First ascension (knight).
Boudewijn Wayers
Yesterday, I ascended my first character... A knight, called Kroisos,
finally made it to immortality.
He and his pet Angel of Luth made it to their reward with 20.824.594
points, after 308.500 moves. He was level 30 with a maximum of 2492 hit
points when he ascended. He defeated a grand total of 12.803 creatures.
The game wasn't really very eventful: it consisted of excessive use of
the cursed Bell of Opening trick, combined with polypiling. I guess
Kroisos spent about 70% of his time on level 19, which he completely
excavated and lit, except for the co-aligned temple that was there.
That temple was subsequently completely filled with "Elbereth"s, even
surrounded with a ring of "Elbereth"s, and then surrounded by a "moat"
of trapdoors, to keep monsters out when he wasn't there.
Kroisos was, even without access to the Platinum Yendorian Express
Card, one of my typical packrats. Even if he had only one wand of
polymorph, he made enough scrolls of charging to use it over and over
again. Here, the cursed Bell of Opening came in handy, after he
genocided all liches. It also provided him with numerous wraiths...
An extra bonus of the cursed Bell trick is that, after a while, not
only undead are generated, but other monsters as well. This has the
advantage that more items are generated (ghosts and mummies carry
little). These items were subsequently used as polypile fodder. Since
he used the trick near an altar, curses were easily detected, and the
fact that he tried on every non-cursed piece of armour may have cost
some time, but it did provide him with several +3 or +4 pieces of magic
armour.
After clearing out the mines (already at some 300 HP before starting),
he proceeded down, not having any real troubles. Every time he became
burdened, he teleported back to level 19, to do some more polypiling,
thus clearing the entire dungeon of debris. He only left rocks behind,
but took everything else with him. On his way down through Gehennom, he
meanwhile cleared the path from stair to stair, after having mapped out
every level entirely.
As usual, Vlad the Impaler was no problem at all, save for the fact
that Vlad cost him his intrinsic armour class. He decided to try one of
his scrolls of taming on Vlad, but this one only made him peaceful, not
tame, so Kroisos had to attack a peaceful monster (Vlad) to get hold of
the Candelabrum of Evocation. Lugh didn't like that, and - I believe -
took away his intrinsic AC.
Anyway, this prompted me to go back and have a try at locating Fort
Ludios, which I eventually did locate, at level 12. Back to an
intrinsic AC of -11 (I was lucky)... Talking about luck, I had some
more good luck when I accidentally read a scroll of enchant weapon
while Grayswandir was already at +7. It didn't blow up, but went to +8
instead. I guess having Grayswandir was vital for Kroisos' success. At
+8, I despatched Death with two or three blows!
I used only two or three wishes, and next to that, blew three wishes on
the Mitre of Holiness. I still had 7 wishes left then, but decided to
call it an end and stick with the +5 helm of brilliance I already had.
After I had found and marked the vibrating square, I headed back up to
level 19, and sorted my stuff: one bag of holding with valuables for
scoring purposes (gems, money, and amulets), one bag of holding with
figurines (to create some more pets when I arrived at the correct altar
later, for scoring), seven oilsking bags around these two, and another
bag of holding to decrease the weight. In that outer bag of holding, I
also put lots of scrolls of taming, cursed scrolls of gold detection,
and all else that would come in handy on the Elemental and Astral
Planes, and that I wouldn't need when facing the Wizard. I put that bag
next to the stairs up on level 1 and headed down to confront the Wizard
of Yendor.
In my other bag of holding, I had the stuff "needed" to meet the
Wizard, like some potions of paralysis, some ten wands of death, lots
of scrolls of charging, etc. Actually, I just took him on hand-to-hand
(there wasn't any creature that survived seven blows unless it could
teleport away). Then, I quickly headed down, did away with Moloch's
high priest, grabbed the Amulet of Yendor, and started my way up. The
helm of opposite alignment I had with me helped considerably, of
course.
On my way up, nothing remarkable happened, certainly not after I left
the Wizard paralysed somewhere (at the end, I had defeated him four
times, with no double trouble). Back at level 1, I took what I had left
there, and dropped most of the stuff I was otherwise carrying, like the
blank blessed spellbooks, 20+ magic markers, most blank scrolls, etc.
Then, I went to the Planes.
The Earth Plane was really easy, I needed only two zaps from my wands
of digging to reach the portal. Air was no problem either: no monster
there is really touch when you're at 2400+ hit points, since these
monsters don't use magic. The Fire Plane was the most difficult:
finding the portal took me quite a while. This was the one occasion
that my ring of conflict was of real use (I didn't use it anywhere
else: I prefer to kill monsters myself, for the obvious reason of
bettering my score). The Water Plane was almost as fast as the Earth
Plane: I just ran into the right bubble immediately and hit the portal
by accident.
At the Astral Plane, the third altar I arrived at was the correct one.
As mentioned before, the riders of the Apocalypse were no problem at
all. Pestilence hit me only once, and so did Death. After arriving at
the correct altar, I dug up my bag with figurines, and brought my 20 or
so new pets to life. Then, I read my ten or so scrolls of taming to get
some more pets, and liberally cast create familiar a few times (before
entering the Planes, I had read some spellbooks until I knew that spell
quite well indeed). Then, I offered the Amulet.
The pets and amulets I was carrying didn't give much points, but I did
get a lot of points for the gems I was carrying. I think this should
change a bit in a new version of the game: gems are much easier to come
by than pets, after all, so they shouldn't count that much. Of course,
the experience I gained by defeating monsters was much more important
than any points from items I was carrying. Since I did make a copy of
my save file now and then (never had to use it for recovery, though), I
could try something out once in a while. For instance, I quit the game
just before entering the Elemental Planes, to see what score I would
get when I finished without offering the Amulet. That score would have
been 8.671.577 points, about 40% of my real final score.
Some final remarks: I could have done the same in, I guess, about
100.000 moves less: most of the things I created by polypiling I
ditched later, since it was all far too much to carry. After a while, I
used a "cursed bag of holding named dustbin" to get rid of the stuff I
found: a nice way of clearing the dungeon of debris without having to
polypile it all away. I genocided all liches, all sea-monsters, golden
nagas, and, at the end, cockatrices (that would save weight, since I
wouldn't have to carry two lizard corpses with me).
Anyway, one class down, eleven to go... Perhaps, next time, I will try
to do it in as few moves as possible, and not go for a monster score.
Boudewijn.
--
My homepage: http://www.win.tue.nl/games/roguelike/homepage.html
True or False, but they say that... (rot13: D, d, or X to decode)
Or pnershy jura rngvat onananf. Zbafgref zvtug fyvc ba gur crryf. (S)
Rkgen fgnvepnfrf yrnq gb rkgen yriryf. (G)
Master NetHacker
wrote:
: Yesterday, I ascended my first character... A knight, called Kroisos,
: finally made it to immortality.
Congratulations, Boudewijn!
It surprises me greatly that you've never ascended a character before.
I figure that I'm not the only one to wonder this, so I'll ask publicly:
why did it take so long, given how well you know the game? Were you
the victim of the ever-present misfortunes of the game, or did you
simply never play a game to completion? (<-- my guess)
At any rate, well and truly (over)done. ;) ;) My _God_. Two thousand,
four hundred and ninety-two hit points... and I thought that I'd been
excessive with my own personal persistence record of 1,224 or whatever
it was...
: He and his pet Angel of Luth made it to their reward with 20.824.594
: points, after 308.500 moves. He was level 30 with a maximum of 2492 hit
: points when he ascended. He defeated a grand total of 12.803 creatures.
Nurk.
: ditched later, since it was all far too much to carry. After a while, I
: used a "cursed bag of holding named dustbin" to get rid of the stuff I
: found: a nice way of clearing the dungeon of debris without having to
I really, really like this trick. ;) I had never thought of that application
before.
: Anyway, one class down, eleven to go... Perhaps, next time, I will try
: to do it in as few moves as possible, and not go for a monster score.
The competition on your home system must be ferocious. ;) But seriously,
it'll be interesting to see how fast you can ascend. I've gotta try
for a speed ascent, myself, one o' these days... soon as that 7100/80
arrives... :)
C'mon, folks, let's hear it, Boudewijn ascended, as excessively as could
be expected!
Jorrit Tyberghein
>Yesterday, I ascended my first character... A knight, called Kroisos,
>finally made it to immortality.
>
>Ludios, which I eventually did locate, at level 12. Back to an
>intrinsic AC of -11 (I was lucky)... Talking about luck, I had some
I never noticed anything in Fort Ludios with which I can get such a low
intrinsic AC. What's the trick?
>Boudewijn.
Greetings and congratulations with your ascension,
--
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Andreas Mattern
: At last!
: Yesterday, I ascended my first character... A knight, called Kroisos,
: finally made it to immortality.
OK, I'm shocked!!!
The resident God of Nethack hadn't ascended so far!
I read it but didn't realize who was talking until I saw the .sig...
In the end, it makes me feel better that I haven't managed to ascend so
far... ;)
(I really was worried that I was a looser... but my latest tourist (!!!)
looks very promising. Just a side question: How often can you recharge
items? When I wanted to charge my magic marker a second time nothing
happened!
: He and his pet Angel of Luth made it to their reward with 20.824.594
: points, after 308.500 moves. He was level 30 with a maximum of 2492 hit
: points when he ascended. He defeated a grand total of 12.803 creatures.
Argle...
: The game wasn't really very eventful: it consisted of excessive use of
: the cursed Bell of Opening trick, combined with polypiling. I guess
: Kroisos spent about 70% of his time on level 19, which he completely
: excavated and lit, except for the co-aligned temple that was there.
: That temple was subsequently completely filled with "Elbereth"s, even
: surrounded with a ring of "Elbereth"s, and then surrounded by a "moat"
: of trapdoors, to keep monsters out when he wasn't there.
You certainly know how to bend the system until it screams!!! :)
: After clearing out the mines (already at some 300 HP before starting),
: he proceeded down, not having any real troubles.
What a complete surprise! :)
Nevertheless, congratulations! What class do you plan to use next?
--
Andreas Mattern
eMail ui...@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A priest was praying for guidance:
"Oh God, grant me this knowledge: what is the meaning of life?"
For a while, Creation was silent. Then a
booming voice, sounding severely pissed-off, shouts from heaven:
"R E A D T H E F U C K I N G F A Q !"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Brown
a high HP ?
If so, don't you think it's a bit like cheating ?
But like everyone else, I too was surprised to hear that you had
never ascended before.
Nice to know we're all human(oid).
Well done.
PS. My Wizard I just started with was given a +5 Ring of protection to
start with ... I think he'll go far :)
PPS. Does anyone know whether the Amulet of Life Saving is always
a "discovered" item for a Wizard ?
I have it listed: Amulet of Live Saving (Oval) in my list of
discoveries, but don't remember coming across it ever...
David Brown (da...@barney.neu.sgi.com) |
| You are in a twisty maze of IRIX
Managing Director | versions, all different.
DBCC Limited |
Northants. UK |
Steven L. Gaiser
David Brown <da...@barney.neu.sgi.com> wrote:
>PPS. Does anyone know whether the Amulet of Life Saving is always
>a "discovered" item for a Wizard ?
>
>I have it listed: Amulet of Live Saving (Oval) in my list of
>discoveries, but don't remember coming across it ever...
What almost certainly happened was something like this:
"You kill the monster. But wait..."
"The monster's medalion begins to glow!"
"The monster look much better!"
"The medallion crumbles to dust!"
After that, the amulet was ID'd for you, even if you didn't, in the
heat of battle, notice these lines go by.
Qohrdahs
ui...@rzstud2.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Andreas Mattern) wrote:
> Boudewijn Wayers (ded...@wsintt12.win.tue.nl) wrote:
> : At last!
>
> : Yesterday, I ascended my first character... A knight, called Kroisos,
> : finally made it to immortality.
Nice work...I came -very- close to ascending with a knight two days
ago...He choked on a wraith corpse though. :( He had 2 wands of wishing, 3
magic lamps, only used one wish (besides charging) for GDSM, and had
blessed rustproof +5 Excalibur, rustproof +2 Vorpal Blade (randomly
generated!!!), and Ogresmasher (I believe) and Fire Brand from a bones
level. 300-or-so HP, and he two, used the Bell quite a bit...I was sure
that if he didn't experience a YASD, he would ascend.
He had a YASD. :(
He did leave a bones level deep within Gehennom, though, which should be
interesting to find...:)
>
> OK, I'm shocked!!!
> The resident God of Nethack hadn't ascended so far!
> I read it but didn't realize who was talking until I saw the .sig...
>
I can't believe it either...Though the Dev Team are the Gods of Nethack. :)
> In the end, it makes me feel better that I haven't managed to ascend so
> far... ;)
> (I really was worried that I was a looser... but my latest tourist (!!!)
> looks very promising. Just a side question: How often can you recharge
> items? When I wanted to charge my magic marker a second time nothing
> happened!
>
Most items you can recharge infinately...But wands of wishing, only once.
I'm not sure about magic markers, though.
Most tourists, if they can survive past level 6 or so (extremely difficult
in itself. :) ) begin to look extremely promising. My best ascension was
with a Tourist...
> : He and his pet Angel of Luth made it to their reward with 20.824.594
> : points, after 308.500 moves. He was level 30 with a maximum of 2492 hit
> : points when he ascended. He defeated a grand total of 12.803 creatures.
>
2492 hit points, eh? I'm impressed...
>
>
> : The game wasn't really very eventful: it consisted of excessive use of
> : the cursed Bell of Opening trick, combined with polypiling. I guess
> : Kroisos spent about 70% of his time on level 19, which he completely
> : excavated and lit, except for the co-aligned temple that was there.
> : That temple was subsequently completely filled with "Elbereth"s, even
> : surrounded with a ring of "Elbereth"s, and then surrounded by a "moat"
> : of trapdoors, to keep monsters out when he wasn't there.
> : After clearing out the mines (already at some 300 HP before starting),
> : he proceeded down, not having any real troubles.
>
-- Qohrdahs
David Brown
In article <3vq5ai$14...@bigblue.oit.unc.edu>, Jorrit.T...@launchpad.unc.edu writes:
> >
> >Yesterday, I ascended my first character... A knight, called Kroisos,
> >finally made it to immortality.
> >
> >Ludios, which I eventually did locate, at level 12. Back to an
> >intrinsic AC of -11 (I was lucky)... Talking about luck, I had some
>
> intrinsic AC. What's the trick?
You never saw money ?
Remeber, give a priest mucho money and he'll give you
an AC intrinsic...
Steven L. Gaiser
Andreas Mattern <ui...@rzstud2.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de> wrote:
>Just a side question: How often can you recharge
>items? When I wanted to charge my magic marker a second time nothing
>happened!
How many times can an item by charged?
Wands of wishing and magic markers: only once
Chargable rings: until they explode
Other chargable items: ad infinitum
Jorrit Tyberghein
>> >Ludios, which I eventually did locate, at level 12. Back to an
>> >intrinsic AC of -11 (I was lucky)... Talking about luck, I had some
>>
>> intrinsic AC. What's the trick?
>
>You never saw money ?
>
>Remeber, give a priest mucho money and he'll give you
>an AC intrinsic...
Oh, is that it. But then you also need a priest and those can't be
found in fort Ludios (as far as I know).
By the way, how do you manage to take the money that is on a landmine.
I know how to detect what are landmines and what not but I don't know
how I can take that money (without getting injured that is).
Greetings,
Richard Tauriello
Jorrit Tyberghein <Jorrit.T...@launchpad.unc.edu> wrote:
>By the way, how do you manage to take the money that is on a landmine.
You could lead a monster onto them, but the easiest way is to levitate
back and forth over them until your "air currents" set them all off.
Or just take the pain like a true warrior :-) (a potion of speed is
helpful for the recovery)
- Rich
Perry Jeung
: In article <3vsejk$1c...@bigblue.oit.unc.edu>,
: Jorrit Tyberghein <Jorrit.T...@launchpad.unc.edu> wrote:
: >By the way, how do you manage to take the money that is on a landmine.
Just kick it off. That should work.
: You could lead a monster onto them, but the easiest way is to levitate
: back and forth over them until your "air currents" set them all off.
: Or just take the pain like a true warrior :-) (a potion of speed is
: helpful for the recovery)
: - Rich
C-ya,
Michael Jeung
Jukka Lahtinen
>In article <3vsejk$1c...@bigblue.oit.unc.edu>,
>Jorrit Tyberghein <Jorrit.T...@launchpad.unc.edu> wrote:
>>By the way, how do you manage to take the money that is on a landmine.
>You could lead a monster onto them, but the easiest way is to levitate
>back and forth over them until your "air currents" set them all off.
..or zap it with a wand of teleport. And try to find it somewhere else on
the level.
--
-----------------------------------------
! Jukka Lahtinen ! wal...@clinet.fi !
-----------------------------------------
Michael Jank
the strength to carry the corpse from where I killed it to the alter.
Advice?
Is there any point of trying to bless a potion or offer a sacrifice on
an unaligned alter or will you just piss the gods off?
Mikey
ja...@soldev.TTI.COM
Michael J. Jank
(310) 450-9111 Ext. 2616
Eric Johansen
: I frequently find myself on a level with an aligned alter but do not have
: the strength to carry the corpse from where I killed it to the alter.
: Advice?
Try to lure the monster onto the altar before killing it.
: Is there any point of trying to bless a potion or offer a sacrifice on
: an unaligned alter or will you just piss the gods off?
Sacrificing on a non-aligned altar may just convert the altar to your god
with obvious benefits. You cannot bless a potion on an non-aligned altar
but I think you can make unholy water
: Mikey
Clifford Francis Joseph Stamp
In article <1995Aug7.1...@ttinews.tti.com>, ja...@soldev.tti.com (Michael Jank) writes:
|>I frequently find myself on a level with an aligned alter but do not have
|>the strength to carry the corpse from where I killed it to the alter.
|>
|>Advice?
|>
Lure the monster to the alter and kill it there.
|>Is there any point of trying to bless a potion or offer a sacrifice on
|>an unaligned alter or will you just piss the gods off?
|>
Some (all?) potions have slightly different effects depending if they
are cursed/normal/blessed.
Offering on an unaligned can change it to your alignment.
Note, this is very hard in nh+
|>Mikey
|>
|>
|>ja...@soldev.TTI.COM
|>Michael J. Jank
|>(310) 450-9111 Ext. 2616
|>
--
Cliff Stamp
sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca