Nethack Confession - I can't play archaeologist

[Jamski]

/me applauds Mattyboy *

I still can't even ascend with a Samurai

-Jam

[Skanky Burns]

My best game with a Samurai had me starve to death on level 1 before even finding the stairs down.

[Jamski]

Hmmm... I find Samurais to be the easiest character to play.

-Jam

[MattyBoy]

Thanks,

I still can't even ascend with a Samurai

I think I have never done that either.
I will try it after I give up on my orc rogue attempts.

I have decided that my long term goals are to ascend one of each alignment, one of each race and then maybe one of each character class.

[MattyBoy]

And Jamski, what is stopping you transcending?
How do you typically end up dying?
What monsters cause you the most trouble?
What kinds of armor and weapons do you go for?
Do you find your Str/Dex/Con/Wis max out pretty quickly?
How much do you take advantage of altars?

Skanky:

Why is dwarf archaeologist harder than human?
I was playing a game before as a dwarven archaeologist.

EDIT: Ah, because dwarves must be lawful, and being neutral allows you to kill others. As you explained the last time I asked this question in this very thread.

For me, I rely on the Dwarven Mines for mithril, luck and consumer goods. Secondary treasures include iron shoes, dwarven helm and dwarvish mattock.

None of this works out when you cannot kill all the other inhabitants of the mines. If you let your pets kill all you starve. If you just walk past them all or skip the mines, you miss the good armour and get killed by stronger monsters further down.

Once your level goes up, your weakly-armoured archaelogists soon dies, especially if he is too weak to carry any of the heavier armours in the place of mithril.

[MattyBoy]

Jamski,
one thing that helps a lot is to keep a small log:

e.g:
;, b, h, L, disenchanters wiped out.

You consume homemade black dragon. You feel very firm.
jumpy
You are piously aligned.
You are cold resistant.
You are sleep resistant.
You are poison resistant.
You see invisible.
You are telepathic.
You have automatic searching.
You are invisible to others.
You are stealthy.
You have teleport control.
You are very fast.
You are very lucky.
You have extra luck.
Good luck does not time out for you.
You can not safely pray.
You are SLOW!!!!

Envoy

Scroll of ? is probably taming.

Polymorphing and altar L10 (altars L11 L21)
Up to Vlad's from L39
Wizard is on L40
Spellbooks,orb,candles, candelab is near dn stair on L43
Bottom of mines L12

Level teleporter on L21?, L33, L45, L47
Bottom of all L48

[geeslaka]

Confession: I can't get past level 4. OTOH, I've only played a few hours.

[Jamski]

And Jamski, what is stopping you transcending?

I die before I can get through the elemental planes.

How do you typically end up dying?

I die in sooooo many STUPID ways, like starving, or being stoned, or a cursed scroll, or not noticing that I had so few HPs and getting hammered by a gnome, or any number of silly silly things.

What monsters cause you the most trouble?

Mindflayers (so I try and genocide them) and killer bees for some reason and I had a couple of deaths at a high level from lecrottas, because they are surprisingly FAST.

What kinds of armor and weapons do you go for?

Whatever gives the best AC. I almost always play a fighting character, so heavy armour, shield, boots, helmet - the lot. I like to either use a longsword/katana, and enchant it, or twohanded. Samurai I use both (because I'd be silly not to with a certain artifact) and a bow of course to get those enemies one really shouldn't engage in melee (leprechauns, yellow molds, floating eyes)

Do you find your Str/Dex/Con/Wis max out pretty quickly?

I exercise a lot, and try to seach for things, so pretty fast, yeah.

How much do you take advantage of altars?

I try and find/convert one as soon as possible, and then I trawl the level, eating lowly enemies, and offering the better ones untill my God is really pleased.


Generally I do pretty OK, and I start to think "maybe this time" and then I fall though a pit next to a mindflayer, or get stunned and killed by a gnome

I just have to concentrate more, I guess.

-Jam

[MattyBoy]

> I die before I can get through the elemental planes.

If you are getting to the elemental planes with Amulet you have done all the hard stuff already
and are very close to ascending. You could always copy aside your save file and have a few
practise runs on the planes, because they are great fun and a highly variable experience.

> I die in sooooo many STUPID ways, like starving, or being stoned, or a cursed scroll, or not noticing that I had so few HPs and getting hammered by a gnome, or any number of silly silly things.

Starving in early levels is totally understandable. I occasionally faint in very late levels
when playing too fast to heed the hunger warnings, but this is pretty poor form. I don't really
get stoned any more as I have learnt to be totally paranoid every turn that I have my gloves off.
Otherwise, it is too easy to get blinded and feel what is on the ground and get stoned by a corpse.

I don't read scrolls that could be cursed.

Not noticing my few HPs happens a bit when I have a v strong character and believe I'm invincible.
I guess I have learnt to keep an eye out for monsters that can kill such a character
(baluchiter, mammoth, leucrotta, ettin, air elemental, Archon, angel).
If ever I see them, I concentrate much more until they are dead.
(See below worst monsters that I genocide)

> Mindflayers (so I try and genocide them) and killer bees for some reason and I had a couple of deaths at a high level from lecrottas, because they are surprisingly FAST.

I hate mindflayers worse than all but demiliches. If my first scroll of genocide is not blessed, I genocide disenchanters. After that I only use blessed geno scrolls and genocide in following order: L h ; (then b N c if feeling lazy)

I agree on killer bees (just got a promising young poison res Rogue killed by some). They strike fear into me until I am strong and poison resistant or have a good escape route organised.

I respect leucrottas now and they no longer kill me. I guess I make sure I'm fast by the time I'm seeing monsters like that.

> Whatever gives the best AC...

Sounds like you know more about Samurai weapons than me and your AC approach sounds good. I presume you have tried dragon scale mails? Do you prefer mithril or heavy armor (heavier but better ac)?

> I exercise a lot, and try to seach for things, so pretty fast, yeah.

Sweet.

> I just have to concentrate more, I guess

If you are getting your hands on the amulet from time to time,
you are already playing well enough to ascend and it is simply a matter of time.
At this level the game is totally enjoyable and I won't spoil your fun with any further advice.

I look forward to meeting you in demigod-land



[OT]: I just noticed this in the spoilers.
I love this rule. It is just like in the movies.

+ If you are a Rogue in natural form hitting a fleeing monster, aren't
stuck or using two weapons, and subtotal B is more than one point,
you strike from behind with an additional random damage from 1 to
your experience level.
[/OT]

[Jamski]

you are already playing well enough to ascend

I'd like to think so, but these silly things that happen to me There's a lot of luck involved in an acesnsion, and even more skill. Gotta keep trying, eh?

-Jam

[MattyBoy]

Before you get the amulet, you should dig direct lines between each of the up and down stairs on each level, especially if a level does not allow teleporting. Keep as many teleport items as possible. Once you get the amulet, you run like crazy to escape the wiz with as few encounters as possible.

The simplest workable way to handle a wizard encounter is to drop the amulet whenever he comes near (else he steals it and you have to chase him to get it back) and kill him each time he visits (but see below). Then run as fast as you can to get to the top of the dungeons.

[SPOILER WARNING - not sure if you want to just find out the following for yourself]
I haven't mastered handling the wiz, but ideally you need to avoid killing him as he returns stronger each time. He won't follow you unless you have the amulet, so you need to find a way of getting the amulet onto a different level than the wizard. I think the only way is to entice him away from the upstairs then teleport yourself to the upstairs and climb them before he can get next to you. Then you have the amulet one level higher than the wiz, so you can hide on your level, then go down and visit the wiz and switch a few levels without the amulet so he loses interest in chasing you. Once you feel you have achieved that, go back and find your amulet again and you are on your way. If you master this, you're better than I and you will never see the wizard become too tough.


The absolute top and bottom levels are very similar to one another. They have tough monsters that summon weak monsters. Hence, the trick is to have yourself surrounded by monsters that cannot harm you. Then you can recuperate and prepare to your heart's content. You can wand-teleport away most tough opponents or face them one at a time and kill them. When you want to move you kill one monster at a time and take over the square that they leave behind.

Even better if you can surround yourself with tamed creatures as you can switch places with one of them in a single turn.

The plane of air is the toughest, so if you want hints, read the following bullets:
- Teleport wands can be used to get you out of air elementals, but I think that teleport scrolls are worthless once you are in the planes.
- Energy vortexes give you the only opportunity to recover HPs
- The goal is to survive, not to kill or to gather items. Just get out of there before the Wizard comes or you will need luck to survive.
- speed boots and ring of lev do better than lev boots and any other ring.
- ring of conflict, or sleep/slow/taming can help you escape the toughest opponents.
- throwing things at pursuers while flying sends you in the direction that you want.

[/SPOILERS]

Getting caught by the wizard on air/fire planes is very dangerous, as the summoned monsters are vicious. Your survival depends upon minimising the number of turns you spend on that plane.

[Jamski]

Before you get the amulet, you should dig direct lines between each of the up and down stairs on each level, especially if a level does not allow teleporting.

What a simple but great idea Thanks

-Jam