Nethack: What's your favourite character class?

[Jon Miller]

so far I have done best with the elf class

I seem to die from starvation fairly often (getting killed whlie fainted

this last time I had food, I just forgot about it

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

I need some assistance

how do you put on a ring?

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

and how do you look?

Jpokn Miller

[Drake Tungsten]

how do you put on a ring?

Hit shift-p to put on non-armour items, rings included.

And the game looks automatically for you. If you want more information about an object, hit / and then select the item you want the info for.

Hope that helps...

[Jon Miller]

I figured out rings

and also how to look in the square I am in (this is how I found out what fountains, sinks, and altars are) (I had seen them but had no clue what they were before)

there are defnitely some stronger and weaker classes

the wizard is a surprsingly good fighter

I hear everyone talking about the valkery, but s/he has very little HP and attack power

the elf and wizard are what I have done the best with (the problem with the healer is that I have not figured out how to heal myself, the problem with the preist is that my failure rate with spells is 100%)

Jon Miller

[Ari Rahikkala]

Elf? What version are you playing?

[loinburger]

If your spell failure rate is too high, then take off some metal items (like armors and weapons). Metal impedes magic in the game. (I'm not sure if this is just iron, or if silver also impedes magic.) IIRC the only armor that you can wear that won't impede magic is Dragon Mail. (Currently wearing (among other things): Grey Dragon Mail, Cloak of Protection, and Amulet of Reflection. I'm pretty much immune to all things magical at this point.)

[MattyBoy]

Crystal Plate Mail doesn't get in the way either.
I think weapons have no impact on spell casting ability.

I actually just stop occasionally, take off most of my armour and cast a few spells to exercise my wisdom, practise my spell-casting and heal myself to exercise my constitution.

this last time I had food, I just forgot about it

That makes it a bit hard

Valkyrie gets strong once you find some good armour. Takes a long time for her to get any decent spell casting due to lack of intelligence, but she's meant to be a fighting type anyway.

My Caveman is still grinding away. I cheated (resaving) to complete my quest, but promise not to cheat again now that I'm more familiar with the Nemesis that is subject of that quest.

This time I have learnt the value of tinning kits (can eat without getting full) and have been enhancing weapon skills as much as possible (never notice that #enhance thing before). It has made a difference when my character is caught weaponless or using pick-axe or too weighed down for favourite weapon or choosing weaponless for e.g Rust Monster.

Given this experience I would definitely be practising my dagger skill on easy monsters so that I am better at two-weapon combat when it really counts.

The caveman is tough too, as his quest is very hard and the artifact gained on that quest is weaker than the valkyrie's.

[MattyBoy]

Back to the drawing board
----------
/ \
/ REST \
/ IN \
/ PEACE \
/ \
| Jack |
| 1695 Au |
| killed by a |
| minotaur |
| |
| |
| 2002 |
*| * * * | *
_________)/\\_//(\/(/\)/\//\/|_)_______


Goodbye Jack the Cavewoman...

You died in The Dungeons of Doom on dungeon level 23...

[MattyBoy]

I haven't played lawful characters before and I got a bad message when my dwarf samurai killed a peaceful character. I gather that's a bad thing to do?

[loinburger]

Yup, lawful characters aren't allowed to attack peaceful characters, which is a real pain because it's sometimes difficult to tell whether a character is peaceful or not (so missile weapons aren't as useful).

Monks must also be vegerarian or vegan, so it's difficult for them to gain intrinsics by eating corpses.

[MattyBoy]

Sounds like too much of a pain in the ar$e to me.
I guess I'll just do some playtesting and see what the penalties are, especially if I want to play monk seriously

[loinburger]

They can still eat corpses, and lawful characters can still attack peaceful creatures, but it can make their god angry if done too much. (My monk character would still eat things to gain an intrinsic, since a few alignment hits are no big deal, but it couldn't eat meat corpses for sustenance or its god would quickly become angry).

[Drake Tungsten]

I haven't played lawful characters before and I got a bad message when my dwarf samurai killed a peaceful character.

How did you get a dwarf samurai? In my version of Nethack, only humans can be a samurai...

BTW, if you want to kill peaceful characters without the hit to your alignment, just keep your pet around and let him kill the peaceful character. My dog Hachi has gotten a lot of dwarvish equipment for me in the Gnomish Mines.

[MattyBoy]

Drake, I must have been wrong, because I, too, found that I couldn't make (another) dwarf samurai.

Thankyou Drake and Loin, these are useful tips.

Btw, Loin, apparently unicorn horns are effective more often if they are a higher +n.