YAFAP - Archeologists FTW! Game crashes FTL!
JRBrown
tried seriously to ascend; I usually play late at night after work,
with the intention of unwinding a bit before bed, and tend to die of
those two endemic diseases, Not Paying Attention and Not Looking At
The Keyboard When Typing (I can't touch type, sue me). When a
character seems to be doing particularly well, I tend to switch out of
"playing for fun" mode and only continue when feeling in fighting
form, so of the 150 or so games I have played since graduating from
Explore mode, around 20 are parked somewhere between the Quest and the
bottom of Gehe-whatsis. Over the holidays I decided to make a stab at
getting someone up to Astral, and this is the result (posted a couple
months late...).
I like to play Archaelologists, ever since I first installed Nethack
and read the Guidebook (I read the Archaeologist description and
thought that it sounded suitably scientific; I was kind of annoyed to
find that they were Indiana Jones style archaeologists, but whatever).
They have lots of nice tools and get many useful abilities later. The
relative lack of early-game combat effectiveness is a bit of a
downside, but overall they're my favorite class (I also like Healers,
Monks, and Tourists).
Belinda, my lawful human female Arc, had the good fortune to get a
really excessive number of wishes; 12 used and a couple to spare. She
found a 0:3 wand of wishing in Sokoban; I promptly kitted her out with
a couple of scrolls of charging, the blessed +2 Grayswandir, silver
dragon scale mail, cloak of magic resistance, speed boots, helm of
telepathy, and an amulet of life saving (which I never used). After
that, the early game was a walk; the major in-game annoyance was
getting crowned the very first time I prayed (for holy water). The
castle WoW was 0:1, and between it and a couple of magic lanterns I
got gauntlets of dexterity, a T-shirt, a bag of holding, a magic
marker, and a spellbook of magic mapping (without which I refuse to
deal with Gehem-nomnomnom). I ended up ascending with the castle wand
at 1:1 and a spare magic lantern. This game also had the most
successful polypiling session ever; one wand (without recharges)
turned 20 or so unicorn horns and a large stash of elven cloaks and
boots into 3 magic markers and a helm of brilliance, plus a lot of
other stuff I didn't particularly want.
So, with 600+ hitpoints (alchemy), naked -8 AC (Ludios recycled
through three priests, eating a couple of rings of protection, and a
happy god), and ridiculous over-preparation, Belinda waltzed
(cautiously) up to Astral, axed Famine, reverse-genocided and tamed a
bunch of purple worms who cleared out the entire level for her, found
the neutral altar first try, and placed the Amulet of Yendor at the
feet of her God. And then, as I was taking screenshots of the ending
screens, the game crashed, for the fourth time (Nethack Carbon does
not like OSX).
Fortunately I had made a backup just after reaching the Plane of
Earth, so I didn't have to redo much. This time, I had to wade through
both Famine (twice, going in to the first altar and going out again)
and Death. Several game panics later, I ditched the pet purple worms
(thanks to Pat for pointing out the pet-related Ascension bug that was
screwing things up), and *finally* ascended this puppy.
For some painful reason, Nethack Carbon doesn't allow copy-pasting
from the game windows, so there's a bunch of screenshots linked later.
Goodbye Belinda the Demigoddess...
You and the guardian Angel of Quetzalcoatl
went to your reward with 5730790 points,
Grayswandir (worth 8000 zorkmids and 2000 points)
The Orb of Detection (2500 zorkmids and 6250 points) <- left the
Invocation Artifacts on level 1 to save weight
[a bunch of gems]
and 0 pieces of gold, after 93378 moves. <- Yes, I'm slow. I like
playing in a leisurely manner, thanks.
You were level 30 with a maximum of 692 hit points when you ascended.
Final stats:
* 692 HP, 288 PW, AC -48, all stats maxed plus +5 GoD and +4 HoB
* Two-weaponing the +7 Grayswandir and a +7 silver saber
* All spell schools at max for role, almost all spells known (altar
camping); I leaned heavily on Detect Monster and Magic Mapping in Gehe-
haha, plus Detect Treasure came in handy while looking for those last
few scrolls and potions of this-and-that for my ascension kit.
* More crap than you would believe carted in a BoH and sack (prepared
for every possible contingency!), plus an immense stash left behind
including a bunch of artifacts granted while altar-camping for
spellbooks (I just can't get the sac-pray ratio right). The only
things worth mentioning: castle wand (1:1), a spare magic lantern, all
the Nazgul rings, two backup amulets of life saving, and a souvenir
tin of Croesus. I was *just* below Burdened for the entire Planes.
* Attributes: Hand of Elbereth, all the standard intrinsics, intrinsic
teleport and teleport control (TC rings were edible)
* No conducts (I'm way too much of a fiddler-arounder). Genocided h,
L, R, and finally ; on arrival at Plane of Water, used 12 wishes.
Kill list:
* Orcus
* Jubilex
* The Wizard of Yendor (4 times)
* Death
* Famine (twice)
* a high priest
* 3 mastodons
* Medusa
* Croesus
* 17 krakens <- many from genocide on Water
[etc...]
* a white unicorn <- lowest single
[etc...]
* 117 killer bees <- several beehives, gave much royal jelly
[etc...]
* 17 lichens
* 13 kobold zombies
* 23 newts <- I always go after newts, for the power boost
Map: http://img715.imageshack.us/i/mapd.png/
Goodbye window: http://img412.imageshack.us/i/goodbyea.png/
Main inventory: http://img717.imageshack.us/i/inventory.png/
Attributes: http://img51.imageshack.us/i/attributes.png/
First page of kill list: http://img163.imageshack.us/i/kill1u.png/
Adman
> I've been playing Nethack on and off since 2006, but I haven't really
> tried seriously to ascend; I usually play late at night after work,
Congrats! You make it sound almost too easy... :)
David Damerell
>Belinda, my lawful human female Arc, had the good fortune to get a
>really excessive number of wishes; 12 used and a couple to spare. She
>found a 0:3 wand of wishing in Sokoban;
That's how I ascended an Arch the first time (well, not in Sokoban, I'm
not sure there was Sokoban then). I fear you'll feel the need to redo it
eventually.
>that, the early game was a walk; the major in-game annoyance was
>getting crowned the very first time I prayed (for holy water).
It happens, but really, at that stage, prayer emergencies should be few
and far between.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Today is Mania, March.
Tomorrow will be Aponoia, March.