. I would have
> returned by a level teleport trap. Medusa stoned my balrog, and I fell
> through a trapdoor and got stomped by the minotaur.
No wand of teleport (or sleep) available?
> Also, you need a good plan for Yeenoghu and Juiblex.
>
> I was not sure my pets were high-level enough to attack Yeenoghu and
> Juiblex.
I wonder whether Juiblex with 1 HP would already be sufficiently
scared to leave you alone, or whether he will still swallow you.
> [...] If the game gives you
> nothing, a foolhardy way to get a guaranteed shield of reflection is
> to summon an archon out of sight. [...]
> ==Good ideas that don’t work==
> [...] For an archon to spawn on the Castle level, you need to create
> expected 297 monsters, that means 22.8 cursed scrolls read by
> monsters. Also, it summons lots of nasties itself. Now imagine the
> beating your pets are going to take.
A high level purple worm would swallow an Archon. Sounds feasible.
> Purple worms can be leveled up using the cursed Book of the Dead. You
> have to do it on dungeon level 1; else you get tough zombies and dead
> pet worms. (You might even extinct master lichs that way.) Given how
> easily worms die, they might be a bit flaky as a Rodney tool.
Flaky? - Leveled up XL:49 purple worms may get up to 400 HPs, IIRC,
and sped up he'll instantly kill Him.
> Leaving
> them behind most of the time sounds like a plan. [...]
An interesting collection of information, and nice to read!
Janis
TJR
> > So the third task is to find one, preferably at a shallow dungeon
> > level. [...] It would help if
> > someone could find a way to get Neferet the Green off her seat before
> > quest permission.
>
> I've occasionally managed that; I think it was due to wearing speed
> boots, so that he didn't get his turn in time. (Maybe displacement
> works as well if he mistakes your position as not being adjacent?)
I would be very happy if you could post intructions. I've never
managed to make her budge at all before obtaining permission to go on
the quest.
> > [...] You need to discourage monsters zapping fire at you, so
> > you need a boulder fort to keep monsters adjacent.
> Erm.. - what?! Adjacent monsters (like dragons) certainly won't
> breath, but intelligent monsters seem to happily zap wands at you.
Monsters *can* used ranged attacks while adjacent, but somehow I've
never had it happen while they were also scared. I'm not vouching this
scroll+fort idea will absolutely always work, but I've never had it
fail. (Unfortunately, a player's relfection does not protects the
scroll he's standing on.)
> > multistep recipe for gain level. Levitation is the only input you
> > cannot directly make from monsters’ potions. If you dip stacks of
> > water into anything else, you need “only” expected 190 tries to get
> > levitation. Save two blessed bottles for the endgame to free up a ring
> > or armor slot. [...]
>
> Why two? One seems enough, even if considering that you cannot read
> scrolls and looking for the portal on the Plane of Water the hard
> way.
At that stage of the game, I get quite risk-averse. Besides, leaving
one extra doesn't hurt.
The original text sounds as if you had to alchemize levitation. I'm
just trying to say you always can make some if you don't find any.
> > Going to the Valley of the Dead didn’t work out well. I would have
> > returned by a level teleport trap. Medusa stoned my balrog, and I fell
> > through a trapdoor and got stomped by the minotaur.
> No wand of teleport (or sleep) available?
Plenty of them. But teleporting Medusa would make things worse. I was
happy she was locked up in her room and could stone only one pet, and
not everbody traversing the water. (That one got whistled in by
accident, BTW.)
> > Also, you need a good plan for Yeenoghu and Juiblex.
>
> > I was not sure my pets were high-level enough to attack Yeenoghu and
> > Juiblex.
>
> I wonder whether Juiblex with 1 HP would already be sufficiently
> scared to leave you alone, or whether he will still swallow you.
If he's too high-level for my pets, down to 1HP still doesn't entice
them to fight him. Even with 1 HP left, Juiblex will eventually heal
up and harrass you again. You can't have that when you are letting
water demons hit yourself. After all, they're not completely harmless
to an XP5 wizard.
> > [...] If the game gives you
> > nothing, a foolhardy way to get a guaranteed shield of reflection is
> > to summon an archon out of sight. [...]
> A high level purple worm would swallow an Archon. Sounds feasible.
Good point. I'll wiz-test that if I have to farm for reflection. I
still hope I will never have to, because motivating 23 monsters to
read a scroll is a huge pain.
> > ==Good ideas that don’t work==
> > [...] For an archon to spawn on the Castle level, you need to create
> > expected 297 monsters, that means 22.8 cursed scrolls read by
> > monsters. Also, it summons lots of nasties itself. Now imagine the
> > beating your pets are going to take.
Here I'm talking about something else: I'm not going after the
archon's shield of reflection, but trying to tame the beast itself. A
purple worm won't be helpful, I'm afraid.
> > Purple worms can be leveled up using the cursed Book of the Dead. You
> > have to do it on dungeon level 1; else you get tough zombies and dead
> > pet worms. (You might even extinct master lichs that way.) Given how
> > easily worms die, they might be a bit flaky as a Rodney tool.
>
> Flaky? - Leveled up XL:49 purple worms may get up to 400 HPs, IIRC,
> and sped up he'll instantly kill Him.
I'm definitely going to give it a try. Is it better to have one level
49 worm, or several high-level ones? Is there a way to make worms
digest faster?
Are there any "secrets" of worm care?
> An interesting collection of information, and nice to read!
> Janis
Thank you!
Janis Papanagnou
>>> ==Throne farming==
>>> So the third task is to find one, preferably at a shallow dungeon
>>> level. [...] It would help if
>>> someone could find a way to get Neferet the Green off her seat before
>>> quest permission.
>>
>> I've occasionally managed that; I think it was due to wearing speed
>> boots, so that he didn't get his turn in time. (Maybe displacement
>> works as well if he mistakes your position as not being adjacent?)
>
> I would be very happy if you could post intructions. I've never
> managed to make her budge at all before obtaining permission to go on
> the quest.
It is the same with XL<14 as with XL>=14; be very fast (and/or
displaced?) move adjacent to him, then in case he does not throw
you out make the move onto his square but confirm that you *don't*
want to attack him, then he will start wandering around without
doing the usual dialog - to get access later, you'll have to #chat
to him. If, OTOH, he got his turn to throw you out of the quest
repeat the above procedure.
>
>>> [...] You need to discourage monsters zapping fire at you, so
>>> you need a boulder fort to keep monsters adjacent.
>> Erm.. - what?! Adjacent monsters (like dragons) certainly won't
>> breath, but intelligent monsters seem to happily zap wands at you.
>
> Monsters *can* used ranged attacks while adjacent, but somehow I've
> never had it happen while they were also scared.
Right, the scaring effect can work.
> I'm not vouching this
> scroll+fort idea will absolutely always work, but I've never had it
> fail. (Unfortunately, a player's relfection does not protects the
> scroll he's standing on.)
Ah; another issue that has to be considered in your challenge!
>
>>> [...] Save two blessed bottles for the endgame to free up a ring
>>> or armor slot. [...]
>>
>> Why two? One seems enough, even if considering that you cannot read
>> scrolls and looking for the portal on the Plane of Water the hard
>> way.
>
> At that stage of the game, I get quite risk-averse. Besides, leaving
> one extra doesn't hurt.
>
> The original text sounds as if you had to alchemize levitation. I'm
> just trying to say you always can make some if you don't find any.
I don't understand that. Levitation cannot be made/alchemized, I'd say.
> [...] But teleporting Medusa would make things worse. I was
> happy she was locked up in her room and could stone only one pet, and
> not everbody traversing the water. (That one got whistled in by
> accident, BTW.)
BTW; would an Archon with a shield of reflection insta-kill Medusa?
And a thought; a high level pet green slime might works as well.
> [...]
> I still hope I will never have to, because motivating 23 monsters to
> read a scroll is a huge pain.
:-)
>> Flaky? - Leveled up XL:49 purple worms may get up to 400 HPs, IIRC,
>> and sped up he'll instantly kill Him.
>
> I'm definitely going to give it a try. Is it better to have one level
> 49 worm, or several high-level ones? Is there a way to make worms
> digest faster?
I cannot answer your first question in a definite way. IIRC, level 35
purple worms were usually sufficient for the Rodney incarnations that I
met in my games, but your conduct game may - maybe not, I don't know -
delay your game so that Wizards with too high level will be created at
some time - but I don't think this will be the case, so I'd probably go
for a couple level 40 worms. The reason is that you must take care that
the worms don't swallow green slimes or shape changer, and it's better
to have some worm as reserve after such an incident. Actually that's the
most difficult task for me, to keep them intact and away from that sort
of danger. In my games the best I had were two level 49 worms once, one
level 49 worm and two or three mid-range and low-range worms in another
game, and a horde of mid-/low-level purple worms in yet another game;
all suffered from the occasional and annoying shape change. If you're
careful enough, a single level 49 worm may suffice, but I'd probably
go for two level 40 worms - that is, if I had a chance to choose.
Your second question is simple; no. If they get their limbs and tongue
on a heavy dragon corpse they will be out of order for a very long time.
So it seems a good tactics to avoid letting your (worm or non-worm)
pets kill those huge monsters in the first place.
> Are there any "secrets" of worm care?
Attentiveness; something I am often lacking. And taking precautions; may
not be generally available in a conduct game. The latter comprises (in
my games) a magic whistle, always keeping them close, keep them away
from huge piles of food, wear a ring of PfSC, genocide (using thrones
in your case?) green slimes. Another danger, that just occurs to me,
are polytraps (and probably also level-teleporter); I haven't found any
counteraction against the traps, but that's an issue for most types of
pets.
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
And I forgot to mention one thing that I often use; a wand of undead
turning! (Though it's not guaranteed that your pet will still be tame
after resurrection, but it mostly works well.)
Janis
TJR
wrote:
> Am 03.09.2010 07:05, schrieb TJR:
> > I would be very happy if you could post intructions. I've never
> > managed to make her budge at all before obtaining permission to go on
> > the quest.
>
> It is the same with XL<14 as with XL>=14; be very fast (and/or
> displaced?) move adjacent to him, then in case he does not throw
> you out make the move onto his square but confirm that you *don't*
> want to attack him, then he will start wandering around without
> doing the usual dialog - to get access later, you'll have to #chat
> to him. If, OTOH, he got his turn to throw you out of the quest
> repeat the above procedure.
If your quest leader throws you out 7 times with XP>=14, the quest
portal is removed and the game becomes unwinnable. So don't do that.
With XP<14, it is safe, but useless. I tried it out in wizard mode:
Neferet just continues to stand still on her throne. It doesn't matter
if I use a "free" turn, have monsters attack her under conflict, do it
the first time or repeatedly - she reliably teleports me out the
moment I step next to her. A wand of probing still shows her as
meditating.
Would you please do some testing again?
> > The original text sounds as if you had to alchemize levitation. I'm
> > just trying to say you always can make some if you don't find any.
> I don't understand that. Levitation cannot be made/alchemized, I'd say.
There is no explicit alchemy recipe for levitation, but a non-recipe
has a chance of a random result. That's why you would need so many
tries. Dipping a stack of water into something else counts as random
alchemy.
> BTW; would an Archon with a shield of reflection insta-kill Medusa?
A visible tame one, yes. Usually, archons are invisible. Then still,
Medusa goes down rather quickly. OTOH, a 12-conduct character can't
get a pet archon (except with wizard-mode style resources).
> And a thought; a high level pet green slime might works as well.
I could imaging better pets to spend my precious wraith on than a
green slime.
> I cannot answer your first question in a definite way. IIRC, level 35
> purple worms were usually sufficient for the Rodney incarnations that I
> met in my games, but your conduct game may - maybe not, I don't know -
> delay your game so that Wizards with too high level will be created at
> some time - but I don't think this will be the case, so I'd probably go
I still have the cursed Book of the Dead for that case.
> for a couple level 40 worms. The reason is that you must take care that
> the worms don't swallow green slimes or shape changer, and it's better
> to have some worm as reserve after such an incident. Actually that's the
> most difficult task for me, to keep them intact and away from that sort
> of danger. In my games the best I had were two level 49 worms once, one
> level 49 worm and two or three mid-range and low-range worms in another
> game, and a horde of mid-/low-level purple worms in yet another game;
> all suffered from the occasional and annoying shape change. If you're
> careful enough, a single level 49 worm may suffice, but I'd probably
> go for two level 40 worms - that is, if I had a chance to choose.
That sounds quite like a challenge. Keep in mind I have no way to
sense monsters remotely, and only those lamps I find at Ichzak's for
the whole game. That includes Gehennom the slow way.
> Attentiveness; something I am often lacking. And taking precautions; may
> not be generally available in a conduct game. The latter comprises (in
> my games) a magic whistle, always keeping them close, keep them away
> from huge piles of food, wear a ring of PfSC,
Here you are assuming I have a =PfSC, which is quite unlikely, and
also that I don't need the ring finger to avert poison instadeath or
fire loss of maximum HP.
> genocide (using thrones
> in your case?)
Genocide is a conduct, so I can't do that.
> green slimes. Another danger, that just occurs to me,
> are polytraps (and probably also level-teleporter); I haven't found any
> counteraction against the traps, but that's an issue for most types of
I've been worrying about that since post one.
> And I forgot to mention one thing that I often use; a wand of undead
> turning! (Though it's not guaranteed that your pet will still be tame
> after resurrection, but it mostly works well.)
A wand of undead turning also means you cannot heal up your pets with
healing potions because that counts as abuse.
Janis Papanagnou
> On 3 Sep., 10:51, Janis Papanagnou<janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>> Am 03.09.2010 07:05, schrieb TJR:
>
>
> If your quest leader throws you out 7 times with XP>=14, the quest
> portal is removed and the game becomes unwinnable. So don't do that.
Interesting. (I've never been thrown out with XL>=14, though. You must
have a bad alignment, I suppose, to be thrown out?)
> With XP<14, it is safe, but useless. I tried it out in wizard mode:
> Neferet just continues to stand still on her throne. It doesn't matter
> if I use a "free" turn, have monsters attack her under conflict, do it
> the first time or repeatedly - she reliably teleports me out the
> moment I step next to her. A wand of probing still shows her as
> meditating.
>
> Would you please do some testing again?
Hmm.. - you seem to be right, and I seem to have been misremembering.
Sorry for that!
>> And a thought; a high level pet green slime might works as well.
> I could imaging better pets to spend my precious wraith on than a
> green slime.
Sure. I've had those high-level-purple-worms-eat-green-slime incidents
in mind, I also wouldn't deliberately spend one. (BTW, I meet the green
slimes typically not before the Castle, so one would have to bypass
Medusa for that to apply, or have some random green slime polymorph
event happen before.)
>
>> I cannot answer your first question in a definite way. IIRC, level 35
>> purple worms were usually sufficient for the Rodney incarnations that I
>> met in my games, but your conduct game may - maybe not, I don't know -
>> delay your game so that Wizards with too high level will be created at
>> some time - but I don't think this will be the case, so I'd probably go
>
> I still have the cursed Book of the Dead for that case.
>
>> for a couple level 40 worms. The reason is that you must take care that
>> the worms don't swallow green slimes or shape changer, and it's better
>> to have some worm as reserve after such an incident. Actually that's the
>> most difficult task for me, to keep them intact and away from that sort
>> of danger. In my games the best I had were two level 49 worms once, one
>> level 49 worm and two or three mid-range and low-range worms in another
>> game, and a horde of mid-/low-level purple worms in yet another game;
>> all suffered from the occasional and annoying shape change. If you're
>> careful enough, a single level 49 worm may suffice, but I'd probably
>> go for two level 40 worms - that is, if I had a chance to choose.
>
> That sounds quite like a challenge.
LOL. Keeping a purple worm alive is no challenge, your multi-conduct is
the challenge! ;-)
> Keep in mind I have no way to sense monsters remotely,
What about the amulet of ESP that you are carrying as a wizard? Or some
blessed potions of detect monsters? (ESP doesn't work with mindless
green slimes anyway, works just for the other shape changers.)
> and only those lamps I find at Ichzak's for the whole game.
Yes, but so what? All games, also the non-conduct games, suffer from a
chance that you've no light in abundance.
> That includes Gehennom the slow way.
Are you doing Gehennom top-down with your conduct game? Less optimal,
it seems.
>
>> Attentiveness; something I am often lacking. And taking precautions; may
>> not be generally available in a conduct game. The latter comprises (in
>> my games) a magic whistle, always keeping them close, keep them away
>> from huge piles of food, wear a ring of PfSC,
>
> Here you are assuming I have a =PfSC, which is quite unlikely, and
> also that I don't need the ring finger to avert poison instadeath or
> fire loss of maximum HP.
Well, I noted what helped me to "take care" of my worms. Your conduct
certainly requires finding some more items that you are not guaranteed.
So I really don't see what's wrong with finding a ring of PfSC, and why
it's okay to find a ring of slow digestion or a magic whistle or any of
the other helpful items. If you don't find an item that is convenient
for your challenge you'll have to try without it, or choose a different
tactics.
> Genocide is a conduct, so I can't do that.
Right, I forgot.
>> And I forgot to mention one thing that I often use; a wand of undead
>> turning! (Though it's not guaranteed that your pet will still be tame
>> after resurrection, but it mostly works well.)
>
> A wand of undead turning also means you cannot heal up your pets with
> healing potions because that counts as abuse.
If throwing the potions is bad, don't do that. - I didn't suggest that.
Heal up your (resurrectable) pet as you like or as you can in your game.
If your pet purple worms die by accident, use that wand to restore them
to full health; that's all what I want to remind in case of their death.
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
> Am 03.09.2010 15:26, schrieb TJR:
>> On 3 Sep., 10:51, Janis Papanagnou<janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> Am 03.09.2010 07:05, schrieb TJR:
>>
>>> [ make Quest leader move away before XL:14 ]
>
>> With XP<14, it is safe, but useless. I tried it out in wizard mode:
>> Neferet just continues to stand still on her throne. It doesn't matter
>> if I use a "free" turn, have monsters attack her under conflict, do it
>> the first time or repeatedly - she reliably teleports me out the
>> moment I step next to her. A wand of probing still shows her as
>> meditating.
>>
>> Would you please do some testing again?
>
> Hmm.. - you seem to be right, and I seem to have been misremembering.
> Sorry for that!
I've to correct my last reply.
I had done some testing and have been thrown out a lot of times.
Just now I tried one more time and *it worked*. My gear was speed
boots and displacement, but I'm positive that you don't need both.
So actually I was not misremembering and you can get to the chest
if you try a couple times.
Janis
TJR
wrote:
> >> And a thought; a high level pet green slime might works as well.
> Sure. I've had those high-level-purple-worms-eat-green-slime incidents
> in mind, I also wouldn't deliberately spend one. (BTW, I meet the green
Slimed monsters don't retain their high level.
> > Keep in mind I have no way to sense monsters remotely,
> What about the amulet of ESP that you are carrying as a wizard? Or some
> blessed potions of detect monsters? (ESP doesn't work with mindless
> green slimes anyway, works just for the other shape changers.)
ESP is what I'm counting on. Monster detection is hard to come by
because it isn't a monster inventory item or alchemy product.
> Are you doing Gehennom top-down with your conduct game? Less optimal,
> it seems.
I don't know yet how to do Gehennom. Wizards get telecontrol at XP17,
and levelport traps aren't that rare, so levelporting down is an
option. Bottom-up is only better if you can find the stairs, such as
by chasing a lich. If my pets kill liches too fast, I might have to
dig down and search every other level exhaustively for the stairs.
Protecting worms: My point is I can't rely on finding just the right
jewelry. Rerolling is the only exception. A 12-conduct game needs
solid planning for adverse circumstances.
[ Moved here from the other thread.]
>> In the 12-conduct testing context, I was planning to wait out 12 turns
>> on the upstairs of the Sanctum level. Hopefully, Rodney will get the
>> Amulet for me.
>He has never done that for me. Even double troubled the High Priest
>will survive their attack. I've always slaughtered slowly my way
>through the graveyard and the priests, only to arrive and see the
>three still fight each other. I always had to kill all three of them
>to get The Amulet.
I've heard the Wizard will kill the High Priest of Moloch after
perhaps a thousand turns. But I can't test right now if this is true
or useful.
> Other major demons do what you want, though. I think it was Yeenoghu
> who has done that for me (and I've heard that Asmodeus would do that
> as well).
Any named demon will try to fetch the Amulet. The problem is either
how to kill the demon or how to protect the demon until it retrieves
the Amulet. Unfortunately, Juiblex and Yeenoghu have already been
"used up" while farming water demons. Asmodeus at level 49 is
particularily hard to kill and easy to pay off.Perhaps Orcus would
work. This subject still needs some thought.
TJR
> Just now I tried one more time and *it worked*. My gear was speed
> boots and displacement, but I'm positive that you don't need both.
>
> So actually I was not misremembering and you can get to the chest
> if you try a couple times.
Did you get Neferet off the throne?
Janis Papanagnou
Yes. First I tried with a random character, a Samurai, where I
could get adjacent with less than 10 tries. The next try was a
Wizard that succeeded with his third try. Actually, on his first
try he had auto-pickup on and got burdened while picking up the
chest besides the throne, so the first throw out was to expect.
But after two more tries he succeeded to get adjacent and make
him then wander away from the throne.
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
> On Sep 3, 5:11 pm, Janis Papanagnou<janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>>> And a thought; a high level pet green slime might works as well.
>> Sure. I've had those high-level-purple-worms-eat-green-slime incidents
>> in mind, I also wouldn't deliberately spend one. (BTW, I meet the green
>
> Slimed monsters don't retain their high level.
No? Well, I wouldn't bet, but I seem to recall a recent game where
a pet slimed purple worm pet has successfully attacked the Wizard.
>> Are you doing Gehennom top-down with your conduct game? Less optimal,
>> it seems.
>
> I don't know yet how to do Gehennom. Wizards get telecontrol at XP17,
> and levelport traps aren't that rare, so levelporting down is an
> option. Bottom-up is only better if you can find the stairs, such as
> by chasing a lich. If my pets kill liches too fast, I might have to
> dig down and search every other level exhaustively for the stairs.
Yes. And in addition to the lich-trick the bottom-up method has the
additional advantage of having clairvoyance to auto-map larger parts
of the map once you've got the Amulet. (Permanent levitation is good
as to not fall into a trapdoor on your way up which is very annoying
with the Force.)
> [ Demons getting the Amulet for you ]
>> Other major demons do what you want, though. I think it was Yeenoghu
>> who has done that for me (and I've heard that Asmodeus would do that
>> as well).
>
> Any named demon will try to fetch the Amulet.
Sure. What I meant is; *two* Wizards fighting hundreds(!) of turns
with the High Priest did not manage to kill him in many of my games.
But Yeenoghu did manage that in less than 10 turns without that you
have to move off the upstairs of Moloch's Sanctum!
Janis
Ray
> So here is the challenge: How to make only one worm swallow all the
> wraith, while the other 3-4 stand by idle. Any ideas?
Zap one worm with a wand of haste monster. When a wraith leaves a corpse,
blow a magic whistle to bring them all to you. If there's any distance to
the corpse, the hasty one will reach it first.
Bear
Ray
> I'm definitely going to give it a try. Is it better to have one level
> 49 worm, or several high-level ones? Is there a way to make worms
> digest faster?
A worms subject to ring hunger if they eat edible rings?
> Are there any "secrets" of worm care?
Um, yes, but genociding green slimes is something you can't really
do in a 12-conduct game.
Bear
Janis Papanagnou
If you'd have a wraith corpse just step on it and displace the worm
you like onto it. But the point is to let the worm *swallow* the
monster, not eat the corpse. In the valley you'd get far too few
corpses, but if a purple worm swallows a wraith he'll be guaranteed
the XL gain.
Janis
TJR
wrote:
You've found something brilliant.
Neferet is "meditating" on the throne, which means STRAT_WAITMASK
(pline.c#line323). Meditation will be ended by harmful player actions,
the #chat command, or being able to hit her (sounds.c#line917,
uhitm.c#line104, uhitm.c#line395). The quest leader gets to throw you
out at the beginning of each of her moves if you are adjacent
(monmove.c#line325).
Normal-speed monsters and players take turns moving. Fast players
occasionally get two turns in a row, without the monster movement code
being called. In theory, Neferet should not be able to expel you
between two such turns. The real riddle is why she does anyway.
It seems the only way to go is to exploit the speed system somehow.
The good news is you can try as often as you like.
Wizmode testing setup:
1) start up an elven wizard
2) drink 2 holy gain level, 3 holy gain ability, and 1 holy see
invisible; zap speed monster and make invisible onto myself. Put on a
+8 ring of protection.
3) Wear speed boots to ease testing.
4) level- and teleport within 2 squares of Nefert the Green
5) search until I know I will get a free turn
6) step next to her
7) either get thrown out right away, or #chat to her beforehand.
Unfortunately, my rate of #chats was very low. But each success
liberated the throne.
TJR
It works perfectly fine. I just had some misconceptions what turn
monsters move on - watch the apprentices.
You arrange things so that Neferet doesn't get to move after you step
adjacent. Next, you #chat to her (or say no to "really attack?"). From
then on, she will wander around. Speed boots guarantee a free turn.
The chance with intrinsic speed from the wand is 40-60%, depending
recent actions-per-turn history. Normal speed people could in
principle make a monster throw paralysis at her, and then decline to
melee her.
Ben Rosengart
>
> If your quest leader throws you out 7 times with XP>=14, the quest
> portal is removed and the game becomes unwinnable. So don't do that.
I thought the quest leader only throws you out if your level is too
low. Why else would they do that?
--
Ben
2.3.2 418 I'm a teapot
Any attempt to brew coffee with a teapot should result in the error code
"418 I'm a teapot". The resulting entity body MAY be short and stout.
Janis Papanagnou
> On Fri, 3 Sep 2010 05:26:05 -0700 (PDT), TJR <tilmi...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>
>> If your quest leader throws you out 7 times with XP>=14, the quest
>> portal is removed and the game becomes unwinnable. So don't do that.
>
> I thought the quest leader only throws you out if your level is too
> low. Why else would they do that?
I think alignment matters as well. Not an issue if you play "regularly",
but if your character misbehaved this could be an issue, I assume.
Janis
TJR
> >> portal is removed and the game becomes unwinnable. So don't do that.
>
> > I thought the quest leader only throws you out if your level is too
> > low. Why else would they do that?
>
> I think alignment matters as well. Not an issue if you play "regularly",
> but if your character misbehaved this could be an issue, I assume.
The quest leader throws you out: harmlessly if your level is <14, and
with scorn if your level is >=14 but your alignment record is <20. The
latter is dangerous because the quest portal will be removed after the
seveth time. You don't even need to misbehave in any way, since no
character starts piously aligned.
In the 12-conduct context, this means trying to use Neferet's throne
can make your game unwinnable once you are at level 14.