Please help a newbie. ;_;
Karkadinn
actually beat it once, which I thought should make other roguelikes easy to
play by comparison, since people keep going on about how Adom is such a hard
game. Still, it hasn't helped me out much so far. I'm actually playing
Slash'em, not Nethack, but since I can't find a newsgroups for Slash'em, I'm
posting to this one... is that okay? If I've erred, I shall bow humbly and
grovel and suchlike.
Anyway, my problems. I'm playing vampire barbarians with a kitten pet all the
time, just because I want to try something relatively simple. But I keep
dyiiiing. I learned quickly on that pools in Slash'em are just as deadly as
their Adom counterparts. No big surprise there. OTOH, my last character died
when I walked into a weapon shop, being all nice and peaceful, and the
shopkeeper hit me thrice and killed me without provocation! I swear I didn't
hit the bugger, or even try to. Is it because I'm a vampire?
Second difficulty is that I tend to die due to lack of food. Well, blood,
technically. I kill everything I come across and drain the blood from their
corpses, but that doesn't seem to be enough to keep me alive. Have I just been
unlucky in the monster generation? Am I supposed to somehow drain the blood
while the monsters are still alive?
Thirdly, locked chests. How am I supposed to open them? Just look around the
dungeon level for a key?
Fourthly, how do I give food to my pet for her to eat? I love my Miyu-kitty.
:)
Oh, and last query... what are the potions of vampire blood for?
J. Ali Harlow
> Heh. Yeah, newbie to the game here... I've played Adom for a loooong time, and
> actually beat it once, which I thought should make other roguelikes easy to
> play by comparison, since people keep going on about how Adom is such a hard
> game. Still, it hasn't helped me out much so far. I'm actually playing
> Slash'em, not Nethack, but since I can't find a newsgroups for Slash'em, I'm
> posting to this one... is that okay? If I've erred, I shall bow humbly and
> grovel and suchlike.
It's fine, but if you could put an [S] or [Slashem] in the subject line it
will help those not interested in Slash'EM to skip the post.
> Anyway, my problems. I'm playing vampire barbarians with a kitten pet all the
> time, just because I want to try something relatively simple.
Vampires are hardly simple; they are a challenge class.
> But I keep
> dyiiiing. I learned quickly on that pools in Slash'em are just as deadly as
> their Adom counterparts. No big surprise there. OTOH, my last character died
> when I walked into a weapon shop, being all nice and peaceful, and the
> shopkeeper hit me thrice and killed me without provocation! I swear I didn't
> hit the bugger, or even try to. Is it because I'm a vampire?
Shouldn't be. It couldn't have been a bones level where a previous character
of the same name had attacked or robbed the shopkeeper?
> Second difficulty is that I tend to die due to lack of food. Well, blood,
> technically. I kill everything I come across and drain the blood from their
> corpses, but that doesn't seem to be enough to keep me alive. Have I just been
> unlucky in the monster generation? Am I supposed to somehow drain the blood
> while the monsters are still alive?
This is what makes vampires a challenge. And yes you do drain blood from
live monsters while fighting them which can help somewhat.
> Thirdly, locked chests. How am I supposed to open them? Just look around the
> dungeon level for a key?
That would be one way. Others include magical means, forcing the lock with
a bladed weapon and bashing with a blunt weapon or kicking.
> Fourthly, how do I give food to my pet for her to eat? I love my Miyu-kitty.
> :)
Throw?
> Oh, and last query... what are the potions of vampire blood for?
They're not supposed to be there :-) We made a mistake when building
the MS-Windows binary. It was supposed to be version 0.0.6E4F4, but it's
actually version 0.0.6E5. We intend to release a proper 0.0.6E4F4 in due
course, but I haven't got around to it yet.
--
J. Ali Harlow Email: J.A.H...@city.ac.uk
"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and
the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful
of him, the son of man that you care for him?" Psalm 8 v 3-4, NIV.
Erkki Lepre
> Heh. Yeah, newbie to the game here... I've played Adom for a loooong time, and
> actually beat it once, which I thought should make other roguelikes easy to
> play by comparison, since people keep going on about how Adom is such a hard
> game. Still, it hasn't helped me out much so far. I'm actually playing
I found ADOM a lot easier than Nethack as I won the game
after playing it only for half a year (I was really
disappointed), while it took me about 4 years to ascend in
Nethack.
Cheers,
--
Erkki Lepre Senior Support Engineer
Customer Advocacy Tel: +358 9 2520 0700
F-Secure Corporation http://www.F-Secure.com
***Securing the Mobile, Distributed Enterprise***
Karkadinn
>It's fine, but if you could put an [S] or [Slashem] in the subject line it
>will help those not interested in Slash'EM to skip the post.
Okay, will do.
>Shouldn't be. It couldn't have been a bones level where a previous character
>of the same name had attacked or robbed the shopkeeper?
Definitely not. I'd never even seen a shop before then. OTOH, this brings up
another question... my last character got teleported into a shop via a trap. I
had to kick the locked door to get out because I didn't have a key, and the
shopkeeper killed me. How else am I supposed to get through the door?
>This is what makes vampires a challenge. And yes you do drain blood from
>live monsters while fighting them which can help somewhat.
Well, darn. I kinda like the yummy stats, abilities, and high hp regeneration
rate. Just like Adom trolls. Ah well, suppose I'll try an orc, then.
>That would be one way. Others include magical means, forcing the lock with
>a bladed weapon and bashing with a blunt weapon or kicking.
'Kay. I'll look through the key commands to see how to do the latter. :)
>Throw?
Just like Adom. Heh.
>They're not supposed to be there :-)
LOL. Okay, then. So long as they don't cause an unrecoverable crash, it works
for me. Heh.
Karkadinn
>I found ADOM a lot easier than Nethack as I won the game
>after playing it only for half a year (I was really
>disappointed), while it took me about 4 years to ascend in
>Nethack.
Jeez, now I'm getting nervous. It took me two years to win Adom. 16 years to
win Slash'em/Nethack?! Oh dear.
But I bet you were playing a spellcaster or archer, ne. ;) Adom's long-ranged
classes are MUCH easier than the melee oriented classes... fighters,
barbarians, and so on. Likewise, the normal ending is vastly easier than the
ultimate endings. The replay value comes primarily through trying out the
harder classes and endings.
J. Ali Harlow
> J. Ali Harlow said:
> my last character got teleported into a shop via a trap. I
> had to kick the locked door to get out because I didn't have a key, and the
> shopkeeper killed me. How else am I supposed to get through the door?
This is just bad luck. If you have no way of unlocking the door, no way
of getting out except via the door and not enough money to pay for the
damage you're in trouble.
>>This is what makes vampires a challenge. And yes you do drain blood from
>>live monsters while fighting them which can help somewhat.
> Well, darn. I kinda like the yummy stats, abilities, and high hp regeneration
> rate. Just like Adom trolls. Ah well, suppose I'll try an orc, then.
Vampires are great fun, but they would be far too easy to play without
the food restrictions. The half-implemented potions of blood make this
very slightly easier.
>>That would be one way. Others include magical means, forcing the lock with
>>a bladed weapon and bashing with a blunt weapon or kicking.
> 'Kay. I'll look through the key commands to see how to do the latter. :)
#force to force and Ctrl-D to kick.
>>They're not supposed to be there :-)
> LOL. Okay, then. So long as they don't cause an unrecoverable crash, it
> works for me. Heh.
Can't guarantee there are no major bugs but as far as I'm aware the issues
are due to lack of functionality and inconsistency. You can read my notes
on my development page if you fancy:
http://avrc.city.ac.uk/nethack/slashem/devel.html
Robert R. Schneck
> Definitely not. I'd never even seen a shop before then. OTOH, this
> brings up another question... my last character got teleported into
> a shop via a trap. I had to kick the locked door to get out because
> I didn't have a key, and the shopkeeper killed me. How else am I
> supposed to get through the door?
It's probably too early for this to be an option, but if you can
survive the shopkeeper's first attack, you can (p)ay him to calm him
down. I think pacifying a shopkeeper with a broken door costs 1000gp;
though I seem to think that sometimes they ask from money before they
attack, and it's less.
Robert
Rob Ellwood
This post includes spoilers: detailed information on
how to play the game. If you do not want to be spoiled, stop
reading.
Karkadinn wrote: [snipped]
>
> I'm actually playing Slash'em....
> ...I'm playing vampire barbarians with a kitten pet all the
> time, just because I want to try something relatively simple.
! "Slash'em" and "relatively simple" do not belong
in the same posting.
The power level of most (all?) roguelikes is in a slow
inflationary spiral, heading for powergaming. (Some day, I
shall write a monograph on the subject.)
Also, the Dev Teams seem to be getting their player
feedback from the newsgroups instead of unspoiled players.
This means that difficulty levels escalate to where even an
expert, heavily spoiled player is challenged.
Slash'em is one generation further along these paths
than NetHack.
I wondered if the fastest way to ascend in Slash'em
might not be to ascend in NetHack, first. Or at least get
rolling in NetHack. Me dunno. Does anyone else have a
view?
> But I keep dyiiiing.
Me, too. And J. Ali Harlow, one of the Slash'em
Dev Team, who *has never ascended himself*. Zounds!
Six months ago, I had a Valkyrie empty out the Black
Market, a store that covers an entire level. Tons of loot!
Unfortunately, I suspect that Gehennom is very close, and I'm
afraid to find out how it has been mutated. My character is
parked in a save file.
Suggestions:
* Learn how to use your class's techniques. Techniques
are a recent invention, so they are one generation closer to
pure powergaming.
* Watch for things that don't exist in NetHack. Again,
these will be one generation closer to powergaming, and will
outgun all items from previous generations. Example: all
Australian creatures are overpowered for their depth.
* Crys knives have been powergamed *twice*, once in
NetHack and again in Slash'em after power inflation set in.
They're better than any mundane sword and almost all of the
older artifacts. (You make crys knives by using Enchant
Weapon on a worm tooth. They revert if you drop them...
unless you rust-proof them: use Enchant Weapon while
confused.)
* Being able to have shopkeepers ID everything is
a fairly big help. Thus, I suggest being a Valkyrie or
Caveman. If you can survive to the quest, you get an
unlimited supply of gems. You can then set up a trading
cycle with a shopkeeper: gems for IDs. I track how much
gold the shopkeeper has.
> I'm a vampire.... Second difficulty is that I tend to die
> due to lack of food. Well, blood, technically. I kill
>everything I come across and drain the blood from their
> corpses, but that doesn't seem to be enough to keep me alive.
Pray when you are weak from hunger. Warning: praying
again too soon can annoy your god.
A quote from J. Ali Harlow: "The thing that makes
vampires difficult is that they have very little control
over their food supply. They can't eat any food that doesn't
go "off" and the blood in corpses coagulates _very_ fast.
This means that they need a steady supply of monsters to
survive; too few and they start starving; too many and they
start choking. [If you eat too much, you can choke and die.
-Rob.] Rings of hunger and slow digestion are essential
bits of kit. Vampires are _supposed_ to be a real challenge."
The signal portion of this posting has ended. The
remaining text is noise.
Commercial games want you to win.
NetHack doesn't care if you win or lose.
Slash'em wants you DEAD.
Commercial games cheat for you and against the monsters:
The unarmed orc falls to the ground, dying. "Whirling
Blades of Doom... backpack", he gasps. "Barbecue
sauce... left pocket."
NetHack plays fair between you and the monsters:
The orc wins the race to the Whirling Blades of Doom.
He seizes it, grins, and whirls it at you. You fall
to the ground, dying. Your last sight is of the
orc reaching for his left pocket.
Slash'em cheats against you and for the monsters:
Staggering and more than half dead, you advance to
the slain monster. If you can use the Whirling
Blades of Doom against the rest of the pack, you
just might live through this.
...There is no weapon at the corpse. The Whirling
Blades of Doom are an intrinsic attack, not a
separate weapon.
The next platypus in line opens its bill. This one
is a fire breather. Thoroughly barbecued, you fall
to the ground, dying. When you hit the ground,
something breaks in your left pocket.
Commercial game developers are sometimes interviewed
by gaming magazines and shown in publicity shots.
The NetHack Dev Team is faceless and mysterious.
The Slash'em Dev Team kills and eats interviewers and
photographers. All those tentacles are hard to fit into a
photograph, anyway.
Commercial game developers advertise their games widely.
The NetHack Dev Team only speak to announce a new release.
J. Ali Harlow is the Voice of Saur... I mean, of the
Slash'em Dev Team.
Commercial game developers never release their source
code.
NetHack releases all source code. Players "source
dive": read the code.
Slash'em releases its source code. Odd: I don't
recall ever reading a posting from a Slash'em source diver.
Something must happen if you read the Slash'em code. Some-
thing that precludes ever posting again....
To get support for a commercial games, you can go to
the company which made the game. The advice will be good.
To get support for NetHack, you can go to the newsgroup
and ask other people who play the game. The advice is not
always good.
To get advice for my Slash'em Valkyrie, I could go to
Eva R. Myers. Unfortunately, she's on the same land mass as
J. Ali Harlow. Conclusion: she was killed and eaten years
ago, and it's Ali at the keyboard, pretending to be her. Or
she is one of THEM, right down to the tips of her tentacles.
(If she advises me to buy barbecue sauce, I'm moving to
Australia! Err, OK, maybe not Austalia. I know: Transyl-
vania! That should be relatively safe.)
Does garlic work? How about silver bullets? No?
Well, how DO we defend ourselves? And why did someone mail
me this bottle of Wostershire sauce?
--
No tentacled monstrosities were harmed in the making of this
post. Darn!
Rob "slashed by Slash'em" Ellwood
J. Ali Harlow
> The signal portion of this posting has ended. The
> remaining text is noise.
ROFL. That's going on my wall :-)
Rob Ellwood
I wrote:
>
> [snip lengthy Slash'em commentary, vaguely resembling humor]
So, a few hours later, I'm thinking of a few quips
which might have fit into that posting... and thinking of
a loony on another roguelike group... and thinking of how a
lot of newsgroups have a poster who is conspicuously The Most
Loony (and often The Most Annoying)... and thinking of how
RGRN doesn't have a Most Loony... and then I recalled this
joke:
"One out of five Americans is mentally disturbed.
Look at four of your friends. If they're OK, it's you."
:-(
(I'm sending my brain to bed without its supper
for coming up with that deduction.)
--
Raisse... Dylan... Kate... Jason... DAMN!
Rob "committed to the newsgroup" Ellwood
Kassandra Velez
>
>I wrote:
>>
>> [snip lengthy Slash'em commentary, vaguely resembling humor]
>
> So, a few hours later, I'm thinking of a few quips
>which might have fit into that posting... and thinking of
>a loony on another roguelike group... and thinking of how a
>lot of newsgroups have a poster who is conspicuously The Most
>Loony (and often The Most Annoying)... and thinking of how
>RGRN doesn't have a Most Loony... and then I recalled this
>joke:
>
> "One out of five Americans is mentally disturbed.
>Look at four of your friends. If they're OK, it's you."
>
> :-(
>
*hugs Rob, as he sounds like he rather needs it*
Jacco
You are in luck, because Raisse is not American but Dutch AFAIK. So who
is the loony then??
Jacco (also not American)
--
NH 3.3.1L A Jacco-Cav-Dwa-Mal-Law HP:578 Pw:145 AC:-48 Xp:30 T:86832
[++ )++ P S++ D++ p+ $ !t s+++ W E- PS- PP++ G+ C+ I++
@W(18*) N+ b-- !B !Y X+ So Sp+ sb-- wb-- +>300
neonewt
Let's see if these people can tell the difference:
Just general advice: I go with monks a lot. Apparently gaurunteed
Gauntlets of defense and some great techs make them a fairly good
starting class. Doppelgangers in general are also nice.
--
Neonewt
"AHHHH!!! BIG UGLY MUTANT DINOSAURS!!!!"
Me. upon first seeing a raptor in parasite eve.
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----
neonewt
Let's see if these people can tell the difference:
>
>I wrote:
>>
>> [snip lengthy Slash'em commentary, vaguely resembling humor]
>
> So, a few hours later, I'm thinking of a few quips
>which might have fit into that posting... and thinking of
>a loony on another roguelike group... and thinking of how a
>lot of newsgroups have a poster who is conspicuously The Most
>Loony (and often The Most Annoying)... and thinking of how
>RGRN doesn't have a Most Loony... and then I recalled this
>joke:
>
> "One out of five Americans is mentally disturbed.
>Look at four of your friends. If they're OK, it's you."
>
> :-(
>
>
> (I'm sending my brain to bed without its supper
>for coming up with that deduction.)
>
Darn, I was hoping to be the most loony. It'll be tough topping you,
especially seeing your previous post.
--
Neonewt
"Pong will be the best game ever when Satan ice-skates to work
and Bill Gates is found in a mall begging for quarters." Neo
Genetic Mullen
Karkadinn
*snip the funniest thing I've read in a long time*
First off, thank you very much. That's the first time I've laughed in quite a
while, I really needed that. You have brightened my life, dear sir. :)
Second off....
So Slash'em is like Adom, only less subtle. Hee. Fun. Rings of slow
digestion? Those sound useful. I'm used to having more kinds of class
abilities, but then, I'm also used to many of them being automatic, so I guess
it works out. Beware of Australian critters, gotcha. Koalas make me nervous
anyway. Creepy little buggers. Crys knives are better than ARTIFACTS? Jeez.
Talk about Dune worship. Maybe I should name my next character Alia and wish
for a crysknife with my first wish. Heh. What an odd way to rustproof
something... I suppose I'll get used to it. What are the common ways of
getting confused, so I can use that to my advantage?
Now, let the worshipping begin.
"Ia! Slash'em DevTeam! Ia!"
Karkadinn
::joins in, the hug emitting a powerful irresistable magnetic force upon him::
"Mmm... hug..."
Group hug, no less. :)
@_@
Rob Ellwood
>
> Crys knives are better than ARTIFACTS? Jeez.
Better than the older artifacts which Slash'em
inherited from NetHack. Newer artifacts will be power-
gamed up. If you find a weapon called God Slayer, the
description is probably accurate.
(If you find a boomerang called Insta Kill, leave
it alone. Boomerangs can turn on you....)
> What an odd way to rustproof something...
If you read a scroll when confused, you get a
bizarre variation on the normal effect. Cursed scrolls
give reduced or even reversed effects. Blessed scrolls
generally give bigger effects.
Once you know all the effects, you'll do things like
collect some scrolls of type X, curse them, get confused,
take off most of your armor, then read one. Take off one
piece of armor and read another....
There are spoiler files for this sort of thing. IMO,
they tend to ruin the fun. I would suggest holding off as
long as possible. Ask the newsgroup for answers to specific
questions.
> What are the common ways of getting confused, so I can
> use that to my advantage?
If possible, have a cure ready. I put the standard
cure below, after a spoiler space.
o The normal approach is to r)ead a spellbook early on.
20,000 turns later, you forget the spell. Trying to
cast a forgotten spell will confuse you. Note: if
your IQ is low, only read cheap spellbooks. (Or
blessed spellbooks.) Check what a shopkeeper offers
for it. As your level goes up, reading spellbooks
gets safer.
o q)uaff a *non-blessed* potion of booze. Warning: a
cursed potion will knock you out for a few turns.
o t)hrow *any* potion of booze, and specify '<' (= up)
when you're asked for a direction. The potion will
go up, come back down, conk you on the head, and
break. Breathing the vapors will confuse you for 1-5 turns.
This is better than quaffing.
o q)uaff a potion of confusion.
o t)hrow a potion of confusion straight up. 1-5 turns.
o e)at a rotten egg. Eggs go rotten within (shrug) a
few hundred turns? Less? Warning: this can kill you
unless you have a [censored] in your inventory.
Personally, I only use forgotten spells. The only
time I used a rotten egg, I thought it was safe, but it
wasn't. [Censored]!
> Now, let the worshipping begin.
> "Ia! Slash'em DevTeam! Ia!"
If you suddenly find yourself up to your nostrils
in Tentacled Monstrosities (variously enraged, hungry, and
confused), tell Ali I said 'hi'.
SPOILER SPACE stop reading or be spoiled
Hi, Mom.
a)pply a unicorn horn to yourself.
--
This posting was relatively humor-free. I'm trying to give
it up, but I can't just go cold turkey.
Rob "I quaffed the Worstershire sauce and now I'm confused" Ellwood
Karkadinn
>Better than the older artifacts which Slash'em
>inherited from NetHack. Newer artifacts will be power-
>gamed up. If you find a weapon called God Slayer, the
>description is probably accurate.
Heh. Okay then. Are there any chainsaws? :)
::hopeful look::
>(If you find a boomerang called Insta Kill, leave
>it alone. Boomerangs can turn on you....)
::ponders for a moment::
I can imagine. Boomerang of decapitation... throw... it comes back... you fail
to catch... heh.
>If you read a scroll when confused, you get a
>bizarre variation on the normal effect.
Confusion is sounding to be almost as fun as the hallucination thingy. :)
>There are spoiler files for this sort of thing. IMO,
>they tend to ruin the fun. I would suggest holding off as
>long as possible. Ask the newsgroup for answers to specific
>questions.
Righty-o. I'm also avoiding the "death is no impediment" option. I'm used to
dying a thousand times and starting over again and again until I get the hang
of things.
>e)at a rotten egg. Eggs go rotten within (shrug) a
> few hundred turns? Less? Warning: this can kill you
> unless you have a [censored] in your inventory.
Good to know. Note to self: be careful when eating the eggs.
Eva R. Myers
> Six months ago, I had a Valkyrie empty out the Black
> Market, a store that covers an entire level. Tons of loot!
> Unfortunately, I suspect that Gehennom is very close, and I'm
> afraid to find out how it has been mutated. My character is
> parked in a save file.
Congratulations on surviving One-Eyed Sam! Will it put you off even
more if I warn you that in Slash'EM, every demon lord has his own
lair, so you'll have to meet them all? Pack some cockatrice eggs to
throw at Demogorgon, or see
http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~eva/demogorgon.html for other ways of
dealing with him.
> * Being able to have shopkeepers ID everything is
> a fairly big help. Thus, I suggest being a Valkyrie or
> Caveman. If you can survive to the quest, you get an
> unlimited supply of gems. You can then set up a trading
> cycle with a shopkeeper: gems for IDs. I track how much
> gold the shopkeeper has.
May I suggest a few refinements to the strategy of having shopkeepers
id everything? If you use your pet to keep stealing gems back from
the shopkeeper, going to the bottom of the Mines should provide you
with more than enough valuable gems to have everything identified. If
you have no valuable gems, any sufficiently expensive item will do.
For example, a shopkeeper will pay 500 GP for a magic lamp, and you
can also rob lighting shops and tool shops this way.
> > I'm a vampire.... Second difficulty is that I tend to die
> > due to lack of food. Well, blood, technically. I kill
> >everything I come across and drain the blood from their
> > corpses, but that doesn't seem to be enough to keep me alive.
>
> Pray when you are weak from hunger. Warning: praying
> again too soon can annoy your god.
Vampires are not a suitable race for newbies. If you are determined
to ascend one, the best class would be an Ice Mage, so that you can
polymorph into a dragon when you want to eat.
Karkadinn: since you don't mind being chaotic, why not try a Droven
Barbarian instead and put your enemies to sleep?
> A quote from J. Ali Harlow: "The thing that makes
> vampires difficult is that they have very little control
> over their food supply. They can't eat any food that doesn't
> go "off" and the blood in corpses coagulates _very_ fast.
> This means that they need a steady supply of monsters to
> survive; too few and they start starving; too many and they
> start choking. [If you eat too much, you can choke and die.
> -Rob.] Rings of hunger and slow digestion are essential
> bits of kit. Vampires are _supposed_ to be a real challenge."
Are you absolutely sure that Vampires can choke and die? I thought
that because they don't breathe, they will just "vomit voluminously"
when they eat too much (although this can still cause trouble in
combat). In older versions, the game crashed when vampires drained
too much blood, but this bug is now fixed.
> To get advice for my Slash'em Valkyrie, I could go to
> Eva R. Myers. Unfortunately, she's on the same land mass as
> J. Ali Harlow. Conclusion: she was killed and eaten years
> ago, and it's Ali at the keyboard, pretending to be her. Or
> she is one of THEM, right down to the tips of her tentacles.
> (If she advises me to buy barbecue sauce, I'm moving to
> Australia! Err, OK, maybe not Austalia. I know: Transyl-
> vania! That should be relatively safe.)
Wow, I have never been treated as a newsgroup's resident expert on
anything before, so thank you very much! FWIW, I have done some
simple Slash'EM source diving to write spoiler files, but most of my
knowledge comes from playing _lots_ of Slash'EM in an effort to ascend
every class and race.
Eva.
--
Eva Myers, Computer Officer, Statistical | Ignorance and deception can't
Laboratory, University of Cambridge | save anybody. *Knowing* saves
Email: erm...@cam.ac.uk | them.
J. Ali Harlow
Umm. If it's all the same to you I'd really rather you didn't -
not even in fun.
Karkadinn
>Umm. If it's all the same to you I'd really rather you didn't -
>not even in fun.
Of course.
::grins::
Don't worry, in reality I am a halfway-conservative Southern Baptist. ;)
Dylan O'Donnell
> Rob Ellwood wrote:
> > "One out of five Americans is mentally disturbed.
> > Look at four of your friends. If they're OK, it's you."
> >
> > Raisse... Dylan... Kate... Jason... DAMN!
> > Rob "committed to the newsgroup" Ellwood
>
> You are in luck, because Raisse is not American but Dutch AFAIK. So who
> is the loony then??
It may or may not be me; I'm also not American :-)
--
: Dylan O'Donnell http://www.spod-central.org/~psmith/ :
: "Let us grasp the situation, / Solve the complicated plot -- :
: Quiet, calm deliberation / Disentangles every knot." :
: -- W.S. Gilbert, "The Gondoliers" :
Richard Bos
> You are in luck, because Raisse is not American but Dutch AFAIK. So who
> is the loony then??
Me. But that only lets you and Raisse off, not Rob.
Richard
Richard Bos
> Does garlic work? How about silver bullets? No?
> Well, how DO we defend ourselves? And why did someone mail
> me this bottle of Wostershire sauce?
I think you're supposed to apply it to yourself.
Richard
Kate Nepveu
> Karkadinn wrote:
> > Crys knives are better than ARTIFACTS? Jeez.
> Better than the older artifacts which Slash'em
> inherited from NetHack. Newer artifacts will be power-
> gamed up. If you find a weapon called God Slayer, the
> description is probably accurate.
It would be really... disturbing if Slash'em imported Godslayer from
the Vlad Taltos books. Trust me.
Besides, the known effects of the Great Weapons are already in the
game. Morganti soul-sucking? Stormy. Pathfinder? Excalibur's
searching. Spellbreaker? Magicbane. Iceflame would hardly be
any good without Dzur Mountain--lord, Sethra as a Quest Nemesis!--
and the Orb would be just a _tad_ unbalancing...
(Fans of the Taltos books should haunt their bookstores for _Issola_.
I've read it, it's terrific, Brust keeps doing interesting things
with the series.)
Kate
--
http://www.steelypips.org/ -- NetHack Spoilers; Paired Readings; Reviews
"On a shelf over the experiment table was the inevitable skull, which the
wizard put there to remind him of death, though it usually reminded him
that he needed to go to the dentist." --Bellairs, _The Face in the Frost_
Esque
> (Fans of the Taltos books should haunt their bookstores for _Issola_.
> I've read it, it's terrific, Brust keeps doing interesting things
> with the series.)
I just got my copy of Phoenix in the mail a couple of days ago. Athyra
is out of print as well, isn't it? I'm just glad I can continue the
series now.
And is there any word on the next book in the Khaavren Romances?
--
Bruce Labbate | We grew to war like a bloom reaching
| Toward the light. It felt so brutal,
| so transdermal, so alive.
Email: sol...@angband.org | - Maria McKee
Dylan O'Donnell
> Besides, the known effects of the Great Weapons are already in the
> game. Morganti soul-sucking? Stormy. Pathfinder? Excalibur's
> searching. Spellbreaker? Magicbane. Iceflame would hardly be
> any good without Dzur Mountain--lord, Sethra as a Quest Nemesis!--
> and the Orb would be just a _tad_ unbalancing...
I have been meaning for a while to write a flashstone patch. Grey
stones (so, when unidentified, indistinguishable from
(luck|load|flint)stones), that can be a)pplied at adjacent monsters or
t)hrown into the middle of a pack of them, and goes "Boom" for
lots-of-damage. (Charges in the range 0-3, I think, to be true to the
books.) I probably will never get around to writing it, but it's nice
to think about :-)
> (Fans of the Taltos books should haunt their bookstores for _Issola_.
> I've read it, it's terrific, Brust keeps doing interesting things
> with the series.)
Brust isn't _quite_ in my buy-in-hardback list. He's getting closer,
though.
Kate Nepveu
> Kate Nepveu <kh...@pantheon.yale.edu> deserves a cookie for saying:
> > (Fans of the Taltos books should haunt their bookstores for _Issola_.
> > I've read it, it's terrific, Brust keeps doing interesting things
> > with the series.)
> I just got my copy of Phoenix in the mail a couple of days ago. Athyra
> is out of print as well, isn't it? I'm just glad I can continue the
> series now.
Yes, both _Phoenix_ and _Athyra_ are out of print.
Many people like _Athyra_ the least, as it's told in the third person
from someone's viewpoint who's not Vlad or Loiosh, but it's a very
necessary book in the series.
> And is there any word on the next book in the Khaavren Romances?
In terms of it being turned into Tor Books? No.
Kate Nepveu
> > Besides, the known effects of the Great Weapons are already in the
> > game. Morganti soul-sucking? Stormy. Pathfinder? Excalibur's
> > searching. Spellbreaker? Magicbane. Iceflame would hardly be
> > any good without Dzur Mountain--lord, Sethra as a Quest Nemesis!--
> > and the Orb would be just a _tad_ unbalancing...
> I have been meaning for a while to write a flashstone patch. Grey
> stones (so, when unidentified, indistinguishable from
> (luck|load|flint)stones), that can be a)pplied at adjacent monsters or
> t)hrown into the middle of a pack of them, and goes "Boom" for
> lots-of-damage. (Charges in the range 0-3, I think, to be true to the
> books.) I probably will never get around to writing it, but it's nice
> to think about :-)
That would be cool and not very unbalancing. I didn't remember that
you could throw flashstones, but it's been a while since I've read
the Khaavren books.
> > (Fans of the Taltos books should haunt their bookstores for _Issola_.
> > I've read it, it's terrific, Brust keeps doing interesting things
> > with the series.)
> Brust isn't _quite_ in my buy-in-hardback list. He's getting closer,
> though.
As Nanny Ogg would say, things get all myffic in _Issola_. With extra
myff. But still with Vlad & Loiosh wisecracking.
It's a bit odd but it definitely works. Maybe when I write that review
of it I'll post a pointer here.
Seeker
[snip quoted messages]
>
> Many people like _Athyra_ the least, as it's told in the third person
> from someone's viewpoint who's not Vlad or Loiosh, but it's a very
> necessary book in the series.
Well, I saw 'Vlad' and there I was, wondering where in Gehennom I could
find Loiosh (and thinking maybe it was in the Hell patch, until I
remembered that that was Lolth). Yep, I've been playing way too much
Nethack.
These books sound interesting. What are they, exactly?
Darshan
Kate Nepveu
> kh...@pantheon.yale.edu (Kate Nepveu) wrote:
> > Many people like _Athyra_ the least, as it's told in the third person
> > from someone's viewpoint who's not Vlad or Loiosh, but it's a very
> > necessary book in the series.
> [snip]
> Well, I saw 'Vlad' and there I was, wondering where in Gehennom I could
> find Loiosh (and thinking maybe it was in the Hell patch, until I
> remembered that that was Lolth). Yep, I've been playing way too much
> Nethack.
> These books sound interesting. What are they, exactly?
Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series. They're told (mostly) in first-
person wiseass, by the eponymous Vlad, assassin, witch, and human in a
world dominated by very tall, very long-lived elf-like beings.
The first three are collected in _The Book of Jhereg_. Reading order
can be found in the rec.arts.sf.written FAQ.
They're a lot of fun and move in some interesting ways as they go along.