vorpal blade
sho...@gmail.com
Ever since my last installation of nethack got accidentally wiped out,
I have been trying quite hard to ascend as a knight without much
success... The best I did was to choke on a mind flayer corpse in Orcus
town. Ahem...
So this time Oliver the gallant knight set out determinedly. At DL5, he
wandered into a quality apparels and accessories store full of wands.
And he picked up a jeweled wand and the shopkeeper said that it would
be 500 zorkmids. Oliver dropped it because he had no way to cough up
that kind of money - but he went out, gathered the cash, bought it -
and as he tried to engrave something on the floor he was asked if he
would like to make a wish!
DL5, xplev 3. Oliver got two scrolls of charging, a SDSM, a cloak of
MR, the helm of brilliance, speed boots, frost brand, and gauntlets of
dexterity. Nothing else could beat him...
And soon, he learnt how to cast magic missile. And he slayed Ixoth to
find Merlin's precious mirror...
Oliver entered Moloch's sanctum with 350 hit points and 480 spell
points and at an xplev of 30. He was invincible. Or he thought he was.
By the time he reached the plane of Earth with the the AoY, he had
missiled Rodney 6 times.
The elemental planes passed by like small skirmishes, as Oliver
prepared himself for the final battle on the Astral Plane where he
would meet Death, Pestilence and Famine. And then...
You feel dizzy for a moment, but the sensation passes.
You arrive on the Astral Plane!
Here the High Temples of the aligned gods are located.
You sense alarm, hostility, and excitement in the air!
A voice whispers: "Thou hast been worth of me!"
An angel appears near you.
Pick an object.
@ a human or elf (tourist called Stephen the Explorer) [seen: normal
vision, telepathy]
The ice-cold blade hits Stephen the Explorer.
Stephen the Explorer wields a greased long sword named Vorpal Blade!
Stephen the Explorer swings his long sword named Vorpal Blade.
Vorpal Blade decapitates you!
You die...
Do you want your possessions identified? [ynq] (n)
Fare thee well, Oliver the Knight...
You died in the Astral Plane with 2948586 points,
and 5053 pieces of gold, after 67806 moves.
You were level 30 with a maximum of 380 hit points when you died.
You made the top ten list!
No Points Name
Hp [max]
1 2948586 Oliver-Kni-Hum-Mal-Law died on the Astral Plane.
Killed by a tourist called Stephen the Explorer
(with the Amulet).
- [380]
2 1713976 Vikram-Kni-Hum-Mal-Law choked on his food in Gehennom
on level 43 [max 44]. Choked on a mind flayer corpse.
- 465 [465]
Anyway... Highlights of the game:
Orcus, Yeenoghu, Juiblex, WoY 9 times
4 arch-liches, a high priest, 3 mastodons, Medusa, Croesus
......
Ixoth, Vlad the Impaler,
......
8 master mind flayers, ... 6 mind flayers, ...
3143 creatures vanquished
Conduct:
You never genocided any monsters
You never polymorphed an object
You never changed form
You used 11 wishes
Maybe it's time for me to start playing some other characters now!
-Shouri
Ian-Keith
> Stephen the Explorer swings his long sword named Vorpal Blade.
> Vorpal Blade decapitates you!
> You die...
Friggin' OUCH. My condolences. This is why I go on sacfests before I go
real deep, so that someone doesn't turn up with a nasty like this on
Astral or something. If it gets generated somewhere, it can't be
generated again somewhere else.
Oh, and RNG, GG on rolling the nat 20
JH
Note that this only works if your character is neutral. Since the OP was a
knight, odds are this wasn't the case.
I do the same thing with all my neutrals, I either sacfest or get crowned
just so I know where vorpy is.
--
-JH
Ascended V,A,W(x2),B,K,Ro,C,S(x2),H,T,Ra,P
sho...@gmail.com
Yeah... The knight was lawful. Sacfests wouldn't have helped. I had Ex,
and a few other artifact long swords but not the Vorpal Blade...
-Shouri
Jove
>
>Ever since my last installation of nethack got accidentally wiped out,
>I have been trying quite hard to ascend as a knight without much
>success... The best I did was to choke on a mind flayer corpse in Orcus
>town. Ahem...
>
The following post (not mine) gives some good tips for early
knights (e.g. #jump away, apply lance at space 2, repeat):
<http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.nethack/msg/f5a5251740a7acc6?dmode=source&hl=en>
After the Quest, a knight gets the MMoM, which grants:
(From: <http://www.spod-central.org/~psmith/nh/art1-343.txt>)
The Magic Mirror of Merlin
(lawful Knight mirror)
Carried
Confers magic resistance and telepathy.
Knights get double damage when: turning undead in any way; using
^^^^^^ ^^^^^^
a spell of force bolt, magic missile, unskilled/basic cone of
cold, or drain life; or using a wand of striking.
The spell of magic missile gives [(XL/2) + 1] d6 worth of damage
per *hit*. An XL 30 knight would get:
[(30/2) + 1] * d6 * 2
(15 + 1) * d6 * 2
16 * 2 * d6
32 * d6 = min of 32, max of 192, *average* of 96
NB: +7 Grayswandir against silver hating monsters only
averages 28 pts of damage. And you only get one hit per
turn with Grayswandir. And Grayswandir can only hit at
melee range.
If the knight with the MMoM stays at XL 14, they only(?)
average 48 pts of damage per hit with the magic missile
spell.
(FWIW: Get your Int above 18 and add 2 points to your average
damage with the magic missile spell.)
>So this time Oliver the gallant knight set out determinedly. At DL5, he
>wandered into a quality apparels and accessories store full of wands.
>And he picked up a jeweled wand and the shopkeeper said that it would
>be 500 zorkmids. Oliver dropped it because he had no way to cough up
>that kind of money - but he went out, gathered the cash, bought it -
>and as he tried to engrave something on the floor he was asked if he
>would like to make a wish!
Zap it at the shopkeeper instead. That way if it's a wand of
death you won't waste a charge. (Be sure you're out of the way
of any rebounds.)
>
>DL5, xplev 3. Oliver got two scrolls of charging, a SDSM, a cloak of
>MR, the helm of brilliance, speed boots, frost brand, and gauntlets of
>dexterity. Nothing else could beat him...
Should have wished for Magicbane to wield against curse
attacks later on, since you were going to have the Magic
Missile spell at double effectiveness later on.
Thoughts on speed boots:
Knights get speed at XL 7: Normal speed is 12, fast/
"gift of speed" is 15, very fast (potion/boots/spell) is 18.
A mounted knight gets the speed of his mount: pony is 16,
horse is 20, warhorse is 24.
And even knight #jumping lets you travel twice as fast.
>
>And soon, he learnt how to cast magic missile. And he slayed Ixoth to
>find Merlin's precious mirror...
>
>Oliver entered Moloch's sanctum with 350 hit points and 480 spell
>points and at an xplev of 30. He was invincible. Or he thought he was.
>
Averaging 96 points of damage per hit with the magic missile
spell, yeehaa!
>By the time he reached the plane of Earth with the the AoY, he had
>missiled Rodney 6 times.
>
>The elemental planes passed by like small skirmishes, as Oliver
>prepared himself for the final battle on the Astral Plane where he
>would meet Death, Pestilence and Famine. And then...
>
>You feel dizzy for a moment, but the sensation passes.
>You arrive on the Astral Plane!
>Here the High Temples of the aligned gods are located.
>You sense alarm, hostility, and excitement in the air!
>A voice whispers: "Thou hast been worth of me!"
>An angel appears near you.
>Pick an object.
>@ a human or elf (tourist called Stephen the Explorer) [seen: normal
>vision, telepathy]
>The ice-cold blade hits Stephen the Explorer.
>Stephen the Explorer wields a greased long sword named Vorpal Blade!
You should have had a move after seeing the Vorpal Blade wielded.
You weren't burdened, were you?
>Stephen the Explorer swings his long sword named Vorpal Blade.
>Vorpal Blade decapitates you!
>You die...
Now you know why there's a guaranteed amulet of life saving
in Vlad's Tower. Why weren't you wearing it? That's the big
advantage of the SDSM/CoMagicResistance combo, imho, you can
wear any amulet you want.
Unless I've very wrong, the only beings that can appear next
to you immediately when you appear on the Astral Plane are:
Guardian Angel, hostile angels (if causing conflict), varieties
of Lich, or the Wizard of Yendor. So you should have seen
Stephen the Explorer coming.
Wand/spell of light, lamp/lantern/Sunsword/candle/candelabrum,
potion/spell of monster detection, ESP/telepathy, etc.
would have let you see a player monster in time to prepare for an
emergency:
- Wand of probing to check for Vorpal/Tsurugi.
Then evade:
- Spell/wand of teleport,
- #jumping (built-in for knights)
- Confused read of scroll of create monster
Followed by:
- ring of conflict
- confused read of a scroll of tame monster
- skilled cone of cold or fireball would still have worked on
Stephen even if he had reflection and magic resistance.
(Knights can get to skilled in attack spells.)
- Drain life
- wand/spell of slow monster.
- @'s don't appear to be sleep resistant: wand/spell of sleep.
What was your AC? Low enough AC helps a lot. I once met
a player-monster on Astral with the Vorpal Blade. They had
reflection so magic missile was out. Had to use my Magicbane
to kill them twice, since they were wearing an amulet of life
saving. Of course, I like my AC to be below -50 when ascending.
Topi Linkala has gotten an AC of -93 before:
<http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.nethack/msg/8dd926aafe2f5ac0?dmode=source&hl=en>
Vorpal can't hurt you if it can't hit you.
Were you invisible?
--
Nethack IS easy, if you play it the right way.
Try killing things from a distance.
All the best,
Jove
sho...@gmail.com
unnecessary stuff down on the plains before going up the stairs...
Stephen the Explorer was right next to me when I came into AP. The
other person right next to me was a tame angel. First move, I hit him
with the Frost Brand because I didn't want to waste energy with magic
missile while carrying the amulet. He decapitated me in reply...
I was wearing the amulet of Yendor to help me look for the portal in
the plane of water. So no - amulet of life saving was with me, but I
wasn't wearing it.
AC was only -26. I guess that could have been much better...
-Shouri
Jove
<sho...@gmail.com> wrote:
>No - I was never burdened. At least on the planes. I had left all the
>unnecessary stuff down on the plains before going up the stairs...
>
>Stephen the Explorer was right next to me when I came into AP. The
>other person right next to me was a tame angel. First move, I hit him
>with the Frost Brand because I didn't want to waste energy with magic
>missile while carrying the amulet. He decapitated me in reply...
>
Looks like ya got worked over, all right.
A wand of teleport is guaranteed to work first time, every
time, but I don't know that I would have automatically used it
on a player monster that started out next to me on the Astral
Plane.
>I was wearing the amulet of Yendor to help me look for the portal in
>the plane of water. So no - amulet of life saving was with me, but I
>wasn't wearing it.
- Wielding the amulet of Yendor also works.
- (charged) Bell of Opening will show the portal if within 8
squares.
- Wand of secret door detection ditto. I always carry a
couple of these to the plane of water. They tend to be
randomly generated with a lot of charges, too.
- Spell of detect unseen ditto.
- Extra (cursed) scrolls of gold detection can be written.
- ring of searching
- crystal ball
- 's'earch command should help keep from hitting the portal by
accident.
That would have let you wear the amulet of life saving entering
the Astral Plane. Then a wand of teleport after you got
resurrected to free you from the immediate danger.
>
>
>AC was only -26. I guess that could have been much better...
>
Especially since you used eleven wishes.
Looks like the RNG made you safe from everything but an
instadeath, then supplied the instadeath.
The RNG giveth, the RNG taketh away, blessed be the name
of the RNG.
Little White Mouse
> Looks like the RNG made you safe from everything but an
> instadeath, then supplied the instadeath.
>
> The RNG giveth, the RNG taketh away, blessed be the name
> of the RNG.
Amen!
--LWM