Promising Priest-Elf-Chatic killed by my own stupidity

[c***@gmail.com]

I'm so grrrr mad. I had been working on this priest for about 7 hours of real-time and he was "invincible". Stormy +7, A/C -30, MR, Reflection, etc. All the scrolls in their different flavors, wand of wishing and death, all potions, bag of holding, tons of spells including magic mapping and identify. You name it. I made it to the sanctum and killed the priest by farting in his general direction. Never have I had an easier game. I've ascended 4-5 times or so on NAO, and I never felt more sure this would go all the way. I even planned for a little purple worm party on Astral and filling the place with acid blobs to get rid of the riders.

Well, the best laid plans... On the ascension run I ran into Asmo who dispatched me in three moves with his cold attack. Forget to get me some cold resistance, and his hits average about 100 HP! In retrospect I had a few options, like dropping the amulet and reading a cursed scroll of tele, but that would involve getting into the bag and getting the scroll out, so I may not have had enough time.

I need to take a week off.

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Fri, 2018-04-13, ***@gmail.com wrote:
...

Post by c***@gmail.com
Well, the best laid plans... On the ascension run I ran into Asmo
who dispatched me in three moves with his cold attack. Forget to get
me some cold resistance, and his hits average about 100 HP!

Did you lose cold resistance along the way? When I get that far, I
always got that resistance long ago.

/Jorgen

[c***@gmail.com]

Post by Jorgen Grahn
...

Post by c***@gmail.com
Well, the best laid plans... On the ascension run I ran into Asmo
who dispatched me in three moves with his cold attack. Forget to get
me some cold resistance, and his hits average about 100 HP!

Did you lose cold resistance along the way? When I get that far, I
always got that resistance long ago.
/Jorgen
--
\X/ snipabacken.se> O o .

I never got it. Ate a bunch of cold loving creatures along the way, but it just never happened. The worst part is that I encountered Asmo on the way down and named the level "ASMO. GET COLD RESISTANCE BEFORE RETURNING" before levelporting down. Later, I figured I didn't need it, since I have reflection so wands of cold would just bounce off, but I forgot about our friend Asmo and never checked the level annotation before climbing up into his lair. Another example of me getting too excited on the run and getting careless.

[David Damerell]

Post by c***@gmail.com

Post by Jorgen Grahn

Post by c***@gmail.com
Well, the best laid plans... On the ascension run I ran into Asmo
who dispatched me in three moves with his cold attack. Forget to get
me some cold resistance, and his hits average about 100 HP!

Did you lose cold resistance along the way? When I get that far, I
always got that resistance long ago.

before climbing up into his lair. Another example of me getting too
excited on the run and getting careless.

Also, you could have wished for an AoLS, or retrieved the guaranteed one
from Vlad's, and worn it.

[Janis Papanagnou]

[...] The worst part is that I encountered Asmo on the way
down and named the level "ASMO. GET COLD RESISTANCE BEFORE RETURNING"
before levelporting down. Later, I figured I didn't need it, since I have
reflection so wands of cold would just bounce off, but I forgot about our
friend Asmo and never checked the level annotation before climbing up into
his lair. Another example of me getting too excited on the run and getting
careless.

Not sure about NH-360, but I seem to recall that you could just pay him
a few bucks to let him vanish.[*][**] Of course, if you forgot about him
in the first place it maybe wouldn't have helped you, but I think it's
(sometimes? always?) possible to have a turn where you can get your money
out of your bag.

Janis

[*] Nowadays I let him alive to steel the Amulet for me. [NH-343]

[**] A few preconditions were necessary; carrying money in open inventory
and not carrying Excalibur visibly when entering Asmo's level, for example.

[jim in austin]

Post by Janis Papanagnou
[**] A few preconditions were necessary; carrying money in open inventory
and not carrying Excalibur visibly when entering Asmo's level, for example.

Nor possibly confusing him with a cloak of displacement...

[Carl Sundbom]

Post by jim in austin

Post by Janis Papanagnou
[**] A few preconditions were necessary; carrying money in open inventory
and not carrying Excalibur visibly when entering Asmo's level, for example.

Nor possibly confusing him with a cloak of displacement...

I was intrinsically invisible, which I think means he will always be hostile since he can't see me. Maybe a quick cloak swap to a mummy wrapping could have done it. :)

I think I had about 3 turns, but my problem was that most of the good stuff was in my bag. I had a polycontrol ring and a polywand in there which could easily have changed me into a form that was cold resistant and then just bashed him to death. Turn 1: Get ring out of bag. Turn 2: Remove old ring. Turn 3: Put on polycontrol ring. Turn 4: Probably too late. So I should have worn that ring instead of slow digestion on the run and carried the wand in open inventory (I had several in the bag anyway). It was certainly a learning experience, which is why I've been playing since 1996. There are a million ways to die.

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by Carl Sundbom

Post by jim in austin

Post by Janis Papanagnou
[**] A few preconditions were necessary; carrying money in open
inventory and not carrying Excalibur visibly when entering Asmo's
level, for example.

Nor possibly confusing him with a cloak of displacement...

I was intrinsically invisible, which I think means he will always be
hostile since he can't see me.

No, this is not the case; you don't need to be visible. All you need is
carrying gold in your open inventory. If you do Asmodeus' level on your
way down into Gehennom - as opposed to levelporting to the bottom level
and, climbing back upwards, not being sure when you appear adjacent to
him - you should have sufficient time to prepare some gold. Or just not
stash all of your gold.

Janis

[Carl Sundbom]

Post by Janis Papanagnou

Post by Carl Sundbom

Post by jim in austin

Post by Janis Papanagnou
[**] A few preconditions were necessary; carrying money in open
inventory and not carrying Excalibur visibly when entering Asmo's
level, for example.

Nor possibly confusing him with a cloak of displacement...

I was intrinsically invisible, which I think means he will always be
hostile since he can't see me.

No, this is not the case; you don't need to be visible. All you need is
carrying gold in your open inventory. If you do Asmodeus' level on your
way down into Gehennom - as opposed to levelporting to the bottom level
and, climbing back upwards, not being sure when you appear adjacent to
him - you should have sufficient time to prepare some gold. Or just not
stash all of your gold.
Janis

I got this from the wiki "Asmodeus will appear before you first and (if you aren't wielding Excalibur) demand that you pay him for safe passage. When you refuse, or if he fails to see where you are[2], he becomes angry."

Anyway, sound advice!

[jim in austin]

Post by Carl Sundbom
I got this from the wiki "Asmodeus will appear before you first and (if
you aren't wielding Excalibur) demand that you pay him for safe passage.
When you refuse, or if he fails to see where you are[2], he becomes angry."
Anyway, sound advice!

When exploring Gehennom the first thing I do when I descend to a new level
is blind myself. If I see a demon prince I put away Excalibur (which I
never have), pull some zorkmids out of my bag and remove my cloak of
displacement (which I frequently have). Many monsters can see invisible
but few, notably aligned priests and shopkeepers, can see past displacement.
If a demon lord demands payment from one of your displaced images he will
become hostile...

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by jim in austin
When exploring Gehennom the first thing I do when I descend to a new level
is blind myself. If I see a demon prince I put away Excalibur [...]

ISTR that I've read that it's too late to stash Excalibur away at that point,
since the hostility of the demon is determined when you enter the level.
So the proecdure should be to stash Excalibur away _before_ you enter any yet
unvisited (Gehennom-)level.

Janis

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by Carl Sundbom

Post by Janis Papanagnou
No, this is not the case; you don't need to be visible. All you need is
carrying gold in your open inventory. If you do Asmodeus' level on your
way down into Gehennom - as opposed to levelporting to the bottom level
and, climbing back upwards, not being sure when you appear adjacent to
him - you should have sufficient time to prepare some gold. Or just not
stash all of your gold.

I got this from the wiki "Asmodeus will appear before you first and (if you
aren't wielding Excalibur) demand that you pay him for safe passage. When
you refuse, or if he fails to see where you are[2], he becomes angry."

You may wrongly interpret this wording as "if he fails to see you due to
your invisibility". It would probably be better if the Wiki would write
"if he fails to determine where you are, e.g. if you are displaced", and
an explicit hint that he is able to see invisible players. The current
wording seems to cause confusion.

Janis

[David Damerell]

Post by Carl Sundbom
late. So I should have worn that ring instead of slow digestion on the
run and carried the wand in open inventory (I had several in the bag
anyway).

Slow digestion serves no purpose after the early game, also.

[Gottfried Neuner]

Post by David Damerell

Post by Carl Sundbom
late. So I should have worn that ring instead of slow digestion on the
run and carried the wand in open inventory (I had several in the bag
anyway).

Slow digestion serves no purpose after the early game, also.
--
Today is Gloucesterday, April.
Tomorrow will be Leicesterday, April.

I thought it helped you not to starve as quick?

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by Gottfried Neuner

Post by David Damerell
Slow digestion serves no purpose after the early game, also.

I thought it helped you not to starve as quick?

The emphasis was on "after the early game".

It may be an issue then if you restrict yourself to conducts, like
vegetarian, etc. But otherwise there's tons of nutricious monsters
you can eat, or rations from soldiers, food from Sokoban and mines'
food shop, ant holes, bee hives, lichen corpses that you can stack
and accumulate, random food.

Janis

[jim in austin]

Post by Janis Papanagnou

Post by Gottfried Neuner

Post by David Damerell
Slow digestion serves no purpose after the early game, also.

I thought it helped you not to starve as quick?

The emphasis was on "after the early game".
It may be an issue then if you restrict yourself to conducts, like
vegetarian, etc. But otherwise there's tons of nutricious monsters
you can eat, or rations from soldiers, food from Sokoban and mines'
food shop, ant holes, bee hives, lichen corpses that you can stack
and accumulate, random food.

I can see some later game uses for it. For instance, a non-wizard caster
with no access to hungerless casting, especially if you are relying
heavily on spells for a ranged game or are doing an inordinate amount
of jumping on an ascension. And the spot defense against digestion
attacks is useful as well, especially if you are reverse genociding and
taming purple worms to teleport about the Astral. =)

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by jim in austin

[ slow digestion ]

I can see some later game uses for it. For instance, a non-wizard caster
with no access to hungerless casting, especially if you are relying
heavily on spells for a ranged game or are doing an inordinate amount
of jumping on an ascension. And the spot defense against digestion
attacks is useful as well, especially if you are reverse genociding and
taming purple worms to teleport about the Astral. =)

It may also be useful if you don't want to carry heavy food with you, i.e.
for weight management; in a recent game I did that. But, as said, usually
you have tons of nutricious monsters to eat - far too many to enumerate -,
specifically in the mid to late game.

Janis

[David Damerell]

Post by jim in austin
I can see some later game uses for it. For instance, a non-wizard caster
with no access to hungerless casting, especially if you are relying
heavily on spells for a ranged game or are doing an inordinate amount
of jumping on an ascension.

What are you using these spells to do? Kill monsters, leaving corpses. For
the few cases where you aren't, there is a semi-infinite supply of
permanent food which you can bring with you in your blessed bag of
holding.

Post by jim in austin
And the spot defense against digestion
attacks is useful as well, especially if you are reverse genociding and
taming purple worms to teleport about the Astral. =)

One zap of a wand of digging sorts that out. In the specific case where
you anticipate being swallowed, of course, there's nothing stopping you
putting slow digestion on.

[Jukka Lahtinen]

Post by David Damerell
What are you using these spells to do? Kill monsters, leaving corpses. For
the few cases where you aren't, there is a semi-infinite supply of
permanent food which you can bring with you in your blessed bag of
holding.

..and one you CAN'T carry in a bag of holding.

[jim in austin]

Post by David Damerell

Post by jim in austin
I can see some later game uses for it. For instance, a non-wizard caster
with no access to hungerless casting, especially if you are relying
heavily on spells for a ranged game or are doing an inordinate amount
of jumping on an ascension.

What are you using these spells to do? Kill monsters, leaving corpses. For
the few cases where you aren't, there is a semi-infinite supply of
permanent food which you can bring with you in your blessed bag of
holding.

Given that logic, there is absolutely no reason to continue extending
hungerless casting to wizards, although some practitioners might disagree.

Post by David Damerell

Post by jim in austin
And the spot defense against digestion
attacks is useful as well, especially if you are reverse genociding and
taming purple worms to teleport about the Astral. =)

One zap of a wand of digging sorts that out. In the specific case where
you anticipate being swallowed, of course, there's nothing stopping you
putting slow digestion on.

I gained a healthy appreciation for wands of digging after several knight
quests with their hordes of ochre jellies. Nothing better than killing
Juiblex with a swift kick of the boot...

[David Damerell]

Post by jim in austin

Post by David Damerell
What are you using these spells to do? Kill monsters, leaving corpses. For
the few cases where you aren't, there is a semi-infinite supply of
permanent food which you can bring with you in your blessed bag of
holding.

Given that logic, there is absolutely no reason to continue extending
hungerless casting to wizards, although some practitioners might disagree.

It helps wizards out in the early game, although your reply does seem to
imply more of a design process than actually exists.

[David Damerell]

Post by Gottfried Neuner

Post by David Damerell

Post by Carl Sundbom
late. So I should have worn that ring instead of slow digestion on the
run and carried the wand in open inventory (I had several in the bag
anyway).

Slow digestion serves no purpose after the early game, also.

I thought it helped you not to starve as quick?

An extremely large supply of monsters and permafood is laid on which
serves that purpose perfectly well without taking up one of your precious
ring slots.

[Jorgen Grahn]

Post by c***@gmail.com

Post by Jorgen Grahn
...

Post by c***@gmail.com
Well, the best laid plans... On the ascension run I ran into Asmo
who dispatched me in three moves with his cold attack. Forget to get
me some cold resistance, and his hits average about 100 HP!

Did you lose cold resistance along the way? When I get that far, I
always got that resistance long ago.

I never got it. Ate a bunch of cold loving creatures along the way,
but it just never happened.

...

Post by c***@gmail.com
Later, I figured I didn't need it, since I have reflection so wands
of cold would just bounce off, but

You tend to need all the resistances ... I would have tried harder,
e.g. eaten a dragon.

Reminds me of the time I figured I didn't need reflection because I
had all the resistances. I lost a lot of wands to lightning, and a
lot of HP to exploding wands.

/Jorgen

[jim in austin]

Post by c***@gmail.com
I'm so grrrr mad. I had been working on this priest for about 7 hours
of real-time and he was "invincible". Stormy +7, A/C -30, MR, Reflection,
etc. All the scrolls in their different flavors, wand of wishing and
death, all potions, bag of holding, tons of spells including magic
mapping and identify. You name it. I made it to the sanctum and
killed the priest by farting in his general direction. Never have I
had an easier game. I've ascended 4-5 times or so on NAO, and I never
felt more sure this would go all the way. I even planned for a little
purple worm party on Astral and filling the place with acid blobs to
get rid of the riders.
Well, the best laid plans... On the ascension run I ran into Asmo
who dispatched me in three moves with his cold attack. Forget to get
me some cold resistance, and his hits average about 100 HP! In retrospect
I had a few options, like dropping the amulet and reading a cursed scroll
of tele, but that would involve getting into the bag and getting the
scroll out, so I may not have had enough time.
I need to take a week off.

Yeah, Asmo's how I came to fear giggling gremlins. Also learned that role
granted resistances can be stolen as well. Oh, and happy Friday the 13th...

[Yosemite Sam]

forewarned is 4 armed

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by c***@gmail.com
I'm so grrrr mad. I had been working on this priest for about 7 hours of
real-time and he was "invincible". [...]

There is already a message combination "You were lucky. You are dead."
(formerly known as "You are lucky. You are dead.", but this got fixed).
Maybe there should also be a new (informal) message introduced in NH;
"You were/felt invincible. You are dead."? :-]

Janis

[Jorgen Grahn]

Post by Janis Papanagnou

Post by c***@gmail.com
I'm so grrrr mad. I had been working on this priest for about 7 hours of
real-time and he was "invincible". [...]

There is already a message combination "You were lucky. You are dead."
(formerly known as "You are lucky. You are dead.", but this got fixed).
Maybe there should also be a new (informal) message introduced in NH;
"You were/felt invincible. You are dead."? :-]

You'd have to introduce something like Facebook statuses for that:

[Hero] is feeling invincible
with [The Wizard of Yendor] and 72 others
at [The Plane of Fire]
[4711 have been here] [Rate this place]

(I should probably go to bed now.)

/Jorgen

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by Jorgen Grahn
[Hero] is feeling invincible
with [The Wizard of Yendor] and 72 others
at [The Plane of Fire]
[4711 have been here] [Rate this place]

:-)

Janis