Nethack(3.4.x) Guide

[MattyBoy]

I started this in another thread, but if anyone is interested, I would like to get feedback on this little guide and improve it. Please suggest any edits that might improve it and I'll incorporate them.

STRATEGY HINTS
The following hints that shouldn't spoil it too much.
- Beginners should find Valkyrie the easiest, or maybe Samurai or Wizard (although young wizards have to be wary of hard-hitters).
- You are what you eat.
- Trying on lots of pieces of armour is dull, but effective.
- Speed is essential for surviving fights.
- Stethoscope can be used to learn what it is that makes your pet stronger.
- Well fed pets are more friendly (and "chatty") and can help you save money in shops.
- Exercise is important if you want to grow tougher and wiser.
- Monsters that I most want to meet are inc/succubuses, nurses and wraiths - but nothing beats meeting my first unicorn.
- Corpses, tools and chains can be wielded as weapons.
- Praying and sacrificing are essential
- Unidentified items are more dangerous if they are cursed.
- Sometimes you will choose to blind yourself to see better, let thieves steal junk from you, pull your pets into traps, take off all your clothes and throw down your weapons, eat food that even your pets wouldn't consider or fight without your best weapon.
- You cannot win until you know you carry ways of ensuring escape or immunity from any monster in the game.
- If you are outmatched you can buy yourself time by
1) running (or transporting yourself) away, or
2) surrounding yourself with friends, pets, nervous shopkeepers or weak enemies (only kill the strongest ones), or
3) resting within a vortex


SETUP AND PLAY HINTS
I like ASCII best, because it lets you recognise the different monster types faster than any other interface.

I include the following settings in my defaults.nh file:
# don't want to pick up loadstones or lots of crap armour
OPTIONS=noautopickup
# I'm a touch-typist (and vi user), so I use this and type "j" for down "k" for up, "h/l" for left/right and "b/y/n/u" for diagonal moves".
OPTIONS=nonumber_pad
OPTIONS=hilite_pet,IBMGraphics

#You can just click on a square with the (mouse) cursor to go anywhere on the map (or use "_")
#You can also use "JKHLBYNU" for going as far as you can in a direction.
#You can also type in a number before a command to save you typing that command more than once.


SPOILERS!
Beyond that, you could save yourself heaps of trial and error by cheatingly reading spoilers to get all the details of the game mechanics, but in some ways that is cheating, so you might not want to do that. My view is that the game is so difficult/complicated that occasionally reading all the spoilers just makes it more fascinating. If you want spoilers go to:
Spoilers - Latest Version,
Excellent Spoilers (for older version),
more old spoilers

Without the spoilers, extreme persistence and care could eventually get you to the bottom of Gehennom, but then you really must read the spoilers to find out all the hoops you must jump through to win from there.


WARNING: Don't read the next few hints if you really must work out everything for yourself.
- Praying to your god is a last resort that you must learn to use. Praying and sacrificing at altars is potentially very useful, too.
- Spellcasters like to wear magician's robes
- Tinning kits save you from getting full
- Let your pets kill the easiest monsters
- Sometimes you will choose to read while confused, zap your pets, sacrifice at the wrong altar, wish for dragon's skin, eat your rings, engrave with wands, kick sinks and stones, dilute your potions and spill them on your scrolls.
- Sometimes you will do everything within your power to leave your gravest enemy alive!

[Richard Bruns]

I think the tiles give better information. For example, in ASCII, every trap has the same symbol, but with the tiles they all have different pictures. The same is true for many monster types like dragons that all share the same letter but have different pictures.

Some of those hints are way too vague; even I don´t know what you are referring to and new players certainly wouldn´t. For example, the one about the thieves refers to the fact that creatures like nymphs can remove cursed items, so you can drop anything that isn´t cursed and they will take that thing away when they attack you. I would actually call that a bug in the game; it certainly is not intuitive. I discoverd it purely by accident, when a cursed item was stolen from me at random.

[Jamski]

Thanks guys

I might make it further than Dungeon Level 11 one day, with advice like this. My one tip to contribute :

Rest in a shop, after picking up one item and not paying for it. The shopkeeper will "guard" the door for you while you hold down "." for 5 minutes Don't forget to eat!

-Jam

[MattyBoy]

I think the tiles give better information. For example, in ASCII, every trap has the same symbol, but with the tiles they all have different pictures. The same is true for many monster types like dragons that all share the same letter but have different pictures.

Yep, maybe it's just habit that makes me find it easier. I actually play in color ascii, though, so almost everything is recognisably different.

For example, the one about the thieves refers to the fact that creatures like nymphs can remove cursed items, so you can drop anything that isn´t cursed and they will take that thing away when they attack you. I would actually call that a bug in the game

I don't think of it as a bug. Nymphs teleport magically around the place and they have an irresistable ability to steal things from you. Why would balls and chains/cursed items be beyond them? It also makes for a fascinating game of chasey, when you have to ditch all your protection and possessions to dance with them.

[MattyBoy]

Rest in a shop, after picking up one item and not paying for it. The shopkeeper will "guard" the door for you while you hold down "." for 5 minutes

I actually only worked this out recently. It is an excellent way to escape monsters and recover.

I hinted about it, actually...

...surrounding yourself with friends, pets, nervous shopkeepers

[MattyBoy]

Some of those hints are way too vague; even I don´t know what you are referring to

You are right about the thieves hint, so I changed it. Beyond that, if you want more clarity, the spoilers lay it all out. I remember reading a good one called "trouble", which gave tips on how to cope with various common hurdles.

[Jamski]

Thanks again ! I'm learning something with every game. Got my first wand of wishing last night, and killed myself wishing for a neutral artifact, when I was chaotic. Stupid me I won't do that again.

(I also got lucky playing as a wizard and starting with a wand of death - the shopkeepers learned to fear me after I'd killed three of them )

-Jam

[MattyBoy]

(I also got lucky playing as a wizard and starting with a wand of death - the shopkeepers learned to fear me after I'd killed three of them )

Wow, never tried anything like that.
I'm always very nervous of those wands reflecting and end up not using them really.

[MattyBoy]

Actually wand of wishing is one thing I never got until I had read the spoilers, so that helped quite a bit.

So what would you wish for?

[Jamski]

I'd wish for a wand of death

Really, it seems the best thing to wish for is 2 blessed scrolls of charging. Then you can have lots more wishes, by recharging your wand. If you find a wand in a shop that costs $500 or more, then its either wishing or death, normally. I zap it at the shopkeeper, and if its wishing, then wish for a wand of death, to kill the shopkeeper. (otherwise I'll have to pay for the wish I used) I just have it in for the shopkeepers. Maybe because they carry thousands or gold pieces.

-Jam

[Rasbelin]

Impressive! Maybe I should try Nethack again and try your guide.

[Richard Bruns]

I zap it at the shopkeeper, and if its wishing, then wish for a wand of death, to kill the shopkeeper. (otherwise I'll have to pay for the wish I used) I just have it in for the shopkeepers. Maybe because they carry thousands or gold pieces.

What is the point of acquiring money if you always kill the only people that can accept the money in payment and always loot anything in the shops anyway?

[Jamski]

You give the money to the priests to lower your base armour class. A payment of $400 x your level, should reduce it by one. This is dead expensive. The only other way is to dig up all the levels to find enough buried gold. Guess which is more fun

-Jam

[MattyBoy]

Impressive! Maybe I should try Nethack again and try your guide.

Hey, thankyou. It's always worth coming back to Nethack.

What is the point of acquiring money if you always kill the only people that can accept the money in payment and always loot anything in the shops anyway?

Good point. ...and it becomes heavy as you get huge amounts. War of Art described what I also use it for.
I have tried keeping my experience down to reduce my payments, but you tend to die too often from traps and opponents' wands if you stay at level 2 or 3 as you go down.

[MattyBoy]

How do You Play?

Do you go to the bottom of the Mines before going to the next level of the Dungeons?

Do you wear a shield?
I've stopped using them for most character classes

Do you keep your pets with you all the time or just leave them behind as soon as you get to dark room or get sick of them eating your food?

Do you play with as many pets as possible?
i.e: Do you let your large cat kill a kitten or feed the kitten your only tripe ration?
I have 4 at the moment and have only lost 2-3 that I polymorphed and ignored for too long. If I hadn't found a magic whistle, I wouldn't have bothered keeping the weaker ones


Which weapons do you choose?
I am playing wizard at the moment, so I cannot enhance skills in strong weapons, so should I fight poorly with a great axe or skillfully with a quarterstaff and athame?


Do you eat poisionous things before you have found a reliable cure?

What do you do while your character is hallucinating or truly blind?

Do you kick down all the doors?
Do you ever lock doors?
How do you secure useful items once they become a bit too heavy to carry?

Do you ever hide strong armour and weapons so monsters cannot use it against you?