Nethack

[kcwong]

For some reason I rarely use Elbereth. Normally I don't remember to use it. And in some way I think it as a minor cheat, as you can wait and heal yourself while the monsters roar at you couple of squares away. But I'll try it.

My survival rate shoots up after I learned about Elbereth, and the various ways of doing it. Though it's not a 100% protection... monsters can still attack you with ranged attacks. Also burning is not always available, and you might run out of wand charges. Then you will have to fall back to fingering, and you can be confused or blinded.

And there're plenty of monsters that do not respect Elbereth... well, plenty enough to kill.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

Another sad story:

Started as a knight, and all went well until Minetown. My HP went low, so I opened a door, dismounted my pony, went in the room, waited till my pony gets in and closed the door. Well, the door wouldn't close, it resisted a couple of times. Unfortunately my pony ran out, but I couldn't open the door, there were giant beetles ready to eat me. So I waited until my HP rose higher, and stepped out of the room. Well, I saw a yeti killing my pony. And after the pony it killed me.

Damn yetis.

 

[kcwong]

IMO jousting is overrated. Get Excalibur and throw away your fragile lance, and watch your pony starve to death.

 

[Reno]

IMO jousting is overrated. Get Excalibur and throw away your fragile lance, and watch your pony starve to death.

Jousting can be useful; however I nearly always dump my lance* just because it weighs too much.

*Sometimes I might stash it in a chest/container if I find one on the first level.

 

[Strider]

NetHack is pretty fun, but as it's been mentioned VERY difficult. I played a few games until it kind of got repetitive and I couldn't get any farther.

 

[jafink]

I have played a few times, but it is too easy to be killed. You can never take risks in this game because a single mistake can kill you easily.

 

[kcwong]

I have played a few times, but it is too easy to be killed. You can never take risks in this game because a single mistake can kill you easily.

It's very interesting as your skill grows. When I first started playing I worried about starving or food poisoning. Then I found those no longer a problem... my attention switched onto getting killed by a bunch of rothes or a's (insects), and the food problem was nearly non-existent. These days I can get to at least the Castle level, if I'm not trying anything funny (like running a strictly level 1 protection racket), or not paying attention (shouldn't play NH when I'm tired ). My attention switched to how to fill out the remaining bits of my ascension kit, and on some very tough enemies.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

Now I'm in the phase where I don't get killed by sucky enemies, like regular gnomes. Now gnomes with wands or some harder normal enemies(like soldier ants and crocodiles) kill me. Well, any enemy may kill me, I have a bad habit of going too fast in the dungeon and thus accidentally running towards a floating eye...

 

[Izipo]

Well, I'm still in the phase where food is the biggest problem.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

Just eat most of corpses of the monsters you kill. But some are poisonous, however. Don't eat kobolds, they are poisonous. Or yellow molds, those are poisonous and make you hallucinate. Some others are poisonous too, but those monsters come later in the game.

 

[kcwong]

Well, any enemy may kill me, I have a bad habit of going too fast in the dungeon and thus accidentally running towards a floating eye...

Try keeping your pet, and let it fight for you. In early stages, your pet fights better than you, even for combat wombats like Barbarian or Valkyrie. A pet could save you, or when against very tough opponents, at least buy you some time to run. With each enemy your pet kills, it grows stronger, and later on you could polymorph it into something really useful, like a dragon or a purple worm (a D&D monster, a super huge worm with a big mouth that swallow you whole). Also your character level is part of the equation in the monster generator - the weaker you are, the weaker your enemies will be.

Well, I'm still in the phase where food is the biggest problem.

A pet could answer some of your questions... make a new character, and observe what the pet eats and what it doesn't. *Almost* all corpses your pet eats are safe for you to eat, with a few notable exceptions -- bats and rats. Common sense would tell you not to touch those.


Having pets come with a few catches, though.

The first catch is to keep your pet close... most people gave up their pets because it takes them ages to get them to follow or get into where they are needed.

The second catch is food. Carnivorous pets like cats and dogs are forever hungry... they eat nearly everything they kill. Having them around means very little food for you.

Solutions to the first:
1) Leash. You can #apply it to your pet, keeping it no more than 2 squares away from you. If you walk in an opposite direction when your pet's already 2 squares away, you yank the leash and your pet becomes less tame... so wait for the pet to move closer if that's the case. The catch: cursed leash will strangle your pet.

2) Whistle. You can #apply it, producing a high whistling sound. Your pet will try to move closer to you for a few turns. The catch: it might wake up something else in the dungeon.

3) Tripe ration. By keeping one in your open inventory (i.e. not inside other containers), your pets will be drawn to you like magnets. The catch: none really, other than you need to pick it up before your pets devour it.

4) Magic Whistle. The ultimate solution to pet problem. It won't wake up other dungeon inhabitants, and it will teleport your pets to you, within one to two squares. The catch: Watch where you use it... you might teleport your pets onto traps.

Solutions to the second:
1) If your character starts with any food, make those your emergency reserve. Eat corpses.

2) Sokoban. Besides the prize at the end of the dungeon branch, there will be lots of food in there. In the main dungeon, you will find a special level with a huge room... inside there will be a bunch of statues, with a small room in the middle. The small room has 4 fountains, with a special NPC inside - the Oracle. That's the Oracle level, and the level directly beneath it will have *two* upstairs. One lead you back to Oracle level, the other into Sokoban.

3) Stick close when your pet fights. If your character is faster than your pet, you have a chance of stepping onto the corpse first.

4) If you find a shop with food, buy or steal them.

5) #pray. If you have no other problems to fix your god would make your stomach content. Don't do it too often... your god doesn't like you to boss him/her around. For a low level character, it's about 600 turns between praying.

6) If you're playing a healer, they start with the spell Stone to Flesh. You won't be able to use it until you're level 3 because of insufficient MP, but once you do, you can zap a boulder with it to create a huge chunk of meat. Eating one could be dangerous though: you can choke to death. So if you're to eat one, make sure you're at least weak (or very close to weak) from hunger.

 

[Izipo]

Thanks for the advices. I understood that I needed to eat corpses, my problem is that there are very few corpses. My real problem though, is that I spend too much time searching for hidden passageways. This is why my hunger/food available ratio is so bad.

 

[kcwong]

I only search for traps... I don't search for hidden passages until I've already found one (in my mind, not in the game).

I search around for hidden passages only I'm stuck on a level, or there's a certain special room I've identified.

Playing a healer has its advantages... the starting stethoscope is *very* handy. You can check status (enemy, pet or your own) once per turn for free, and you can find hidden passages and doors with 100% success -- if you, as the player, know where it is, of course.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

But I don't recommend starting as a healer, it has crappy weapons.

Barbarians and valkyries(maybe samurais) are the best to start with. When you've learned to combat with melee, try wizard. Knight is pretty good also, though it's equipment weighs a lot, making it easily burdened. Monk is one of my favourites, but the problem is that a monk should be a vegetarian, so it's harder to keep yourself fed.

 

[kcwong]

But I don't recommend starting as a healer, it has crappy weapons.

Healers can get to skilled in daggers. With enchanted daggers, that can be a quite powerful dagger storm. Healers shouldn't be fighting themselves at first anyway, so they have time to collect some daggers and practice on weak opponents.

You know the most important trick in NetHack is? It's not a trick to get out of trouble - it's don't get into trouble in the first place!

And melee attacks can and will get you into trouble. Use ranged attacks, and never let your opponents connect a single melee hit!

In NetHack's calculations, weapon skills are important only when you don't have basic, and when you're low level. When your level is high, you can hit as hard as you're expert.

Besides, maths have been done before - very little things come close to a barrage of enchanted thrown daggers. Wizard's expert magic missile is one, a dual-wielded Grayswandir + Silver Saber is another.

Skilled and expert in dagger allow you to throw multiple daggers each round, and with heavily enchanted elven daggers, you will be dealing heavy damage without taking any in return.

Also healer's artifact weapon, The Staff of Aesculapius, is super handy to have. It provides hungerless regeneration, prevents level drain, and for non-level drain resistant opponents, it drains their levels and deals double damage. When invoked, it cures half of your damage, cure sickness, blindness (except cream pie) and sliming. The only downside is that it is 2-handed - once cursed you will have to pray.

Healers might not be easy for new players, but don't let that stop you from playing one - you will learn the tricks of pet keeping from playing healers. That experience can be applied to all other characters.

Barbarians and valkyries(maybe samurais) are the best to start with. When you've learned to combat with melee, try wizard. Knight is pretty good also, though it's equipment weighs a lot, making it easily burdened. Monk is one of my favourites, but the problem is that a monk should be a vegetarian, so it's harder to keep yourself fed.

When playing wizards, try not to rely on your spells. Drop that stupid staff, wield a dagger, and quiver the rest. Casting spells drain your MP *very* quickly... and they won't regenerate fast enough -- not until you can complete your quest. Spells would be your last resort. Keep your pet, let it develop, and kill things left over with daggers.

For monks, you *can* eat meat if you're not going for the conducts. Each meat product consumed will cost you a single point in alignment - having negative alignment makes your god mad. If you pray on or off altars, really bad things will happen. But if you've been killing monsters, you will be racking up alignment points allowing you to eat some meat.

 

[steviejay]

Heh I decided to start it up again and I'm kinda struggling.

If you find a chest, and it's locked. how do you open it?

Where is a good place to find food?

Any other hints would be welcome heh

 

[Izipo]

If you find a chest, and it's locked. how do you open it?

Ah, I know that one (had me stumbled for a while).
Move on the tile with the chest using 'm' (so as not to pick it up)
use #force to force it open (I suppose your weapon might break, so be careful), I imagine you can also #apply key or lockpick
use 'l' to loot.
Voilà.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

Don't use "m", toggle off autopickup. I do it always, it's just annoying when you accidentally pick up a loadstone. Press O to enter options and toggle autopickup to "false".

 

[kcwong]

Don't use "m", toggle off autopickup. I do it always, it's just annoying when you accidentally pick up a loadstone. Press O to enter options and toggle autopickup to "false".

You can edit the configuration file to control what autopickup does. I set my autopickup for $ only. Most people like to autopickup amulets ("), rings (=), scrolls (?), wands (/), potions (!) and maybe spellbooks (+).

Ah, I know that one (had me stumbled for a while).
Move on the tile with the chest using 'm' (so as not to pick it up)
use #force to force it open (I suppose your weapon might break, so be careful), I imagine you can also #apply key or lockpick
use 'l' to loot.
Voilà.

Be sure to search for traps first (#untrap, then .)... a low level character could be killed outright by a trap on a door or container.

If you have a key, credit card or lock pick, you can #apply it to your current location (.).

You can use #force if you have a bladed weapon equipped. And Izipo is correct, the weapon used might break. Consider taking a spare dagger for this.

Another option is to #kick it. It generates noise (might wake up sleeping monsters), and it might break potions inside, but if you have no other options and do not wish to return later, well, it's a way to open it.


Btw... I think it's time for my healer to make some statues. She has finished Mine's end today.

I should grab that wand first, though... even though I have reflection, I would like to keep more charges in that wand, whatever it is...

 

[Reno]

Ah, I know that one (had me stumbled for a while).
Move on the tile with the chest using 'm' (so as not to pick it up)
use #force to force it open (I suppose your weapon might break, so be careful), I imagine you can also #apply key or lockpick
use 'l' to loot.
Voilà.

Another way of opening chests is to simply kick them, however this runs the risk of destroying the contents. If your character's strength is high you might end up destroying the chest and all or some of its contents if you use #force. That is true only for weapons such as quaterstaffs; weapons such as daggers and swords don't have that risk.