YASD - luckiest game ever
Paul E Collins
ascension for the more experienced players here. Personally, I've
never got beyond Medusa's level in about two years of playing.
My little wizard started off with a wand of death (0:5), then found a
shop on DLvl 2 with speed boots and a wand of wishing (for the
Satan-tastic price of 666 zorkmids). Wished for Magicbane and
recharged the wand, giving me three wishes for later - assuming I
couldn't either outrun or death-zap anything I might encounter.
Stocked up on random useful things in Minetown (magic marker, magic
whistle, tinning kit, drum of earthquake, some better armour) and for
once managed to resist the temptation to kill all the smug
shopkeepers. Picked up a tin of homunculus, which conferred sleep
resistance, and located three mystery amulets, one of which I later
identified as Mr Strangley and threw away.
Eventually found my way to the Big Room. It didn't look too tricky,
but I had my eye on a trio of soldier ants between myself and the down
stairs. Pyrolisk got the wand of death, since I didn't want all my
stuff scorched. Having killed a winter wolf cub, I greedily decided
that I must tin it and get the cold resistance later. Suddenly the
ants were really close, and they were no longer in a straight line so
I couldn't easily zap them.
Down to 18 HP, I panicked (yeah, yeah, I know it's turn-based!) and
wished for a blessed potion of full healing. Which was pretty stupid,
considering that teleportation, digging, or life saving would have
been much more useful. Anyway, that wish was my final turn, as the
cu^H^Hants swarmed over me.
And wouldn't you just know that "a square amulet" was the life-saver?
P.
Andrew D. Hilton
> My little wizard started off with a wand of death (0:5), then found a
> shop on DLvl 2 with speed boots and a wand of wishing (for the
> Satan-tastic price of 666 zorkmids). Wished for Magicbane and
> recharged the wand, giving me three wishes for later - assuming I
> couldn't either outrun or death-zap anything I might encounter.
>
This sounds like two major mistakes.
First of all- you KNOW you will get magic bane as a wizard- its
your guaranteed first sacrifice gift.
Second- holding off on the wishes for later is a bad idea- your
best bet is to wish up as much good armor as possibe- with 4 wishes,
and already having speed boots (and presumably a CoMR), Id suggest +3 SDSM,
+3 HOB, +3 GoDEX, and +3 Tshirt. Those give you an AC boost of somewhere
between 11 and 23- with about 20 being pretty likely. That gets
you down to like -10 or better AC, which puts you in decent shape
for a while.
then go find the minetown altar and get yourself magic bane
--
Andrew D. Hilton
UPenn Phd Student
Andy Johnson
I would actually suggest wishing up a spellbook of ID for a wizard if
you get a wish that early on. Having identify in the beginning makes all
those random potions and scrolls you found become useful and powerful.
Sebastian Hungerecker
> I would actually suggest wishing up a spellbook of ID for a wizard if
> you get a wish that early on. Having identify in the beginning makes all
> those random potions and scrolls you found become useful and powerful.
A wizard can write spellbooks with a fairly good succes rate, so
wishing for a magic marker would make more sense IMHO (even if wrting
a spellbook of ID doesn't succeed at the first try, you've still got
enough charges to retry at least twice - I think)
--
If geiger counter does not click,
the coffee, she is just not thick
Theron
death by ant fairly easily.
Lichen Fodder
write ID and failing is ludicrous. You can wait till your a high enough
exp. level to make it more certain, typically 10+, but by then you may
well find ID.
I think an ID spellbook is a reasonable wish for a low level wizard.
YLbh whfg unir gb or pnershy lbh qba'g LNFQ ol ybbfvat nyy lbhe cbjre
pnfgvat VQ ng ybj engrf bs fhpprff. Fbzrguvat V nz nyfb cnvashyyl njner
bss.
Andy Johnson
Your experience level doesn't affect your chances, IIRC. Your luck does,
however. With luck 0, you only have about a 1/3 chance of writing the
book (as a Wizard). With max luck, you're at 98% chance. The reason I
recommended wishing up the spellbook directly is that for such an early
character, with likely low/negative luck, it's best to guarantee getting
the book.
If you've already gotten your luck up to 10 (or more!) by level 2 by
some lucky chance, then by all means wish for the marker.
Byron A Jeff
Some major spoily stuff...
Very much agreed. +ID is a power weapon for a wizard early in the game.
I've learned a lot playing a semi-pacifist healer lately. Andrew is right
that AC is critical in the early game. Since Wizards already have magic
resistance, reflection is the next critical item. So the first wish would
have been for +2 silver dragon scale mail. Light, ultra low AC, and
inherent reflection without having to carry anything else. Second would
be the speed boots (+2 fixed), then after the charging scrolls, wish up
a +ID.
The the semi pacifist in me would get thyself to Minetown allowing the
Kitty to kill absolutely everything around until you get to the Minetown
priest. You then ask for protection until your naked AC is lowered to 1, and
if the altar is coaligned go ahead and get MB.
BTW I like FrostBrand as the major damage deliverer. And you won't get it
early in the sacrifice game.
Next up is since you have magic resistance (and magic cancellation) you
really can't be polymorphed. So go ahead down further into the mines until
you come across a poly trap. Level up your pet into something interesting
and higher level. For example in my current game I got my cat polyed into
a salamander. 100HP, 12th level, fire attack. Nasty.
Then you're set for awhile. Your pet would have handily dispatched the
soldier ants. Your AC would have protected you. Your FB would have tore the
ants up.
Boy Scout Motto: Be Prepared.
BAJ
SMG
of playing these character types - at the same time, though, I like
random games.
Is there any way to set the character class to random at the start of
the game with a Barb/Valk/Cave exclusion?
I'd really like to ascend a Wizard next (gnomish, for mine
accesibility), but keep getting my tuckus handed to me - often I forget
about that... word. Bah. I've been going straight to minetown, and
then to Oracle, then mine's end, then Soko but I haven't gotten as far
as mine's end yet. Perhaps I should try to do soko first? I frequently
die in Sokoban, so I have been leaving it for last. I've been getting
great kit for Dlvl 1-5 in the last few games, but the one thing I've
been missing is a co-aligned altar (read: holy water - thus the dive for
minetown, to no avail).
Any tips for the midbie would be greatly appreciated. I'm fully spoiled
and use Hearse, but I don't ever save- or bones-scum.
Janis Papanagnou
> I've ascended a couple of Barbarians and one Valk, but I'm sick to death
> of playing these character types - at the same time, though, I like
> random games.
Back in times of 3.0.9 I've suggested to the DevTeam to be able to specify
sometimg like 'nethack -PRW' (to select from priest, rogue, and wizard in
this example). Though it did not make it into the game. With recent versions
this simple approach is not appropriate any more since there are Ran and Rog
classes.
> Is there any way to set the character class to random at the start of
> the game with a Barb/Valk/Cave exclusion?
Well, today, I would write some wrapper script that randomly chooses from
the prefered character role/race set. It's easy to program and does not
require to modify the game. Though a scripting solution would depend on
what is available in your environment.
Janis
Don
> Is there any way to set the character class to random at the start of
> the game with a Barb/Valk/Cave exclusion?
Are you playing on a server or on a local box? Are you under Linux or
Windows? I like semi-randomness as well, so I use a perl script that
selects from a set of options that I want randomized... if you don't
find a better solution there is always this one.
Don
Michael Lehotay
> SMG wrote:
> > Is there any way to set the character class to random at the start
of
> > the game with a Barb/Valk/Cave exclusion?
>
> Well, today, I would write some wrapper script that randomly chooses
from
> the prefered character role/race set. It's easy to program and does
not
> require to modify the game. Though a scripting solution would depend
on
> what is available in your environment.
This should go in the FAQ. I have written such a wrapper program.
Portable C source code and a windows executable are here:
http://michael.lehotay.com/nethack/index.html
Kevin Wayne
[wrapper program to randomly choose characters with exclusions]
>
> This should go in the FAQ. I have written such a wrapper program.
> Portable C source code and a windows executable are here:
> http://michael.lehotay.com/nethack/index.html
>
Which, by the way, I use and like very much. I especially like the fact
that I can choose my character's name after knowing what kind of
character it will be. Thank you!
--
Kevin Wayne
"Stark raving sane."
--Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Topi Linkala
> This should go in the FAQ. I have written such a wrapper program.
> Portable C source code and a windows executable are here:
> http://michael.lehotay.com/nethack/index.html
I downloaded the wrapper program, but couldn't understand how to use it.
If I want to exclude female elven wizards from the selection, would I use:
nrcs -fem -elf -wiz
But wouldn't that exclude all females, all elves and all wizards?
Topi
--
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are
always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
- Bertrand Russell
"How come he didn't put 'I think' at the end of it?" - Anonymous
Michael Lehotay
> Michael Lehotay wrote:
>
> > This should go in the FAQ. I have written such a wrapper program.
> > Portable C source code and a windows executable are here:
> > http://michael.lehotay.com/nethack/index.html
>
> I downloaded the wrapper program, but couldn't understand how to use
it.
>
> If I want to exclude female elven wizards from the selection, would I
use:
>
> nrcs -fem -elf -wiz
>
> But wouldn't that exclude all females, all elves and all wizards?
Yes, you are right. It actually never occurred to me that people would
want to do this. Thanks for pointing it out. I'll make a new version
with this feature.
ML