Net Hack

[Dani]

OK, I am finally doing well with a character. I found a ring of regeneration and it is SUPER :)

Up to a point. At certain level you begin to regenerate faster than the ring naturally. Also Ring of regeneration makes you hungry quicker.

I am constantly turned into a wearrat or something like that. Drop all armor and weapons and so on. VERY annoying. Anyway to fix it?

Pray. Remove curse.

Finally, should I skip searching for those mines (the "obvious" places for hidden tunnels and doors (like dead ends) don't have anything (after searching like 40 times). Should I just go on downwards?

You probably missed the second stairs down in one level. Try go up a few and look around. Thing is, that if you don't do the caves, you probably won't be tought enough to handle to lower levels of the maindungeon.

I found a bag of holding (I thin) is it good? Seems like to pick out and put in stuff I have to drop it first though, also annoying. Any tips?

Just apply (a) the bag, shouldn't need to drop it.

[goldfish]

I'm also starting out just recently, and finally made it to level 9.

One trick I've started doing is going into stores that are really loaded, picking up spell books, scrolls, and wands, and reading scrolls at random (or zapping) to try to break out. Twice I've gotten scrolls of teleport, which spirited me out and I got to keep the loot (well, sort of, the Kops got me one time). Also I've gotten wands of polymorph twice, which make for an easy escape (if you turn the shopkeeper into a rock mole, also, you get his wand of striking) or a not-so-easy escape (if you turn him into a python which kills you -- oh well).

I've had the most success so far playing the monk, I like the combination of spells and fighting ability.

A few specific questions:

1. What to do with puddings, besides dissolve my stuff when I attack?

2. Are unicorns just really annoying?

3. I guess you use the mirror on cockatrices. I never seem to have one when one of those little buggers shows up.

4. Sometimes my spell percent to-fail suddenly goes up. Is that a curse? Is it because my god is angry with me?

5. Autopickup -- on or off?

6. What to wish for? The only game I got wishes, I got two of them, both on level one, both from fountains. I had no idea what to wish for (first time I got a wand of striking, most powerful item I had seen up to then. Second wish, I went online to some web site that shows items, looked it over briefly, and got a dragon scale mail. I probably didn't use those as effectively as I could have).

Thanks in advance for any tips -- now i'm back to work.

Edit: added #6

[Tommi]

I finished the sokoban now but the mines are no were to be found. Anyway, right now, I am constantly turned into a wearrat or something like that. Drop all armor and weapons and so on. VERY annoying. Anyway to fix it?

Also, you may drink holy water to cure that.

[goldfish]

[QUOTE]

Heh, I tried that once but it killed me. My character was chaotic. Oops (why did they give me holywater to start with, anyway?).

[Tommi]

1.  What to do with puddings, besides dissolve my stuff when I attack?

Attack from distance. Or use rustproof weapons. Or use some cracked weapon to beat them up.

2.  Are unicorns just really annoying?

Yup. But worth the effort. Don't kill a unicorn of your own color. A unicorn horn is one of the best items in the game.

3.  I guess you use the mirror on cockatrices.  I never seem to have one when one of those little buggers shows up.

They do. Don't walk on their corpses blinded and without gloves. :P Lizard corpses are handy against them, too (cures petrification).

4.  Sometimes my spell percent to-fail suddenly goes up.  Is that a curse?  Is it because my god is angry with me?

I haven't used the spell system very much ('cause it sucks), but I think you are forgetting the spells.

5.  Autopickup -- on or off?

I play always off. I can pick them up manually, really. :)

Cheers,

Tommi

[Tommi]

6.  What to wish for?  The only game I got wishes, I got two of them, both on level one, both from fountains.  I had no idea what to wish for (first time I got a wand of striking, most powerful item I had seen up to then.  Second wish, I went online to some web site that shows items, looked it over briefly, and got a dragon scale mail.  I probably didn't use those as effectively as I could have).

One of the best wishes early game is:

Blessed +2 gray dragon scale mail

You can wish for a greater + bonus, but it has a greater chance to fail and to come up as +0. A gray dragon scale mail gives magic resistance. If you have already a cloak of magic resistance, you may want to wish for

Blessed +2 silver dragon scale mail

A silver dragon scale mail gives reflection. But generally a shield of reflection is better for that. Not an alternative if you use two handed weapons, though.

If you find a wand of wishing and if you don't have a scroll of charging, the best wish is:

2 blessed scrolls of charging

A blessed scroll of charging gives 3 extra charges to a wand of wishing (or more exactly sets charges to 3; so use it only when empty). Usable only once! Remember that you can force out one extra wish from an empty wand of wishing by zapping it enough (but it destroys the wand). =)

Cheers,

Tommi

[Trucutru]

Yes, a ring of regeneration is very good. Just remember that using any ring or amulet (and specially a regeneration one, since you use food to regenerate) will make you hungry faster, so if you have food problems take them off.

To stop your lycantropy drink holy water or eat wolfsbane. You can also pray and hope you get cured. I think you don't anger your god if you only pray every 1000 turns or so.

The bags of holding are great. I think you are #looting the bag and thats why you have to drop it first. Instead, when holding it use "a" to apply it.

The mines entrance is in level 2-6 (I don't remember very well so take that with a grain of salt) and could be very hard to find. If so, skip them and go down, they are a nice place to visit but not indispensable.

[Jarulf]

Hmm, general replies. No, I have not missed a stair, I suspect I need to find some secret door or passage to get to the room with the stair to the mines :( I have a wand of finding secret doors though, will try it :)

I once killed a Unicorn, it was white, no idea about alignment though (I am neutral). I have the horn, but no idea what to do with it :)

I have so far never tried wands or scrolls and such. Perhaps I should.

Wishes seems interesting, do you get them from fountains? And scrolls?

I have got a credit card and a magic marker, any hints as to what to use them for?

By the way, would an amulet of poison resistanbce be better than my inherent one (as Barbarian)?

As for more food while using ring of regeneration, I eat lots of corpses (as Barbarian it is OK, was poisoned once but prayed away it). I believe I have 13 food rations on me :)

[Jarulf]

As for praying to remove curse, seems my good is annoyed with me for some reason. It once said I felt wrong eating a cat, could that be it? Otherwise I have not done anything bad I think. Last time he was very pleased and it was quite a long time ago.

Also, it says for me to take care when I enter game since it is full moon or something, what does that mean?

[Tommi]

I once killed a Unicorn, it was white, no idea about alignment though (I am neutral). I have the horn, but no idea what to do with it

White = Lawful unicorn. A unicorn horn will cure any disease, sickness or handicap when used (apply, 'a'). It may take a few uses, but typically the first use does it.

I have so far never tried wands or scrolls and such. Perhaps I should.

Yeah. There are good and dangerous ones. Cursed scrolls are nasty, like a cursed scroll of genocide. A scroll of punishment is pretty evil, too. =) But there are good ones, too. Wands are safer, except for a wand of polymorph, which may turn monsters into more dangerous ones. Wand of create monster may be dangerous too, or a wand of deathghtning/fire/cold, which shoot a ray, which may bounce from walls and kill you. But certainly worth trying out in safe conditions.

Wishes seems interesting, do you get them from fountains? And scrolls?

Fountains some times produce them, but the chance is quite low. There are some bad effects in the fountains too, and I don't generally use them. Blessed magic lamps are a better way to get wishes (rub them, alt-r). And of course a wand of wishing, which has 1-3 wish charges. :)

I have got a credit card and a magic marker, any hints as to what to use them for?

You can use a credit card to open locks. A magic marker is a powerful item. You can use it to write any scrolls onto a blank paper. For example, a scroll of identify, a scroll of charging, or a scroll of genocide. It has charges, which run out pretty fast. You can dip (alt-d) any scroll into water (e.g. fountain) to make it into a blank paper. A cursed magic marker makes cursed scrolls, IIRC. So beware. Normal and blessed ones are good.

By the way, would an amulet of poison resistanbce be better than my inherent one (as Barbarian)?

No. They grant the same ability and are redundant.

As for more food while using ring of regeneration, I eat lots of corpses (as Barbarian it is OK, was poisoned once but prayed away it). I believe I have 13 food rations on me

Sometimes hunger is even good. Especially, when you meet giants and dragons. Giants give you more strength and dragons resistances.

Cheers,

Tommi

[Walkiry]

Damn you people, you made me pick up the game again!

After far too many deaths something interesting happened. I was doing random characters, and decided to stop and make a Valkyrie. After 5 or 6 of them I went back to random... and got another Valkyrie :D Anyway, this time things were going ok, except for the fact that I started the game with a cursed +1 longsword (no gloves for me, careful with cockatrices!) I was in the mines, and I came accross this wand. Zap it... "What do you wish for?".

:rolleyes:

First thing, blessed scrolls of charge. Then Black Dragon mail (it was the only dragon mail I had ever seen, I didn't know better!), shield of reflection, boots of speed, amulet of life saving and gloves of ogre power.

I forgot that I had a cursed weapon.

So, without the gloves and no more wishes (wand went poof!) I keep going down, quite confident on my skills. I get in that level in the caves that has the watchmen and all that, and find a fountain. Time to try and get rid of the cursed weapon!

M-Dip. Your sword rusts.

Great.

M-Dip. M-Dip. M-Dip. A hand reaches from the waters and blesses your sword!

The first time I see that too! So I'm thinking "Great, a blessed rusted +1 sword, what a POS...", #inventory

a - the blessed rustproof +1 Excalibur

*Blink* :blink: *Blink*

WOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!

So far I've finished the caves, the castle, and tinned L.S. :D No idea where to go next, but I'm on a roll!

[edit]
Unicorn horn, apply it (a) and you can get rid of different ailments such as poison and others. And it doesn't disappear!
[/edit]

[Tommi]

Luck really shines upon you. A wand of wishing and the lady of the lake. Have fun and take care. :)

[Jarulf]

Hmm, I have none of the items needed to cure my curse of wearrat and as far as I know, I have seen no altars to make holy water either. Which makes it quite difficulty to get rid of it.

In addition, I have not found the mine entrance so I am thinking of restarting a new char. Will go with Valkyrie and hope I get poison resistance some way soon.

[FoxBat]

Introducing the Super Lotsa Added Stuff Hack - Extended Magic , or slash'EM, a variant on Nethack.

Ali's page can get you started on slash'em here. Detailed installation instructions for the latest stable versions as well as plenty of spoilers. http://avrc.city.ac.uk/nethack/slashem.html

This is a pretty cool variant that mainly adds "more stuff", while it seems that core NetHack hasn't had anything major done with it in a long while.

The main thing I like is that the Monk class is fairly decent, getting the natural AC bonus and bare-handed damage they deserve! :P Various non-mages also have special "techniques" they can use once in a while that makes physical-damage chars more interesting. Go go chained elemental chi dash pummel! And another minor perk is that starting players get more food. (Quite important for the monk, as they can't go eat meat!)

Lately I had gotten down to "Minetown" in the Dwarvish mines, then went back up, and got killed in Sokoban. Stoned to death by a Chickatrice. I had run into them before and killed them easily, but this time, as soon as I attacked, I got petrified. Maybe physically touching them is bad, I think I was wearing gloves previously, but at that point I had lost them and was completely bare-handed.

I never really caught onto Angband that well, but I have on Nethack/Slash'em. Mainly because there's a lot of wierd interactions you can do besides slaying monsters. Boots of leviation are great fun. :D

I would recommend staying away from those GUI versions, or at least try playing without them and get the hang of the text menus and commands. While say the 2D graphical tiles don't hurt, the GUI's for Nethack/Slashem I've used really slow play down. Since no-one seems to have built a dos binary for the latest stable slash'em, I just SSH to my linux machine downstairs and play in the terminal. :)

There's also a place you can play slash'em and nethack online, in case you don't have a linux machine, and you'd like to pick up other people's bones and get your name on a scoreboard. http://www.antisymmetric.com . While the connection is rather fast, I found that the ocassional lag still manages to get me killed (even in a turn-based game!) I hit a few keys, but get no feedback, thus I don't know that I've just stumbled into the maw of a dragon or some such, but I keep on hitting in that direction anyway... very common when you're running around long, normally uneventful areas.

[Jarulf]

Some questions. I found what seems to be the body of one of my old chars. So I took some items. Now it turned out they were cursed, despite NOT having been cursed on my old char. Is there any way to remove them? (It is a cloak I believe).

I ate some food and gone blind. That suddenly showed all monsters on the level which was nice (I am telepathic). Si there some draw back to it? Or should I put on a blindfold all the time for example?

I have for some reason turned unlucky, any bad effect of it? How do one get lucky again?

I got Excalibur out of a fountain (after having rusted the swird completely first). How do one know what it do except for being a +1 sword?

Finally, I am doing Sockoban. However, there seem to be a monster trapped between the boulder and a pit. It simply won't move away and I can't push the stone any more. Any ideas? I have tried to move away and such but it just stays there :(

[Jarulf]

Finally, I am doing Sockoban. However, there seem to be a monster trapped between the boulder and a pit. It simply won't move away and I can't push the stone any more. Any ideas? I have tried to move away and such but it just stays there :(

I checked with telepathy and it is a cave spider by the way, and it won't move. :(

[Drasca]

I haven't played that much Nethack, but I think I recall occasionally destroying boulders, then again last time I did that recently I just made a bum leg. "Ow that hurts"

[Tommi]

You need a pick axe to destroy the boulder. A wand of striking will do also, IIRC. Or you may dig your way through walls with a wand of digging.

[goldfish]

Is there any relatively easy way to get rid of a ball and chain? One time I fed one to a rust monster. But, i'm not sure how to get rid of this one I have on now ...

[Tommi]

IIRC, if you wield the ball and read a scroll of remove curse, the chain will disappear. Another trick is to pick up the ball, drop all other items, and then ask nymph to steal it. Praying will sometimes help but not always.

Cheers,

Tommi