SATAP: Ascended without pressing 'P'
Soren Bjornstad
then just about any play style can be justified. "Let's play a game
without pressing the letter 'P'!"
(DO NOT MAKE A NEW CONDUCT BASED OFF OF MY IDLE JOKE DAMMIT.)"
--John Harris (http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2011/01/
column_play_rules_of_roguelike.php)
Too tempting to ignore, right? :)
'P-less conduct': Once your savefile loads or character is created,
you can't press the P (or p) key, nor can you paste any text
containing a P into the terminal (that'd be too easy).
This looks easy enough to start out with but starts getting really
complex as you start to realize how many things require pressing P:
* You can't pay for something in a shop. You can either get a pet to
steal the item, or you can drop gold for credit and then teleport out,
jump out the door, etc.
* You can't (P)ut on any rings, amulets, towels, or lenses. So you
can't get reflection by the amulet, and there's no way at all to get
free action; conflict and regeneration are possible by certain
artifacts but probably not worth the effort.
* You can't use a towel to blind yourself. You can still use a
blindfold though, so that's no big deal at all except for making you
wait a bit longer to use telepathy if you only find a towel.
* You can't use anything with the inventory letter p or P. You also
can't #adjust anything into or out of the slot, as that requires
pressing the letter. I found a way to fix this by fiddling with the
'fixinv' option, which I'll describe later.
* You can't pray. This isn't nearly as hard as atheist though, as you
can still sacrifice, drop things on altars, and buy protection.
* You can't use a 'p' in an object name. That one's just an
inconvenience, as you can just leave the P out and it's perfectly
clear what you meant.
* You can't make a wish for anything that contains the letter P.
However, you can sometimes get around it--for instance, you can wish
for '3 full healing' instead of '3 potions of full healing'. However,
anything with a p in the proper name, like gauntlets of power, all
polymorph items, and such, are off limits.
* You can't write scrolls that contain p--the most noticeable are
magic mapping and enchant weapon. Specifying the random description
will let you write it anyway--but there are some random descriptions
that do contain a p. Fortunately, on my winning game, both of those
scrolls were writeable.
* You can't take the p-th item out of a container. This can be
circumvented by taking out the o-th (or any item before p), then
taking out the now-shifted item. Sometimes fiddling with the "What do
you want to take out?" menu will work too (and doesn't take a turn).
* It's a real pain to set options that are accessed by the letter p,
but you can--select every other option on the page, then press ~
(invert all on page).
I'm probably forgetting something, too.
Having no way to keep track of the conduct, I simply took off my 'p'
key. I suppose you could argue for the fact that that was cheating
since it stopped me from accidentally breaking conduct, but a) I don't
really agree with that, and b) there was no other way to track it.
----------------
Warning: The following account of my adventure is extremely long. I
highly encourage you to at least read the Astral Plane part if you
don't want to read the whole thing--it's one of the most exciting
moments I've ever had in NetHack.
So I decided to start as a dwarven valkyrie. Might as well pick an
easy character, right? First attempt died to a death ray halfway down
the dungeon. Next notable death was running out of full healing on the
Astral Plane and having to pray (I ascended, but broke the conduct).
Third, I was decapitated by a monster with Vorpal Blade 10 steps from
my high altar. Fourth I died at the castle due to a brain fart where I
was planning to restore HP by praying when it got low--by the time I
realized I couldn't I had 10HP and was standing between two @'s. After
that death I took a break from p-less. When I came back I decided to
switch to samurai for something different. I started that one by
getting killed by an unlucky magic trap--but my next game I finally
got going.
My pet had died by the time I reached Minetown, so I was unable to
purchase anything from the shops. There wasn't anything terribly
interesting either. The altar happened to be coaligned, but I was
short on food so I didn't hang around for too long. I did, however,
have the luck of finding a +3 pair of iron shoes, which lasted me
until I found speed boots near the castle. Next I ran into some
annoying bones where a player got killed by a mummy and left one of
those annoying named mummies with 80 hitpoints and good armor. I
finally managed to dispose of it with a lot of Elbereth and a couple
of judicious blasts of a fire horn. The only interesting thing in the
bones (besides cursed and uncursed unicorn horns, both of which came
in handy) was a very corroded ninja-to named Dragonbane. I mean, if
you're going to leave crappy artifacts in bones, ones that aren't
thoroughly corroded would be nice...
However, the bones did give me enough junk to get my Letterbanes in
place, 2 darts named LETTERBANE which filled the slots p and P for the
rest of the game so nothing useful got in them. The way to do this is
to drop everything in your inventory, then turn off the 'fixinv'
option, an option which nobody would normally turn off. With the
option off, instead of keeping your inventory letters when you drop
something, everything else is immediately shifted down to go in
alphabetical order. The side effect is that things you pick up will
fall into neat alphabetical order. So it's then trivial to name a
stack of darts, pick up stuff to letter o, pick up one dart and name
it, then repeat for the capital P. This done, don't forget to switch
off fixinv, then you can #adjust stuff back to normal spots and not
have to worry about the p slots for the rest of the game. I headed
back to Minetown with the contents of the bones to curse-test them,
set up a stash, and decreased my armor class slightly.
Early Sokoban got me poison and sleep resistance, as well as a mithril-
coat to replace my clunky plate mail. In the treasure zoo I made a
really dumb mistake, accidentally meleeing a floating eye instead of a
gas spore. Fortunately, the only things that could attack me were
giant rats, and I survived. I ended up with the amulet, which was kind
of pointless since I couldn't wear it. Leaving Sokoban, I avoided
another trek to Minetown to curse-test everything by exploring two
more rooms and finding a coaligned altar. I sacrificed for my
Snickersnee, which carried me all the way through the quest. (I never
did find a long sword to dip for Excalibur.)
After level 11 I returned to Minetown, headed through to Mines' End
uneventfully (though I had been unable to buy a lamp, so the dark
areas were kind of frustrating; fortunately I had a wand of light.)
Picked up my luckstone and headed back up to Minetown. By the time I
got back up I was skilled in twoweapon and expert in longsword,
wielding Snickersnee and a katana. Even unenchanted the combination
did a fair amount of damage. A run-in with a mumak while burdened got
me a bit worried, but turned out to not be a problem at all. Before I
left Minetown I used one of my scrolls of teleportation to purchase an
oil lamp by dropping the gold and teleporting away. By now I had
$7000, so I repeated buying everything I wanted from the shops in the
dungeon, then went back and paid for a shot of protection (only got 2
points, sadface). Next I made some water, but couldn't pray to bless
it. Instead I tried wielding it and reading my uncursed scrolls of
remove curse while confused (using that cursed unicorn horn from
bones). It unfortunately didn't work, and I forgot to take off my
armor first, so I wound up with cursed cloak of MR (which was sitting
randomly in a shop, a nice find) and cursed +3 iron shoes (and no holy
water either).
On level 13 a throne yielded a wish, so I got a silver dragon scale
mail, getting me the reflection I couldn't get from the amulet and
some good armor. Unfortunately, due to my stupidity earlier I couldn't
get the cloak off to wear it. I dried up nearly every fountain in the
dungeon and couldn't get the stupid thing to uncurse by fountain
dipping. A graveyard on level 16 had 5 wraiths and gave no corpses
(boy, that was annoying). I did find a random bag of holding, though,
which totally made up for getting the "wrong" Sokoban. On level 18 I
met bones with an awake barracks and a water troll, so I decided to
turn back to my stash before facing it. Another throne on level 17
summoned monsters and disappeared.
Back at my stash I identified a blessed scroll of remove curse, so I
unstacked my water, dropped most of my inventory, and finally got
myself some holy water. I blessed a couple of scrolls of identify and
learned a few new identities. I next tackled the bones, which turned
out to be thoroughly underwhelming (though they did have a magic lamp,
which I kept for the light--the wish saved my life later on). On level
22 I found Medusa (the titan version, but he was peaceful). However, I
had no way to cross the water nor a source of digging to skip it, so I
headed back to my stash, where I consolidated items and grabbed a
pickaxe. A few minutes later I found myself digging down through
Medusa and a couple of maze levels, reaching the castle. I had 117 HP,
an AC of -14, and both MR and reflection. I also had a tonal
instrument. Stupidly, though, I didn't head up the stairs to smash
Perseus' statue...
I cleared the castle easily and picked up a few wands for my trouble.
The wand turned out to be 0:1. I had no way to check the stores at the
moment, and I needed to get past Medusa again, so I wished for blessed
greased +3 boots of levitation (since I couldn't use the ring). That
turned out to be a really bad move! The stores had a couple of
interesting items, most notably a pair of gauntlets of power, which I
wore for the rest of the game. And, after mapping a couple of maze
levels that I had skipped by digging (and killing a pair of minotaurs
easily, even with unenchanted weapons), I headed up the stairs to kill
Medusa.
C - a pair of levitation boots.
*bang head on desk*. Okay, so I lost a wish. Fortunately, it wasn't a
big deal--I already had most of what I needed to ascend. That was
probably my worst mistake of the game though, and it felt really dumb
when I did it. I made it back to my stash without further incident,
where I gathered some equipment to do the Quest. I annoyingly forgot
my scroll of earth when I left, which I was planning to protect myself
from the wrath of the RNG and Ashikaga Takaugi with. The quest itself
was uneventful, though I fortunately found a ninja with a wand of
death to help me kill the nemesis. So here I am, standing in line with
meditating Ashikaga. Should be easy, right? (I include my comments on
IRC.)
The death ray misses Ashikaga Takauji. Ashikaga Takauji picks up a
long samurai sword.
You kill Ashikaga Takauji! But wait...--More--
You kill Ashikaga Takauji!
15:43 <scorchgeek> phew
The ninja picks up a tsurugi named The Tsurugi of Muramasa.--More--
15:45 <scorchgeek> whoops
Fortunately, I killed the ninja with a few zaps of a wand of lightning
(my death wand had run out of charges). I switched to the Tsurugi (I
think it's an awesome weapon, though twoweapon may do more damage).
Preparing for Gehennom was a piece of cake--all I still needed to wish
for were markers. I got two of them, bringing my wand down to 1:1. By
the time I headed to the Valley I had 176 HP and an AC of -27--not
great, especially without free action, regeneration, or conflict at my
disposal, but good enough. I bought clairvoyance from the priest
(great mapping strategy, by the way), and Gehennom was thoroughly
uneventful. Except...I forgot candles. Again. (Don't tell me you never
did that....) So two uncontrolled level teleports later (no ring of
teleport control allowed), I was remarkably close to my stash, where I
made a last stop and went to get candles.
And oops...I'm invisible and have no way to get into the shop. So I
had to teleport Izchak (sorry Izchak, I wouldn't have stolen from you
if you let me in!) and run off with the candles. Annoyingly, I had to
walk all the way from dungeon level 2 to the Wizard's Tower. I killed
Rodney and got into the Sanctum fine, bisected the high priest ("The
razor-sharp blade cuts the high priestess of Moloch in two!" is so
satisfying...), and headed back up. On one of Rodney's reappearances I
wasted 5 death charges because the darned thing just kept missing, but
otherwise nothing of note happened.
At my stash I noticed it was turn 30,000 and I still had not
identified a scroll of gold detection. I wished for a marker, with the
idea of wishing for gold detection scrolls with my last wishing charge
if I couldn't write it. But cool, I wrote it on the first try. I
played the Planes like I was speedrunning for some reason (guess I was
anxious or something--I had already splatted on the Planes twice
trying for p-less).
And the Astral Plane. 204 HP, and an AC of -29. What could possibly go
wrong?
First altar, Famine. I try to dodge Famine. I end up getting hit by a
potion of paralysis surrounded by three priests and Famine. (Remember,
I have no free action and no life saving due to the conflict.)
*facepalm*
Aand..."You can move again." HP 5(204). Fortunately I had a potion of
full healing, so I quaffed it and went on (after saying a prayer of
thanks to Random Number God). But I was still surrounded with Famine
in melee range, and the next hit took me to half my HP. I broke a wand
of teleport to clear the crowd, then cured Famine's stun attack and
hit him with a wand of death with 77HP remaining (the Riders are
rarely affected by teleport). Since I was short on full healing
potions, I decided not to quaff one. First altar was chaotic. I made
it back out uneventfully, and killed Famine with a wand of death
again. Next altar was Pestilence (the door was already open, or I
would have gone to Death). My first wand of teleportation ran out, but
I made it to the second altar with 108HP remaining. That one was
neutral (of course). I met a second potion of paralysis coming out,
which takes me down to 77HP (the same number again, yes), which forced
me to quaff my second potion of full healing, leaving me with just one
more. Out I go, once again killing Pestilence.
At the door to the third courtyard came the third potion of paralysis.
This one didn't really do anything, as there was nobody much around. I
had to melee Death, as I didn't bring any ranged weapon. Fortunately,
he went down in two hits, and my max HP only dropped to 181. Next I
wasted two turns by zapping my wand of teleportation named "out". I
also teleported my high priestess by mistake, angering her (this will
become very important in a minute). In front of the door to the last
altar--mine--comes the fourth potion of paralysis. (What was with the
paralysis gods today?)
"You can move again." HP 55(181). Quaffed my last potion of full
healing, but I was surrounded and the next round took me to 113 HP, so
I broke another wand of teleportation (fortunately, not the one named
"out"). I was now entirely out of teleport charges, so I used my one
scroll of charging. I'm now one teleport zap and five steps from
immortality. I start walking in. Two steps from my altar, and my high
priest (who I angered earlier) takes me down to 9 hitpoints with an
open wounds spell. I have no more full healing (indeed, my only
healing is a cursed potion of extra healing in my bag), and can't
press p to pray. I took the next steps entirely too fast, but I
started by stepping away from the priest. I probably only have one
turn to do something.
I have a blessed magic lamp left, so I try rubbing it. I got a puff of
smoke. (This was possibly the tensest moment of my entire NetHack
career...). I now have 9HP, and my own hostile high priest is standing
right next to me, pinning me against a wall. So I take the chance that
death will hit---priests in their own temple resist teleport.
"You kill the high priestess of Amaterasu Omikami! You murderer!"
I have healed 3 HP, for a total of 12. Since I murdered a coaligned
priest, I lost my 6 points of protection and telepathy. I'm blind
because of my god's lightning, so I have 12HP and cannot even see any
advancing monsters. I #rub my magic lamp again.
"You smell acrid fumes. Something speaks. 'I am in your debt. I will
grant one wish!'"
I wish for "3 blessed full healing".
r - 3 potions. The phial crashes on your head and breaks into shards.
You hear the howling of the CwnAnnwn... Something seems to be holding
you.
I swear on IRC for a while.
"It hits! It hits! It hits! Something casts a spell at you! You are
hit by a shower of missiles! The missiles bounce off! It hits! It
hits! It hits! Something casts a spell at you! You are hit by a shower
of missiles! The missiles bounce off! You can move again."
I'M STILL ALIVE! Albeit with 7 hitpoints, but I have 3 potions of full
healing.
You feel completely healed. You can see again.
What do you want to name this bag of holding? HAHAHAHAHA I BEAT YOU
STU-ID RNG!!!
The voice of Amaterasu Omikami thunders: "Congratulations, mortal!"--
More--
You ascend to the status of Demigoddess...--More--
This game was actually really fun. Trying something as silly as not
pressing 'p' may not be a massive achievement, but it's certainly
something different. And it was an interesting challenge to break the
monotony of more normal conducts. It's not terribly difficult either,
though if your RNG decides to give you five (count 'em, five) thrown
potions of paralysis on the Astral Plane you may be in a bit more
trouble. It's a miracle I survived that game.
http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/s/scorchgeekasc/dumplog/1302468467.nh343.txt
--
Soren "scorchgeek" Bjornstad
TJR
> "TJR: Yeah, but if you're going to drag untracked conducts into it
> then just about any play style can be justified. "Let's play a game
> without pressing the letter 'P'!"
>
> (DO NOT MAKE A NEW CONDUCT BASED OFF OF MY IDLE JOKE DAMMIT.)"
>
> --John Harris (http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2011/01/
> column_play_rules_of_roguelike.php)
>
> Too tempting to ignore, right? :)
Right! (big grin)
> This looks easy enough to start out with but starts getting really
> complex as you start to realize how many things require pressing P:
> I'm probably forgetting something, too.
You can't cast spells assigned to p. As a workaround, I suggest
reading something useless to fill the slot, e.g. Vlad's book of
invisibility.
> key. I suppose you could argue for the fact that that was cheating
> since it stopped me from accidentally breaking conduct, but a) I don't
> really agree with that, and b) there was no other way to track it.
I totally agree with you. Conducts are about player skill, not about
obsessive-compulsive disorder.
> did that....) So two uncontrolled level teleports later (no ring of
> teleport control allowed), I was remarkably close to my stash, where I
> made a last stop and went to get candles.
Hmm. What about tengu tins or the Master Key of Thievery? Are there
reasons not to go for these?
> satisfying...), and headed back up. On one of Rodney's reappearances I
> wasted 5 death charges because the darned thing just kept missing, but
> otherwise nothing of note happened.
Note to self: Figue out the odds of hitting with a wand, and update
the wiki. I believe Luck and player XP are the most important
variables.
> This game was actually really fun. Trying something as silly as not
> pressing 'p' may not be a massive achievement, but it's certainly
> something different. And it was an interesting challenge to break the
> monotony of more normal conducts. It's not terribly difficult either,
> though if your RNG decides to give you five (count 'em, five) thrown
> potions of paralysis on the Astral Plane you may be in a bit more
> trouble. It's a miracle I survived that game.
Well put. And congratulations, you are the first mortal to ascend a p-
less hero.
Soren Bjornstad
> On 13 Apr., 04:52, Soren Bjornstad <sobjorns...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You can't cast spells assigned to p. As a workaround, I suggest
> reading something useless to fill the slot, e.g. Vlad's book of
> invisibility.
Thanks for the addition. I also missed the fact that you can't review
the message buffer, which is really annoying.
> > did that....) So two uncontrolled level teleports later (no ring of
> > teleport control allowed), I was remarkably close to my stash, where I
> > made a last stop and went to get candles.
>
> Hmm. What about tengu tins or the Master Key of Thievery? Are there
> reasons not to go for these?
No, they would work fine, but I was lawful, which rules out the MkOT,
and I would be too scared of getting uncontrolled teleportitis and not
having enough resources to get control with tengu, though it's
perfectly acceptable and doable.
John H.
'O'. (heh heh heh)
I gotta mention this in the next @Play....
- John H.
Janis Papanagnou
> "[...] "Let's play a game without pressing the letter 'P'!"
>
> This looks easy enough to start out with but starts getting really
> complex as you start to realize how many things require pressing P:
Would using auto-completion count? As in #two-wea...
> * You can't (P)ut on any rings, amulets, towels, or lenses. So you
> can't get reflection by the amulet, and there's no way at all to get
> free action; [...]
No way? - Wouldn't eating the respective rings while polymorphed
as a specific monster do the trick? - Not easy to achieve, anyway.
> Having no way to keep track of the conduct, I simply took off my 'p'
> key.
Could remapping the /P/ key on OS level have helped?
> [...] By the time I
> got back up I was skilled in twoweapon and expert in longsword,
(Aha, auto-completion is considered okay.)
> [...] and paid for a shot of protection (only got 2 points, sadface).
(Better than getting four points, and those stolen by a gremlin, as
in my UN priest game ;-)
> [...] A graveyard on level 16 had 5 wraiths and gave no corpses
> (boy, that was annoying).
Luring them to a non-graveyard level significantly increases probs.
(A bit cheap, I admit.)
> [...] On level
> 22 I found Medusa (the titan version, but he was peaceful). However, I
> had no way to cross the water nor a source of digging to skip it [...]
What happened to your scrolls of earth from Sokoban? (Still need a
source of digging to dig through a few of those ruins.)
> so I headed back to my stash, where I consolidated items and grabbed a
> pickaxe. [...]
> [...] I annoyingly forgot
> my scroll of earth when I left, which I was planning to protect myself
> from the wrath of the RNG and Ashikaga Takaugi with.
(Aha, there they were.)
> [...] On one of Rodney's reappearances I
> wasted 5 death charges because the darned thing just kept missing [...]
Also the ray reflected back from the wand was missing? (Missed 10 times
is bad luck, indeed.)
> (Remember, I have no free action and no life saving due to the conflict.)
(I missed where you got than from.)
> Aand..."You can move again." HP 5(204).
<shudder>!
> [...] I broke a wand
> of teleport to clear the crowd, then cured Famine's stun attack and
> hit him with a wand of death with 77HP remaining (the Riders are
> rarely affected by teleport).
Rarely? - I thought when they get hit by the teleportation force they
materialize immediately adjacent to you.
> [...] comes the fourth potion of paralysis. (What was with the
> paralysis gods today?)
You played too fast, the RNG wanted to slow you down a bit. ;-)
> [...] Two steps from my altar, and my high
> priest (who I angered earlier) takes me down to 9 hitpoints with an
> open wounds spell. I have no more full healing (indeed, my only
> healing is a cursed potion of extra healing in my bag), and can't
> press p to pray. I took the next steps entirely too fast,
Heh, I knew it! - LOL
> The voice of Amaterasu Omikami thunders: "Congratulations, mortal!"--
Great showdown!
And congrats.
Janis
John H.
> 'P-less conduct': Once your savefile loads or character is created,
> you can't press the P (or p) key, nor can you paste any text
> containing a P into the terminal (that'd be too easy).
>
> This looks easy enough to start out with but starts getting really
> complex as you start to realize how many things require pressing P:
Hmm... what other letters are particularly interesting to play, if you
avoid them?
A - no 'a'pplying or 'a'djusting. This make the game unwinnable
because you have to apply candles to attach them to the candelabrum
and ring the Bell of Opening. If you allow for that, also means you
can't write scrolls or spellbooks with magic markers or use a number
of other miscellaneous objects. Also, no breaking wands.
B - one of the vi keys, if you're not playing with numberpad this is
fairly interesting but otherwise b is unused. Not moving southwest
thus could be included in this.
C - closing doors, calling monsters by names, chat. Pretty simple,
although this means you can't buy protection from priests and have to
pick up items to get their prices.
D - drop objects, drop object types, dip. Possibly debilitating.
Imagine all your items were like lodestones? You could still get rid
of stuff by nymph, or maybe some other means not covered in the
fifteen seconds I have to spare for the letter 'D'. May be
impossible, but that makes it very interesting to consider.
E - engrave. Basically a "no Elbereth" conduct, which is extremely
minor, especially considering a scroll of Scare Monster has all the
same effects. Also makes it harder to ID wands by zapping words on
the floor.
F - fire, fight, force lock. Most of these keys are convenience
features, I think. I think the old style of throwing missile weapons
while a launcher is wielded still works in the case of fire, and fight
is rarely used due to walking into things attacking them
automatically. Force lock is one way to get into chests, but could
destroy your weapon in the process.
G,H - only used for movement, see 'B' H works like ? if number_pad is
on, but can be ignored otherwise.
I - inventory, invoke. Less interesting than annoying, you could do
this one fairly easily just by noting every item's letter when you
pick it up on a sheet of paper. invoke means doing without one power
of your quest artifact, but it's still mostly pretty minor.
J-L - used for movement, see 'B'. Meta-J jumps, but jumping is a
fairly optional trick, though useful in some cases. Meta-K kicks,
which is very important for locked doors and monks, but there might be
other ways around or through. (Forcing locks maybe?) Zapping doors
with force bolt makes this attractive for wizards. Meta-L loots
containers, but you can still get at their contents by picking them up
and applying them.
M - mostly movement, but also the extended command #monster. Still
minor.
N - movement, see 'B'. Also used to name things, but that's minor in
many games.
O - offer, makes the game unwinnable since you have to offer the
Amulet of Yendor at the end. The game itself makes an exception just
this once for Atheist conduct at the end of the game, so maybe we
could do the same.
P - Already considered, and won!
Q - quaff, quiver, quit. No drinking potions is fairly major and
interesting to consider. quivering is a convenience feature, isn't
it? OH NOES I CANT QUIT I BE PLAYIN FOREVARS.
R - read, remove, rub. Would be interesting, like an extended version
of illiteracy including the inability to take off rings, except for
the need to read the Book of the Dead. Doesn't the game make an
exception for this? Rub only means no wishes from magic lamps.
S - search, sit. At first seems like it would make the game
impossible for characters without automatic search. But you might
could dig through walls, and doesn't the Knock spelll also reveals
secret doors, doesn't it? And there are wands of secret door
detection. Worth thinking about. Sit merely means no sitting on
thrones.
T - throw, takeoff, turn undead. If you use the fire/quiver system
for weapons then throw becomes fairly meaningless. Takeoff, however,
is interesting. Turn undead only even matters to two roles.
U-V - movement, see 'B'. U is also untrap, but often you don't need
to worry about that unless you want to get your pet out of a trap. V
is for version -- yawn.
W - wield, wear, wipe off face. Oh this is extremely interesting, and
could make the game very hard. You could swap things in your weapon
hands (with 'X'), but that's it. Wiping off your face is only
important if you get hit with a cream pie, I think, and those don't
enter the game unless you steal from a shop and summon Kops.
X - xchange. A convenience command, easily dispensed with.
Y - movement, see 'B'.
Z - zap wands, cast spells. Particularly interesting to think about.
Some extra commands use the # interface, but can also be mapped,
depending on your port, to Alt/Meta. All these commands (other than
Alt-? and Alt-2) go by the first letter of their command name. Since
the commands autocomplete, you only have to press the first letter
anyway.
Soren Bjornstad
wrote:
> On 13.04.2011 04:52, Soren Bjornstad wrote:
> > * You can't (P)ut on any rings, amulets, towels, or lenses. So you
> > can't get reflection by the amulet, and there's no way at all to get
> > free action; [...]
>
> No way? - Wouldn't eating the respective rings while polymorphed
> as a specific monster do the trick? - Not easy to achieve, anyway.
Eating free action instead confers sleep resistance, which is a bit
odd.
> > Having no way to keep track of the conduct, I simply took off my 'p'
> > key.
>
> Could remapping the /P/ key on OS level have helped?
I suppose, but that would have just been more work.
> > [...] A graveyard on level 16 had 5 wraiths and gave no corpses
> > (boy, that was annoying).
>
> Luring them to a non-graveyard level significantly increases probs.
> (A bit cheap, I admit.)
Yes, I did lure them away, which made it even more annoying.
> > [...] On one of Rodney's reappearances I
> > wasted 5 death charges because the darned thing just kept missing [...]
>
> Also the ray reflected back from the wand was missing? (Missed 10 times
> is bad luck, indeed.)
I started firing diagonally, because that was where I was, and didn't
move to a position where the rebound would hit until I had already
missed a couple of times.
> > (Remember, I have no free action and no life saving due to the conflict.)
> I missed where you got than from.
Whoops, I meant "conduct", not "conflict". Since I couldn't press P, I
couldn't wear either.
> > [...] I broke a wand
> > of teleport to clear the crowd, then cured Famine's stun attack and
> > hit him with a wand of death with 77HP remaining (the Riders are
> > rarely affected by teleport).
>
> Rarely? - I thought when they get hit by the teleportation force they
> materialize immediately adjacent to you.
They have a 1/13 chance to be teleported away normally instead.
> > The voice of Amaterasu Omikami thunders: "Congratulations, mortal!"--
>
> Great showdown!
>
> And congrats.
Thanks!
Ilmari Karonen
>
> E - engrave. Basically a "no Elbereth" conduct, which is extremely
> minor, especially considering a scroll of Scare Monster has all the
> same effects. Also makes it harder to ID wands by zapping words on
> the floor.
Also no eating and no #enhancing skills. And not being able to type
the letter "e" is going to limit your wishes (and genocides, and
writing scrolls/books, etc.) quite a bit.
I suspect that someone like TJR or scorchgeek could probably pull it
off, but this is by no means a trivial conduct.
> S - search, sit. At first seems like it would make the game
> impossible for characters without automatic search.
You can kick walls to find secret doors, if you have no better method
available. As for traps, meh... just be brave and take them like a
man (or valk, as it may be).
> T - throw, takeoff, turn undead. If you use the fire/quiver system
> for weapons then throw becomes fairly meaningless. Takeoff, however,
> is interesting. Turn undead only even matters to two roles.
"A" can substitute for "T", and "Q" + "f" for "t" as you note. And
#turn is pretty near useless even for the roles that have it.
No teleporting with ctrl-T, though. And you need to turn number_pad
off and use alt-2 if you want to two-weapon.
> W - wield, wear, wipe off face. Oh this is extremely interesting, and
> could make the game very hard. You could swap things in your weapon
> hands (with 'X'), but that's it. Wiping off your face is only
> important if you get hit with a cream pie, I think, and those don't
> enter the game unless you steal from a shop and summon Kops.
Hmm... no wielding or wearing is indeed a challenge.
You could use your starting weapon(s) as long as you were careful
never to drop them, and you could wield a pick-axe, polearm or lance
(or, less usefully, a tin opener) by applying it (or a lamp by rubbing
it), but I think that's it. For armor, I think you'd pretty much have
to stick with what you start with. Watch out for those foocubi!
Also, again no two-weaponing with number_pad on. ("#t" is not enough,
you need "#tw" to disambiguate #twoweapon from #turn.)
> Y - movement, see 'B'.
No "y" also means you can't answer "yes" to any prompts. That could
get pretty tricky. (No eating or saccing off the ground, no #looting,
no breaking wands, no eating tins, etc. I probably missed several
more. At least you can still pray if you turn off prayconfirm, hit
peacefuls with "F" and save by hanging up.)
--
Ilmari Karonen
To reply by e-mail, please replace ".invalid" with ".net" in address.
Benjamin A. Schmit
Pe dată de 2011-04-14 22:19, John H. a scris:
> Hmm... what other letters are particularly interesting to play, if you
> avoid them?
> [...]
> O - offer, makes the game unwinnable since you have to offer the
> Amulet of Yendor at the end. The game itself makes an exception just
> this once for Atheist conduct at the end of the game, so maybe we
> could do the same.
Don't forget options – much of the tweaking in the "P" conduct wouldn't
have been that "easy" without access to the game options.
> R - read, remove, rub. Would be interesting, like an extended version
> of illiteracy including the inability to take off rings, except for
> the need to read the Book of the Dead. Doesn't the game make an
> exception for this? Rub only means no wishes from magic lamps.
> Z - zap wands, cast spells. Particularly interesting to think about.
"R" and "Z" seem to be most interesting to me, from this list.
I'm sure there are several more hidden depths as well – "A" e.g. makes
it impossible to use your initial weapon if you ever unwield/lose it…
Others affect e.g. the types of scrolls you can't write. Imagine not
being able to write a scroll of charging and not finding one…
Several conducts other then "E" also make Elbereth impossible ("L", "B",
"R", "T", H"), since you'd press that letter as well.
> Some extra commands use the # interface, but can also be mapped,
> depending on your port, to Alt/Meta. All these commands (other than
> Alt-? and Alt-2) go by the first letter of their command name. Since
> the commands autocomplete, you only have to press the first letter
> anyway.
Depends on the port – there are some graphical versions which pop up a
windows as soon as you press the "#" key (BTW, one more interesting key
to choose from…). You can then select the command with the mouse. I
don't think it would be fair, though.
Another interesting key for the masochistic could be ESC (and
equivalents). A bit like the Chess rule that once you touch a piece,
you have to move it as well. And quite probably a source of serial
YASDs. And maybe the SPACE key, which would seriously limit writing and
wishing, at least.
Benjamin
--
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires.
Seek discipline and find your liberty.
-- Frank Herbert, Dune Chronicles
TJR
> equivalents). A bit like the Chess rule that once you touch a piece,
> you have to move it as well. And quite probably a source of serial
> YASDs. And maybe the SPACE key, which would seriously limit writing and
> wishing, at least.
If you can't press space or escape at --MORE--, you either get stuck,
have to provoke a hangup save, or have to turn off all messages using
MSGTYPE. None of these sound like an easy ascension.
John H.
[lots of cool info]
Nothing much to add to this, except that the help file says you can do
twoweaponing with #2. You've obviously thought more about that than I
have, very cool!
Although I don't think I quite get the hangup method for praying? I
think that's beyond my own level of Nethack lore right there.
- John H.
John H.
adjusting inventory letters, which itself has a letter command,
#adjust.
- John H.
Pat Rankin
[...]
> Although I don't think I quite get the hangup method for praying? I
> think that's beyond my own level of Nethack lore right there.
Those were two different things: pray without needing to
answer 'y' to confirm by disabling the prayconfirm option, and
save without needing to answer 'y' to confirm by forcing a hangup
which auto-saves when possible (won't work for some or all micro-
computer ports, even if the users there figure out how to trigger
a hangup signal). Anyway, intentionally using hangup smacks of
cheating, since you're effectively going outside the game. It'd
be kind of silly to pick a really hard conduct and then resort to
cheating in order to maintain it. [Although it would be pretty
hilarious if it turned out that the only way to achieve a hangup
signal required typing y at some point.] Saving isn't necessary
to complete the game, although I'd much rather use a stable system
that could be reliably left with the game sitting idle than to go
through a whole game with no rest breaks.
Refraining from 'y' would also require a bit of creativity
to transition from the main dungeon to the endgame levels, but it
is feasible.
Ilmari Karonen
You can tweak inventory letters without using #adjust, it's just
tedious. In fact, there are (at least) two ways: either by turning
the fixinv option temporarily off, or relying on the fact that if a
dropped item's former inventory letter is occupied when you pick it up
again, the game will move it to the first unoccupied inventory slot.
John H.
> [...] It'd
> be kind of silly to pick a really hard conduct and then resort to
> cheating in order to maintain it.
Well the conduct itself involved out-of-game behavior, so I'd say the
hang-up system is fair, although at the edge of allowability. It is
part of the Nethack code after all. The many "are you sure?" prompts
would be harder to overcome. Dipping things in fountains or water at
your feet also becomes difficult, if not impossible. You'd have to
level teleport beyond the Valley of the Dead to skip the "unspeakable
cruelty and harm" prompt. There is a yn prompt for attaching the
candles to the Candelabrum. Also, isn't there a prompt for offering
the Amulet in the endgame?
> Refraining from 'y' would also require a bit of creativity
> to transition from the main dungeon to the endgame levels, but it
> is feasible.
Yes, by drinking a cursed potion of gain level.
- John H.
Soren Bjornstad
> On Apr 15, 8:59 pm, Pat Rankin <r.pat.ran...@gmail.com> wrote:
> candles to the Candelabrum. Also, isn't there a prompt for offering
> the Amulet in the endgame?
No prompt for offering the Amulet. But I think you'd have to make an
exception for the Candelabrum--there's no way to win without attaching
candles, and as far as I know no other way to attach them to the
Candelabrum.
>I just realized something else... Soren's game depended somewhat on
>adjusting inventory letters, which itself has a letter command,
>#adjust.
I did not use the #adjust command for any of the adjusting I had to
do, as adjusting stuff to or from 'p' requires pressing P. Playing
without #adjust would be far more annoying than difficult--if you got
your lockpick in an annoying slot like Y or so, the only way to fix it
would be fiddling around like Ilmari discussed:
>... In fact, there are (at least) two ways: either by turning
>the fixinv option temporarily off, or relying on the fact that if a
>dropped item's former inventory letter is occupied when you pick it up
>again, the game will move it to the first unoccupied inventory slot.
I chose to use the fixinv command, by the way, which I did mention
very briefly in my original post.
Soren Bjornstad
> On Apr 15, 8:59 pm, Pat Rankin <r.pat.ran...@gmail.com> wrote:
> candles to the Candelabrum. Also, isn't there a prompt for offering
> the Amulet in the endgame?
No prompt for offering the Amulet. But I think you'd have to make an
Soren Bjornstad
> On Apr 15, 8:59 pm, Pat Rankin <r.pat.ran...@gmail.com> wrote:
> candles to the Candelabrum. Also, isn't there a prompt for offering
> the Amulet in the endgame?
No prompt for offering the Amulet. But I think you'd have to make an
Soren Bjornstad
>equivalents). A bit like the Chess rule that once you touch a piece,
>you have to move it as well. And quite probably a source of serial
>YASDs. And maybe the SPACE key, which would seriously limit writing and
>wishing, at least.
Wow, I couldn't even imagine playing without space. Only a very few
wishes (and no qualifiers like enchantment), very few scrolls. You
also couldn't use a lot of items that produce a message, --More--, and
then ask for input (like genocide), though I think some of that could
be dealt with with a very wide terminal.
Escape would be a pain too--though most things can be cancelled in
other ways, like by providing invalid input or scrolling all the way
through the list. It'd probably be more annoying than difficult,
actually. Like you said though, you'd want to move very carefully--if
you misstep in a way you could normally take back, you might be stuck.
I can't think right off-hand if there's any items/features/etc that no
Esc would specifically make impossible...any thoughts?
Whoops, really sorry for the triple-post above--it's late!
Also, I meant the fixinv *option*, not command.
--
Soren "scorchgeek" Bjornstad