Tooth and nail, bit by bit

[m***@yahoo.com]

So I'm playing 3.4.3. Neutral Priest.

And basically... in all my winning games I get some sort of early boon. Usually an early wish because that's fun with a priest (run to minetown, you have holy water, find that magic lamp!)

This time: nothing. No early wish. No spellbook of identify, no gauntlets of power, no speedboots, no reflection, no magic resistance, no scrolls of genocide, no scrolls of charging, no good spells or spellbooks. No wand of polymorph. No early dragons, no dragon armor. I'm getting stuff like "cure sickness" and "cancellation" (which obviously I can't cast yet. Even my bag of holding got stolen by a nymph and I COULD NOT find her (or the bag) ever again. Harsh. Sac for a weapon. Giantslayer. Great.


The only thing i find is a bones file of a former priest who had enchanted his mace up to +5. Okay. i guess that'll do for now. Find a spellbook of create monster. OK. I have food from sokobon. OK.

Three hours later I've generated Ogresmasher, Werebane. Still nothing and I'm out of food (I mean I have a little, but I can't sit on my pants anymore.)

Go to mine's end. Nothing there except more rations and a few scrolls of identify. Bless them. Still don't get a full identify. What a tough game.

Keep saccing. Keep saccing. FINALLY I get Firebrand. Ok. Not what I was hoping for, was hoping for magicbane (for magic resistance) or Mojo (priests can get high skill in that.) Whatever. Enchant it to +7. Now we're cooking with gas. I have a spellbook of magic mapping so again I have to train on the light spell until I'm good enough to cast it. So tedious. I try and I try and finally I get skilled in diviniation.

OK. Raid the vaults and get gold, donate. Ok. AC-13. I've only found one scroll of enchant armor the whole game. I had a magic marker with 10 charges on it but used it for identify. (also marker might have dried out if I tried enchant armor). Ok, sucks but ok.

Mine's end produces very very little. Dammit. Get the luckstones and gems to engrave elbereth. Wand of fire. Ok. That's good. I have no magic resistance so I prepare to be polymorphed. Wear elven cloak instead of my robe and have an extra set of armor in my stash.

During the course of mines end I'm polymorphed three times (wererat fog cloud, succubus), but none of those polymorphs ruined my armor. OK. Ok. small favors. I simply let monsters kill my polymorphed form and as soon as I'm revert to human, strikeback with firebrand. Works fine.

Is Ludios in this game? No. No Ludios. Of course not. That would be great and I could donate a lot and lots of other treasure and... nope no ludios. Did I set this game to "hard" setting or something?

So I figure "Why not do the quest". I have 3 smoky potions which are also potions of gain level. I bless them and!

AND!

No wish no genie. You thought this was going to be easy? Nope.

Ok do the first part of the quest and....

AND!

Amulet of Reflection. Ok, Ok. We'll work with what we have. I have an amulet of lifesaving on, so I have to take that off to use reflection. Sucks but makes sense for now. Ring of Polymorph control. Ok, it isn't magic resistance but will save me from polymorph traps.

After the treasure haul I can do a little alchemy. Not a lot but a little. I bless the scrolls from the quest and FINALLY a full identify. I've never been this far in the game without a full identify and I breathe a sigh of relief. Now I can definitely do alchemy. OK! 200 HP. Not bad. We'll take it.

So Nalzok is resistant to fire. But the rest of the quest is vulnerable to fire. Firebrand MOWS DOWN (we're talking 1 shotting wraiths) all of the quest. More wraiths, more levels, I'm level 17 now. A stroke of luck. I descend the stairway and Nalzoks already awake (dunno how). Burn elbereth on the stair, switch from firebrand to the +5 mace (expert) and it's easy as pie. Quest yields one more scroll of enchant armor (second one in the game) and the mitre, which I enchant to +3 with a blessed scroll (YAY SOMETHING WENT RIGHT!)

I also have identified an oilskin cloak. Neato! Go to medusas. Titan is there and I'm fearing him but I have wand of digging, wand of teleport and wand of sleep along with two elbereth wands. Also nabbed ring of levitation from the quest. I'm seriously sweating balls now but I do have 210 HP and AC -16. Remember no scroll of genocide so this bastard can summon liches and mindflayers.

I just decide to firebrand him Titans aren't resistant to fire. Let's see what happens.

Finally a stroke of luck. Titan decides not to summon nasties. IDIOT. He decides to only melee me. IDIOT. He can't take +7 firebrand. Five hits and he's dead. Do medusa and get shield of reflection. Take of amulet of reflection, wear shield, Put on amulet of lifesaving.

OK! Ready for castle!

The stinginess of this game really makes it fun. It's a real nailbiter.


I'll keep you posted.

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by m***@yahoo.com
So I'm playing 3.4.3. Neutral Priest.
[...]

Nice to read. Triggers some memories; stingy games without even an altar
to get an artifact. *shudder*

Post by m***@yahoo.com
So I figure "Why not do the quest". I have 3 smoky potions which are also
potions of gain level. I bless them and!
AND!
No wish no genie. You thought this was going to be easy? Nope.

In a recent game I had the same mapping. Did not need the levels and kept
my single potion to curse it for escapes from Gehennom during the homerun,
specifically to avoid the long walk around Asmodeus' lair. I got a hostile
djinn of course. Need to alchemize 3 more potions, being lucky I got them,
but quaffing them the Force threw me back three times, and I had to take
the long walk anyway.

Post by m***@yahoo.com
I also have identified an oilskin cloak. Neato! Go to medusas. Titan is
there and I'm fearing him but I have wand of digging, wand of teleport and
wand of sleep along with two elbereth wands. Also nabbed ring of levitation
from the quest. I'm seriously sweating balls now but I do have 210 HP and
AC -16. Remember no scroll of genocide so this bastard can summon liches
and mindflayers.
I just decide to firebrand him Titans aren't resistant to fire. Let's see what happens.
Finally a stroke of luck. Titan decides not to summon nasties. IDIOT. He
decides to only melee me. IDIOT. He can't take +7 firebrand. Five hits and
he's dead. Do medusa and get shield of reflection. Take of amulet of
reflection, wear shield, Put on amulet of lifesaving.

I wonder why you hadn't just used your wand of fire to engrave an Elbereth?
Titan, mind flayers, and liches all respect it. Another option I sometimes
apply is teleporting him just away somewhere over the sea; works most of the
times, and he will stay somewhere over the sea often immobile.

Post by m***@yahoo.com
The stinginess of this game really makes it fun. It's a real nailbiter.

Yeah, if you survive such games, always walking at the edge of the blade,
it's thrilling.

Good luck!

Janis

[Pat Rankin]

[...] Another option I sometimes
apply is teleporting him just away somewhere over the sea; works most of the
times, and he will stay somewhere over the sea often immobile.

Flying monsters who behave like that are usually trying to pick up kelp fronds
that they can't reach. 3.6.0 prevents non-swimmers from trying to obtain
unreachable underwater objects, so they should go back to pursuing the hero
instead of remaining in one spot like they did in 3.4.3.

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by Pat Rankin

[...] Another option I sometimes
apply is teleporting him just away somewhere over the sea; works most of the
times, and he will stay somewhere over the sea often immobile.

Flying monsters who behave like that are usually trying to pick up kelp fronds
that they can't reach. 3.6.0 prevents non-swimmers from trying to obtain
unreachable underwater objects, so they should go back to pursuing the hero
instead of remaining in one spot like they did in 3.4.3.

That's what I suspected; mind flayers behaved the same way. The monsters left
their place approach you if you got in a straight or diagonal line with them.

It seems I'll have to adjust a lot of tactics when I will upgrade to NH-36x.

Janis

[m***@yahoo.com]

Latest update. Tried to go back across medusa level to take loot back home and do more crafting, uncursing, alchemy what have you.

Hey is there a term for doing things in nethack that aren't dangerous and don't involve going to new areas? You know, enchanting stuff up, reading up on spell books making more holy water... I'll call it "errands".

Anyways back to do "nethack errands" before I go to the castle. I don't want to have a cursed shield. I need to reread some spells, etc.

DISASTER!

DISASTER!

There's now an arch lich on the rectangular portion on the way back.

Can I fight him?

Can I fight him?

I have a few wands. I have reflection.

Hmm...

Okay so go to fight him.

SUMMON NASTIES SUMMON NASTIES SUMMON NASTIES 3 times in a row.

I'm surrounded and at the outer left edge of the rectangle on the left hand side of the screen.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!!!!! (add "ck" at the end of that sentence).

I can't get free out of these people. DAMMIT. Can I kill the lich?

SUMMON NASTIES SUMMON NASTIES

nope. No I can't.

So I have some options because I thought this might happen. Scroll of earth to the rescue!

Nope, two of the nasties are giants and pick up my rocks. GOD FING FREAKING DARN!

In addition the scroll of earth was blessed, so it didn't drop a boulder onto my square, so my square is still a water tile. This is getting worse all the time.

Ok. What now.

Down to 120 HP.

Wand of digging? No that won't work. I don't think it'll work. If I do it I think the water tile might flood from other tiles? NO TOO RISKY.

okok.

Wand of Teleport. On self. DAMMIT IT'S NOT A TELEPORT LEVEL IDIOT. UGH! Wasted another turn. Down to 74 HP.

OKOK. Can I wand of teleport THEM out of the way of the staircase. No. There are too many of them. It's not going to work. I only have normal speed not boots of speed. They're going to cram in.

Alright here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to completely abandon trying to get home from Medusas. I'll use wand of teleport to get back OUT of here and go DEEPER into and onto the castle. Get wishes, get stronger, come back.

First zap. Okay it's working. Step away from the crowd and further out on to the water.

Down to 40 HP.

Last Zap. I can now get free and back across medusa's level.

Down to 23 HP.

And I'm safe. JEZEFU&%^KJING BLAGADAGA!. I run across the water with ring of levitation. And just like that I'm back up to 200 hp.

Holy barnacle that was a ball biter. I could literally feel the hand of death on my ankle.

Alright on to the castle.

[m***@yahoo.com]

Castle is going to be a little rough and I must be very careful. I foement a plan.

Okay, so here's the deal. With wand of wishing I can exit super powerful. The game has been real stingy. Here's what I took with me. That magic marker that only had a few charges can be recharged. I am plumb out of holy water. Remember, I was going to go back to make more. So holy water's out. I have ring of levitation so I'm going to do back entrance. And I have magic mapping so I need not fight random minotaurs in the maze levels.

Arrive at castle. OF COURSE there are liches there too. But these are just normal liches, not demiliches or masterliches. Just the regular guys. Ok. There's also a mind flayer. ooook.

So basically, I have almost never fought a lich in any of my ascensions. And in all my ascensions I've always genocided them before the castle. I hate liches. I've had to fight a mind flayer or two, but there are countermeasures.

I have grease so I grease my helmet. I also have oilskin cloak so that's great for eels. All of me is greased basically.

My plan is to go in through the back door with levitation. I float over the hole to the back door. Janis asked earlier why I didn't use elbereth with wand of fire on the titan. Well I only have two charges left. And I have no other elbereth methods other than.... wait a minute! Gems! Yes! Ok. so I get the gems from the gem rooms and of course a few can engrave in floor. I set it up as follows:

+_ _^E e e

So my plan is to lure anything unfightable (liches and mindflayers) onto the hole so they fall down.

Wait a minute? Do liches float rather than walk? I dunno. Oh well, whatever.
As they fall down the hole or if they "escape" the hole (which can happen) or if they're flying as a dragon or levitating or something, I'll still be on an Elbereth square.

But won't you have to face them in the Valley of the dead? They'll still be there when you go down there! Nope. No they won't. Becuase I'll genocide them with two blessed scrolls of genocide from the WoW once I get it.

Long story short: PLAN WORKS LIKE A CHARM. The liches turn themselves invisible so I won't know it's them. But I do know it's them because priests get "warning" by this time so even as invisibles that I can't see I'm still warned.

Liches and mindflayers are now in the valley of the dead. Now to dispatch the rest and.... all gone. Typing slowly so I don't mess things up.

One of the treasure rooms had boots of speed. Epic! Saves me a wish.

On to the WoW. I wish first for two blessed scrolls of charging. Grey Dragon Scale Mail +1. WOW is now out (not bad, got two wishes). Recharge. Two blessed scrolls of genocide. BOOM DONE WITH YOU LICHES AND FLAYERS. I Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed a wand of polymorph. Okay got that. Also good for any monster that heads my way I can't handle.

Alright, lemme just put this Grey Dragon scale mail on and.... WHAT WHO DID THIS! MY OILSKIN CLOAK IS CURSED!

nonononononononononon. WHat?

DISASTER DISASTER DISASTER

Somehow I've lost protection. I dunno how, so don't ask me but I have. Likely there was some friendly in the castle I killed, or the summon nasties summoned a pet like creature. I DON'T KNOW OKAY BUT IT'S GONE AND IT'S NEVER COMING BACK.


I'm now AC-5 and I can't don GDSM because my GOD DAMNNED CLOAK IS CURSED.

NO HOLY WATER. Remember that, children? I was going to go back.

OKOK don't panic.

PRAY. "Your god is displeased." Alright so whatever lost me the protection also cost me favor with my god. Great. I don't have the spell remove curse.
What the faaaaaaaaaak are we going to do! Okay... check my discoveries I hit the backslash key. That's what I thought. I have DISCOVERED a scroll of remove curse. That means I CAN write it. ALRIGHT I have a single scroll of teleport. Fine. I use the other scroll of charging for my magic marker. Ok 50 charges. Ok I'll have to take a bath in the moat NOW BE CAREFUL YOU IDIOT. Okay, take off metal armor oh I've got these potions of extra healing I'll just drop those and SMASH SMASH SMASH. What the... oh I'm levitating so they just got destroyed. THAT WAS MY SOURCE OF HEALING. STOP SCREWING UP. PANDOR THE PRIEST NEEDS YOU.

Okay, let's land and ok. We'll take off ring of levitation. No potions or scrolls I don't want blanked yes? No ferrous metal yes? Ok. Go in water, come out, go in water come out. go in water come out. Now I will have a blanked scroll and WHAT THE BEJESUS IT ISN'T BLANK.

Wait a minute... oilskin cloak protects things that get wet. But oilskin cloak is cursed. SO NOW I CAN'T BLANK MY ONLY SCROLL????

CURSED OILSKIN CLOAK: I AM VERY ANGRY AT YOU.

Okay buddy calm down. That doesn't seem right. Oilskin cloak provides protection from water. Not immunity, right? RIGHT? I dunk 10 times and: Blank scroll.

THANK YOU. Write blessed scroll of remove curse. Uncurse my oilskin cloak and shield put on GDSM +1. Alright now the armor class is better. Not perfect, but better. I go back to medusa's and now from this side I can fight all these guys. Now I have reflection AND magic resistance. I make short work of them and get back to my stash.

I really need blessed spellbook of identify. That's really going to up my power level a lot if I know what all these rings and scrolls are. Finally I wrest a wand and wish up another bag of holding.

I'm going to have to go through the game with oilskin cloak which is only magic cancellation 2. Eph. I'll try to get ring of protection, that will up my magic cancellation to 3. I don't have t shirt. O well. Might polypile for one later.

So I identify all my scrolls and rings and there's ring of conflict (pretty good but not perfect. Great for plane of fire, and astral plane at least). No ring of slow digestion. O well I can play without that. a cursed confused destroy armor accident evaporates my boots. Dammit. Iron boots it is then, o well.

After polypiling I get to piles of enchant armor: 12 in all. Very good. AC-30 (not even with protection, which I need to get back).

ALRIGHT. Ready to map those levels and face those demons.

One problem. (it's a big problem). NO, I mean NO other scrolls of charging, no other wands of polymorph and most alarming NO WANDS OF TELEPORT.

Wand of teleport is my main strategy on Astral. I do have the jumping spell, but still. STILL. I'm usually swimming in wands of teleport and I polypiled 5 times. STILL no wand of teleport. Ugh.

Well, we'll see if I can fight these demons (or bribe them).

Coming up: EPISODE 4 GEHENNOM!

[Janis Papanagnou]

First of all; your post would make a good tutorial (sort of), or rather
show newbies a bit of the depth of the game, an indication how it works,
and certainly also provide a good feeling of the thrill one can have.

[...] Finally I wrest a wand and wish up another bag of holding.

(I seem to have missed/forgot what happened to the other bag of holding.)

a cursed confused destroy armor accident evaporates my boots.

That should not happen. (What occasionally happened to me was that I used
a forgotten spell to get confused, but inattentively missed that I just
got stunned instead, and then my armor got disintegrated of course.)

One problem. (it's a big problem). NO, I mean NO other scrolls of charging,
no other wands of polymorph and most alarming NO WANDS OF TELEPORT.
Wand of teleport is my main strategy on Astral. I do have the jumping
spell, but still.

Wands of teleport are indeed a very helpful item one should have there. But
don't worry too much; with jumping *and* conflict you should be suffiently
prepared. Moreover, Gehennom is large, and you may still find some wands
(teleport or polymorph), a marker, or the scrolls of charging you desire.
Good luck!

Janis

[m***@yahoo.com]

Here is what happened Janis, to my boots. It was a real hater.

So you need to be confused along with the cursed destroy armor scroll right.

Right.

So lemme just cast a forgotten spell, and get confused and then read and...

"Your boots evaporate."

What did I do I...... ooops.

9 times out of 10 when you cast a forgotten spell it confuses you. Sometimes it confuses you AND stuns you. But this time it just stunned me and didn't confuse me. My peripheral vision checked to see if there was a status effect and I assumed it was confusion. Nope it was stun.

Goodbye speed boots we knew you well!

[m***@yahoo.com]

Post by Janis Papanagnou
First of all; your post would make a good tutorial (sort of), or rather
show newbies a bit of the depth of the game, an indication how it works,
and certainly also provide a good feeling of the thrill one can have.

[...] Finally I wrest a wand and wish up another bag of holding.

(I seem to have missed/forgot what happened to the other bag of holding.)

a cursed confused destroy armor accident evaporates my boots.

That should not happen. (What occasionally happened to me was that I used
a forgotten spell to get confused, but inattentively missed that I just
got stunned instead, and then my armor got disintegrated of course.)

One problem. (it's a big problem). NO, I mean NO other scrolls of charging,
no other wands of polymorph and most alarming NO WANDS OF TELEPORT.
Wand of teleport is my main strategy on Astral. I do have the jumping
spell, but still.

Wands of teleport are indeed a very helpful item one should have there. But
don't worry too much; with jumping *and* conflict you should be suffiently
prepared. Moreover, Gehennom is large, and you may still find some wands
(teleport or polymorph), a marker, or the scrolls of charging you desire.
Good luck!
Janis

Jumping can work but remember I have shield of reflection. To jump I'd have to take off amulet of lifesaving, put on amulet of reflection, take down shield and then cast jump spell. Will I do it? Yes, but it takes turns....

[m***@yahoo.com]

Well, sorry to say it didn't work out.

It was a VALIANT effort though.

I came up with additional Orcus strategies as I didn't know if the paralysis smashing trick would work.

Here's what I did.

I did indeed find a ring of free action ON Orcus' level. Talk about luck. So I decided on three discrete strategies.

1. I did a scroll of earth boulder fort around the upstairs (not completely covered but most of the squares surrounding the upstairs with rocks.

Thusly: 000
0<
000

This means if you are standing on the upstair you can only be attacked by one angle. My biggest fear was being attacked by Orcus and Yehonngu (or all three including Demogorgon) at the same time. I just wouldn't win that fight. So this formation ensures that I'm only going to get attacked from one side and by one monster at a time. No doubleteaming. Ok great!

Next I burned Elbereth on this stair and the above stair. This would again reduce the number of attacks on me simultaneously.

After all this I had two options.

1. Dig down one level from Orcus town, then go back up to face orcus. Get the ring of free action/wield potion of paralysis smash trick to work.

2. Dig down one level from Orcus town, then go back up to face Orcus in the last room. Paralysis smash didn't work? As soon as you're sure it didn't work, you drink a cursed potion of gain level.

Now from the above level go down the downstairs back to orcus town. Now orcus can only face you from one direciton on the up-staircase. With any luck there will be no giants on the level (you can also genocide giants) so no one can move the boulders in the boulder horse shoe fort.

This above now saves you from the long tread backwards through orcus town with orcus harassing you (and summoning other demons???!) along the way.
He'll then teleport to the upstair, but you then drink cursed potion of gain level. Then when you do down the downstair, you'll shunt orcus off of the staircase and into the open end of the horse shoe boulder fort.

This allows you to repeatedly melee him at the same spot and vanquish him without facing any peripheral monsters, and leaves him only one space to teleport to: the one he's in, not to mention, elbereth. Giants can move the boulders but that's it.

Long story short, the boulder fort horseshoe wasn't necessary. The Paralysis trick worked and I got the wand fully charged, but only 5 zaps.

To be honest I didn't really know how to deal with the wizard.

In EVERY other game I simply used Wand of Death, and bounced it off the wall so Rodney had to make his saving throw twice. This game I had only 5 zaps from the wand of death and 2 zaps from another wand of death. No scroll of charging the rest of the game.

At first, things were fine. I went to the inner sanctum and got to the 4th room, the first set of monsters.

But here things really started to break down. There were several demons and those demons would summon more demons. I didn't have boots of speed, and firebrand wasn't doing so great against these demons, just taking too, too much time. Switching to my mace +6 on expert was ok but not much better.

At some point, things became untenable. Yehonngu was summoned (one of my greatest fears, and I prepared to die here, saying prayers to my god (not literally, don't do that in the sanctum it will cause you to lose protection and ruin your life).

But a stroke of luck happened. A black dragon breathed disintegration: right on to Yehoongu. I now had a chance.

I retreated to the upstairs, and then to the land square on the last dungeon level. Most of these demons: ice devils and so forth, can't fly. So I levitated over the water squares and was able to take them on by attacking diagonally, dispatching 6 of the demons going down to the sanctum and taking 6 more up and repeating.

I was very proud that I thought of this strategy and narrowly escaped, and just as I was breaking my arm patting myself on the back, another disaster.

A gremlin entered the board and hit the water tiles. Then two, then 10, then 20. The board was filling up with gremlins and I wasn't killing stuff fast enough. I retreated to the upstairs, burned elbereth, and started fighting them from there, going up the upstairs when things got too rough and desperately hoping against hope that these little buggers didn't get away with any of my intrinsics.

After doing this for a while I realized I couldn't beat all the gremlins from the upstairs. They were just multiplying too much, and I was too slow. I would have to wade into these monsters and the demons. Could these demons summon Demogorgon? I didn't think so, I think only Yeehongu and Orcus can do that. Oh well. Here we go. I supplemented my melee with several wands of lightning I had and valliantly attacked the island in the middle of the level. Using the walls to limit attacks upon me, I finally killed them all m including the demons.

I walked to the fourth room again, examining treasure as I did, and there were a few more potions of full healing. And here... what's this.

THE AMULET OF YENDOR. The amulet was just laying on the ground in the fourth room. What... the actual heck? This must be a fake. I cast Identify. THE AMULET OF YENDOR. Also when I cast identify I got the message "You feel the amulet draining your power". Try to put it in a bag "The Amulet of Yendor cannot..." OK! This is the real deal. I would have had to go through two more rooms of monsters as well as fighting the high priest of Moloch. But here it was. On the ground. For free. I named it "The Real Deal" and left. Screw the rest of this sanctum.

Leaving the inner sanctum I now had to face Rodney.

After fighting him four times I was simply out of zaps from my wands of death. So now I had to melee him.

What I didn't realize was that fighting Rodney is like fighting any other boss/demon. He teleports to the upstairs, but can also teleport to a new level.

So your goal is to get to the upstairs and fight him there. I didn't realize that he basically heals himself on the upstairs. I tried to fight him in the middle of a level twice and this blew through 4 of my 5 potions of full healing, and one amulet of lifesaving.

Then I got double-trouble, and that was just miserable. Still, I got to the upstairs with wands of teleport and wands of digging to avoid the nasties he summoned. I had one wizard on one level and one on the other. Dispatched one then went to the next upstairs for the next. Dispatched him too and breathed a sigh of relief.

On the last level of Gehennom I got double trouble AGAIN. At this point I really thought it would be the end.

[m***@yahoo.com]

One of the Rodney's stole the Amulet as well as my +5 Mitre of Holiness.
But I was at the valley of the dead. I had one Rodney on the valley of the dead level and one on the Valley of the Dead level.

At this point I had a choice, fight one or the other. I decided to fight the one on the valley of the dead, because on the other level there were no summoned monsters.

Fighting rodeny on this level was bizzare and some of the rules must be shifted when rodney is not in gehennom (or the valley of the dead is wierd, remember there's an upstairs but no down stairs to get to the valley).

I fought Rodney here and he teleported away. To the upstairs? I checked with telepathy. No. Not to the upstairs. He's teleporting to the Southern Graveyard. Why??? This must be some strange quirk of the valley.

But now I felt kinda screwed. If I chased rodney to the southern graveyard what would happen? Would he go to the upstaris? Would he go back here to the down stairs?

Rodney hadn't summoned anything on this level yet, so I decided to stay put. Rodney came back to the downstairs. I smashed at him. He teleported away to the southern graveyard. Again, he's back. Smash him again. He teleports away again.

Rodney at this point didn't summon anything and when he teleported away, he would heal up. But I had a trick up my sleeve: a ring of gain constitution +3 in my bag, which I put on. When Rodney teleported away, he would heal up in the southern graveyard. But so would I with my Constitution at 21. At some point I got back all the way to full hitpoints and Rodney couldn't make a dent anymore, we had a favorable balance of trade on my side. And Rodney still hadn't cast a single summon. It may be Rodney can't summon on the Valley of the dead, I don't know.

Stalemate, Mr. Wizard. I can do this all day. Eventually this Rodney clone gave up the ghost.

Unfortuately this wizard wasn't the one with the amulet or the Mitre. Dammit. I took the downstairs and my plan was now to lure the 2nd rodney into the valley of the dead, where there were less monsters and (maybe?) rodney couldn't summon.

I burned Elbereth on the downstairs and hacked away at the summoned monsters, but the second Rodney didn't make an appearance. After dispaching all the nasties I saw to my left a hole. One of the monsters must have used wand of digging and Rodney must have fell down.

DAMMIT! DAMMIT ALL TO GEHENNOM.

I now had a choice. I could simply run back to my stash and Rodney would levelport to me. Or I could go after him. The advantages to going back was that after leaving gehennom I'd be free of the "mysterious force" that could send me backwards levels. Also I might get to my stash.

But then I realized that trying to retreat would be worse. Rodney could attack me at any time on the higher levels, and could attack me when I was not near a staircase. It was much better to simply go to the down staircase and proceed down to the level Rodney was on and stay on the upstaircase there and burn Elbereth. At least in that position I had a means of escape upstairs to regain HP. Luckily this game, though stingy, had given me 7 wands of lightning. I had as much elbereth as I wanted.

Down to the Rodney was a hell of a fight. At certain points I had to go upstairs, take off my shield of reflection and cast the healing spell repeatedly. Very risky but it worked. Rodney dead. Got the amulet back. Got my Mitre +5 back. Okay, leaving.

The ensuing jaunt back to my stash was done and without incident.

Now for the plane of earth. Rodney was guaranteed again, but I didn't know how Rodney would react, given there are no staircases on the Plane of Earth. Would he teleport to near the Portal? Could I use a scroll of earth on the plane of earth to make a boulder/horeshoe fort? Welp, I won't find out because there were no scrolls of earth left! I had used my last one for Orcus Preparation. Oh..... well.....

Plane of earth was instant rodney. I decided to simply smash him, and ignore attacks from the elvenking. This time Rodney didn't teleport (except to teleport to a different position around me, but I carefully used the ; to determine which was him and which was elven king. A particularly lucky smash got him right between the eyes and he went down.

Plane of Air is next. My position was nearly untenable. I had just 2 potions of full healing, was down to my last amulet of lifesaving, and I had just 220HP, AC of -27 (not what I like to ascend with!), and 10 wand of teleport zaps (which I was TRYING to save for astral).

To prepare, I put on my ring of levitation, got out my scroll of gold detection and confused myself by reciting a forgotten spell BEFORE I stepped into the portal. Also quaffed one of my 2 blessed potions of speed.

SERIOUSLY, I didn't know if I'd survive inside an air elemental even once.

On the plain of air I zapped the first air elemental with wand of teleport and got 1/3 of the way to the portal when i was engulfed. I decided I'd try to fight it out. Luckily, air elementals aren't fire resistant. Firebrand worked just fine. I then purposefully jumped into an energy vortex to heal up (thanks again Ring of Gain Constitution +3) as the energy vortex and steam vortex couldn't hurt me. This proved to be a winning strategy and I was able to bash the air elementals and heal up in the vortexes all the way out of the plane. I was switching from ring of conflict to ring of gain constitution inside the vortexes, again this was a helpful and winning strategy.

Plane of fire: got very lucky. I'm usually good at plain of fire. Turn off "sparkle" in the options menu. The portal was VERY close. So, easy enough.

Plane of Water: no problem, and did some prep.

HERE WE ARE, ASTRAL PLANE.

I had one scroll of cursed genocide left, one amulet of lifesaving left and 2 potions of full healing left for astral. Seems pretty bad.quaffed blessed speed. I used the cursed genocide for cockatrice. Summoned 7, and then had to take 10 turns killing them. Got a corpse to wield and blessed it with holy water so it would last longer. Right about then some named hero picked one up. Oh shiiiii I hadn't thought of the fact that extra corpses could be picked up by other monsters. Ok. Bashed the guy who picked it up and tried to clean up the rest of the corpses the best I could. Ok.

Now I was in a peck of trouble. I'd used too many turns. Famine from the left had almost reached me, and Death from center was a few steps away. I used the cockatrice corpse to proceed right, towards pestillence.

This, in retrospect, was a mistake. I should never have faced pestillence. His ill effect just used too many turns and I didn't have wand of death. I was afraid of fighting two rides at once so I ran to pestillence.

Unfortunately there were two heroes/angles right at pestillence. One had Sunsword and the other had Dragonbane.

Well, I'm sorry to say but in addition to pestillence's illing attack, this was just too much. I popped my amulet and used my potions of full healing, but still, just too much. Very tough.

It was a valliant effort but there just weren't enough resources for me to ascend this one.

In retrospect, I could have/should have used the cockatrice to stone the two heros with artifacts, rather than trying to melee pestilence, should have retreated from him from to the side with wand of teleport.

In addition, I should have melee'd the wizard from upstairs every single time and saved my zaps of wand of death for the riders.

In future games where wand of death is limited, When encountering the wizard, I'll instantly use cursed potion of gain level, then go to the downstairs and burn elbereth on the upstairs to fight him.

[m***@yahoo.com]

Pandor6 the priest, took up where Pandor5 left off. I started a game again, again with a Neutral priest.

Whereas pandor5 was poor, unlucky and with few resources Pandor6 was the wealthiest priest in all of the dungeons! He is currently avenging the poor Pandor5.

Pandor6 started with Str 17, Dex 12, and Con 16, which is a heck of good starting stats for a priest.

On the first level he found a Ring of Protection +3 and the ring was also a diamond ring, giving him semi-permanent elbereth right off the bat. The second level revealed a ring of invisibility, and Dwarven Mithril. After this, Pandor6 was pretty unstoppable, dancing around monsters and smashing them from different angles while the monsters continually whiffed. One other advantage of priests is that they can simply try on uncursed rings and can tell they are uncursed to see if you can find some good ones that auto identify (levitation, invis, +to an attribute, protection).

Also the ring of protection, along with my robe gave me Magic Cancellation 3 at the very outset of the game. Nice!

Finding two altars (both minetown and on DL7) was excellent and upon saccing, he got Vorpal Blade. Now we're cooking for gas. Attempting to simply mollify his god (in case I needed another water prayer) he got a second gift: magicbane!

We were now officially cooking with gas. Invisibly wielding magicbane proved pretty awesome. Sokobon gave up the bag and mine's end was a breeze as well as being the gnome kings wine cellar, giving many potions to make into holywater and providing a means to identify them as the potions from that level are semi predicatble. Was lucky enough to eat two giants and now had str 18/50.

The question was how deep in the dungeon could he go before trying to use his scrolls for a full identify? He decided on DL15.

On DL 12 was a bones file of Fizban, a wizard. The bag of holding he had was cursed, but uncursing it was no problem. Inside was a host of wands (including polymorph wand) and tons of scrolls and potions. Topping it off was a magic marker. Took also the guy's "opera cloak" which Pandor6 knew to be a cloak of magic resistance.

Time for full identify and polypiling. Afterwards Pandor was pretty unstoppable with AC -19, and scrolls to genocide nasties not to mention 2 blessed scrolls of charging (WOW!). Recharged wand of polymorph and I also have a spellbook of detect treasure, which I used to discover vaults and buy protection. Got Vorpal blade up to +7 and uncursed and donned cloak of magic resistance.

Still had no reflection, so I was sweating that a bit. Used blindfold while fighting Medusa and she gave up shield of reflection. In the next level killed a red dragon and used magic marker to get scroll of enchant armor and red dragon scale mail. Very next level found a potion of gain ability (which is also a smoky potion), blessed it, got a genie and wished for SDSM +1. Put it on. Now I had reflection, magic resistance, and full spellcasting ability to boot (no failure percentage) and was at AC -22.

Castle was easy as lukewarm pie, and WOW was fully charged. Wished for fireproof +1 speed boots for now. Don't need to use any of the other wishes yet.

Went to valley of the dead. First chest I opened had another fully charged wand of wishing. Instantly wished up Amulet of Lifesaving. That's all I need for right now! Not going to let this guy go with a YASD!

I still have the quest AND Ft Ludios to do, but not fearing either. This guy is definitely ascending easily to avenge his fallen brother!

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by m***@yahoo.com
Plane of earth was instant rodney. I decided to simply smash him, and
ignore attacks from the elvenking. This time Rodney didn't teleport (except
to teleport to a different position around me, but I carefully used the ;
to determine which was him and which was elven king.

That's why I defined monster colors in my config file to distinguish Rodney
from other humanoids.

Janis

[Janis Papanagnou]

[ Orcus level ]
Thusly: 000
0<
000
This means if you are standing on the upstair you can only be attacked by
one angle. My biggest fear was being attacked by Orcus and Yehonngu (or all
three including Demogorgon) at the same time. I just wouldn't win that
fight. So this formation ensures that I'm only going to get attacked from
one side and by one monster at a time. No doubleteaming. Ok great!
Next I burned Elbereth on this stair and the above stair. This would again
reduce the number of attacks on me simultaneously.

Erm.., I thought you are playing NH-343, don't you? - All these three demons
respect the engraving.

After all this I had two options.
1. Dig down one level from Orcus town, then go back up to face orcus. Get
the ring of free action/wield potion of paralysis smash trick to work.
2. Dig down one level from Orcus town, then go back up to face Orcus in the
last room. Paralysis smash didn't work? As soon as you're sure it didn't
work, you drink a cursed potion of gain level.

If not scared by an engraving or scared otherwise Orcus will follow you up.

To be honest I didn't really know how to deal with the wizard.

Zap death. Done. :-)

In EVERY other game I simply used Wand of Death, and bounced it off the
wall so Rodney had to make his saving throw twice. This game I had only 5
zaps from the wand of death and 2 zaps from another wand of death. No
scroll of charging the rest of the game.

Might suffice. - But didn't you have charges left in your wand of wishing?
To get a magic marker?

But here things really started to break down. There were several demons and
those demons would summon more demons.

No charges left in a wand of fire or lightning? (I think an engraving will
prevent summonings, unless displaced or so.)

I walked to the fourth room again, examining treasure as I did, and there
were a few more potions of full healing. And here... what's this.
THE AMULET OF YENDOR. The amulet was just laying on the ground in the
fourth room. What... the actual heck? This must be a fake. I cast Identify.
THE AMULET OF YENDOR. Also when I cast identify I got the message "You feel
the amulet draining your power". Try to put it in a bag "The Amulet of
Yendor cannot..." OK! This is the real deal. I would have had to go through
two more rooms of monsters as well as fighting the high priest of Moloch.
But here it was. On the ground. For free. I named it "The Real Deal" and
left. Screw the rest of this sanctum.

I lost track which demons were where, but remember that covetous monsters
will retrieve the Amulet; Yeenoghu would certainly have done that. (Myself,
after opening the Sanctum, I return to Asmodeus to get him with me exactly
for that purpose, to retrieve the Amulet so that I don't need to bother
taking the long way.)

[ Wizard fight ]
Then I got double-trouble, and that was just miserable. Still, I got to the
upstairs with wands of teleport and wands of digging to avoid the nasties
he summoned. [...]

Amongst the summoned creatures there may be cockatrices; use them. (That's
why I let cockatrices alive to have ressources on my way back, and thereby
can also save charges of my wand(s) of death.)

Janis

[Pat Rankin]

Post by Janis Papanagnou
I lost track which demons were where, but remember that covetous monsters
will retrieve the Amulet; Yeenoghu would certainly have done that. (Myself,
after opening the Sanctum, I return to Asmodeus to get him with me exactly
for that purpose, to retrieve the Amulet so that I don't need to bother
taking the long way.)

In 3.6.x, covetous monsters won't take the Amulet away from the High Priest
while he's inside the temple room.

I don't recall whether they'll take it if he leaves the room, but I don't think
he will leave while the altar is intact and since it can't be converted, I don't
think there's anything you can do to make it not be intact. Teleporting a
temple priest/priestess tries to place him/her inside the temple instead of
at a completely random spot. I don't know offhand whether a temple priest
will ever read a cursed scroll of teleportation or drink a cursed potion of
gain level. He/she might, but only after you've gotten fairly close.

The shortcut on the Sanctum level of having a demon lord or the Wizard
fetch the Amulet for you is a thing of the past. Entering the level via a
trapdoor or level teleport (after the entrance has been created by the
invocation ritual) will always put you on the rightmost third of the level
(although you might still be closer to the destination than entering via the
stairs). You need to slog through most of that level these days.

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by Pat Rankin
The shortcut on the Sanctum level of having a demon lord or the Wizard
fetch the Amulet for you is a thing of the past.

Let's say, it's a question of time how long you can make use of it. The
OP (as do I) is still playing NH-343 (as he wrote in his original post).
Luckily, despite an announcement to shut it down, NAO still supports the
NH-343 version.

Janis

[David Damerell]

Post by Janis Papanagnou

Post by Pat Rankin
The shortcut on the Sanctum level of having a demon lord or the Wizard
fetch the Amulet for you is a thing of the past.

Let's say, it's a question of time how long you can make use of it. The
OP (as do I) is still playing NH-343 (as he wrote in his original post).
Luckily, despite an announcement to shut it down, NAO still supports the
NH-343 version.

I admit I find the decision to get rid of 343 from NAO slightly
inexplicable - the amount of work involved in leaving a working variant
running on an existing dgamelaunch server is miniscule - but
hardfought.org is retaining it and as an added bonus has servers in the EU
and Australia.

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by David Damerell

Post by Janis Papanagnou
Luckily, despite an announcement to shut it down, NAO still supports the
NH-343 version.

I admit I find the decision to get rid of 343 from NAO slightly
inexplicable - the amount of work involved in leaving a working variant
running on an existing dgamelaunch server is miniscule - but
hardfought.org is retaining it and as an added bonus has servers in the EU
and Australia.

I have some understanding for such a move; they may want to keep interfaces
(web and telnet) small and clean, and in case of specific issues - granted,
with such a long running version I'd expect there hardly are (m)any issues -
more effort would have to be spent by the maintainers.

Another server is not a good option for me; I (semi-)automatically create
some statistical data regularly and want it consistently from one source,
and also the standard data that NAO provides through their web pages is
useful to have it completely from one source.

Janis

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by m***@yahoo.com
In addition the scroll of earth was blessed, so it didn't drop a boulder
onto my square, so my square is still a water tile. This is getting worse
all the time.
Wand of digging? No that won't work. I don't think it'll work. If I do it I
think the water tile might flood from other tiles? NO TOO RISKY.

That would be an interesting experiment, though. What would happen if you dig
down on a water square (in case of water walking, or in case of levitating)
while the surrounding water squares had been filled with boulders and are now
solid ground? Would the remaining local water square be diggable? Would the
water vanish before you dive in, or would your loot get blanked/diluted/rusty?

Janis