Nethack: What's your favourite character class?

[MattyBoy]

Interested to hear what classes people have tried and which ones they liked.
Would love to know how to play other classes (Monk, Ranger, Priest, Lawful chars)

My experience is that the game is much much easier for some classes (Valkyrie) than others (Tourist).

I like Valkyrie and Wizard.
Valkyrie is clearly the easiest of those I have tried.

Currently trying Caveman and after 15-20 starts I still haven't gotten a character to experience level 11

[DaveV]

Wizards. My emphasis in sword & sorcery games has always been on the latter. Wizards are pretty weak in nethack (low hitpoints, poor physical stats, poor armor), but I still find them the most fun to play. I really miss the athame from earlier versions, though...

[loinburger]

Samurai and Wizard. I love the Samurai's speed intrinsic, and Wizards are just kick-ass (as long as you have a good spot to stash all of your spellbooks), especially once they've picked up MagicBane.

Archeologist is actually pretty nice too -- the Auto-Search intrinsic is helpful, and the ability to achieve expertise in Sabers makes Greyswandir a wutangerific demonbuster.

[Drake Tungsten]

I just started playing NetHack again after reading about it on another thread here. Fun game but extremely hard. I've stuck with the Samurai so far and they seem to work pretty good. The speed intrinsic kicks ass, as Loinburger said. Hopefully I'll make it far enough into the game to get an artifact one of these days...

[MattyBoy]

Perhaps I'll try Samurai. I was put off Samurai, because the weapons all have different names and life is too short to learn a second language.

DaveV, what has changed about the athame? Magicbane is still around, but is it weaker or something?

BTW, my caveman seems to be doing a bit better this time, but it is such hard work getting enough good intrinsics.

Trust me about Valkyrie being easy:
- the small shield is a major head start
- Mjollnir is always your first artifact and it is awesome
- the quest gives you early access to 18/** strength and fire resistance.
- intelligence is usually just good enough to give you some reasonable spell casting by the late game.

[loinburger]

Samurai gets some advantages with weapons -- Tsurugis (sp) are naturally rust-proof, using a samurai bow with samurai arrows will automatically let you fire two arrows per round, and the katana-wazikashi pairing is extremely powerful (since samurai can get expertise in swords and two-weapon fighting, and the speed intrinsic makes two-weapon fighting all the more powerful). Valkyries get some nice intrinsics, but Samurai are my favorite warrior class.

[Drake Tungsten]

Loinburger - Would gaining expertise in short swords have any sort of effect on my samurai's two handed fighting abilities? I'm an expert in long sword and two-handed fighting, but my short sword skill is still basic. I didn't want to run around fighting things with just a wazikashi to up its skills, but it may be worth it if it boosts my two-handed fighting skills...

[Urban Ranger]

Wizards in rogue-like games. They become the most powerful after a while.

[DaveV]

Originally posted by MattyBoy
DaveV, what has changed about the athame? Magicbane is still around, but is it weaker or something?

In the build I first started playing (3.1?), wizards started with an athame (just an ordinary one, not Magicbane) as their weapon, instead of a quarterstaff in 3.4. The athame could engrave "Elbereth" in a single turn, without ever dulling.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Loinburger - Would gaining expertise in short swords have any sort of effect on my samurai's two handed fighting abilities?

AFAIK it'll have an effect on the damage that you cause with a wazikashi, as well as your chance to hit with a wazikashi, but the benefits aren't worth switching to just fighting with a wazikashi IMO. You still increase your short sword skill when you're fighting with matched katana/wazikashi, just not so quickly (since enemies tend to die before you hit them very much...)

If you head back up to the top levels of the dungeon for some reason then you might want to switch to the wazikashi as a single weapon (since the monsters up on top won't be much of a problem), but otherwise don't worry about it. As long as both your katana and wazikashi are maxed out on their enchantments you're good to go.

[loinburger]

BTW, what's the point of carving Elbereth? I've never been able to figure this out.

[DaveV]

Originally posted by loinburger
BTW, what's the point of carving Elbereth? I've never been able to figure this out.

Non-humanoid monsters (all but @) will not attack you while you stand on an Elbereth square. They can still throw stuff or zap wands at you, and you have to be careful not to rub it out...

[Drake Tungsten]

BTW, what's the point of carving Elbereth? I've never been able to figure this out.

You can also engrave it on squares that contain chests or other valuables that you don't want monsters to loot.

[MattyBoy]

You can also engrave it on squares that contain chests or other valuables that you don't want monsters to loot.

Now that is a cool idea.

BTW in my current game, I stumbled across a teleport trap to the Fort in one of those secret gold rooms. I have fought so many soldiers at the entrance that when I came back to look for food I found 51 C-Rations on one square and more than 15 screens of armor!

[Drake Tungsten]

I found 51 C-Rations on one square and more than 15 screens of armor!

Wow.

I need to get better at this game so that I can do cool things like that!