Nethack!

[Zeful]

I've been playing Nethack for the last week and am frustrated at it. I keep dying, even when I'm not supposed to (trying to kill a kitten from full hp and Skilled in daggers as a Rogue and dying instead:smallfurious: ) And I'm just wondering if any Playgrounders have beaten it and have any advice for the early game?

[SolkaTruesilver]

Lol.. people have been able to beat this game a lot.

Personnally, I've never been farther than the gnome mines... LOL

I heard that the first levels are the worst ones, since you are so low on hit points.

[SurlySeraph]

Nethack is designed to be painful. If you spend years of your life practicing, you can win. Or you can be rational and stop playing it.

(Yes, I suck at Nethack. Try reading the wiki for it, it has some useful tips).

[factotum]

Nethack is supposed to be difficult...it's what keeps people playing it after all these years. I've never got further than the first Quest level, personally, but I keep trying...

Anyway, Rogues are not the best beginner class. If you want to get a bit further, try a Barbarian--they hit hard, have the strength to wear heavy armour, and the intrinsic poison resistance makes eating random stuff you find lying around less of a crap shoot. (Although you can still die from food poisoning, so don't be eating ten day old corpses!).

[Bleen]

Oh man, Nethack. I still play this on occasion.

The most hard and fast guagable progress I've made is grabbing my Luckstone from Mines' End and getting pretty damn close to that wand at the Castle (Dlevel 17 was my deepest. I've found the Quest but don't often get a chance to complete it because I'm too low-level when I first get to the right floor, d'oh.)

I had a friend who got a good run going and made it all the way through the Astral Plane.

Then tried to 'ascend' at the wrong altar.

We lol'd.
Hard.

[Grim Greyscale]

The trick to nethack, see, is to not use anything until you know what it is.

And even then, it's probably best not to use it. It might kill you.

[Tempest Fennac]

I've tried playing SLASH'em (which is the sequel if you haven't heard of it), and I only ever got to level 3 before dying. The overly complicated control system annoys me more then anything.

[Ziren]

Healer is also a nice class for beginners. Well, more for beginners with a bit of knowledge about the game, but... Identify enemies as a free action once a turn, almost unlimited food (stone to flesh), the abilty to create douzens of matballs to keep your familiars happy (also stone to flesh) and an amulet of reflection from the bonus dungeon? Yes, please. But you are seriously screwed later without scrolls of taming or a lucky polymorph.

[DeathQuaker]

I've won Nethack twice (and considered both victories surprising). Mind you, I will often just play it grind style until I die, which I find fun, but actually getting through the whole game and ascending takes a lot of time and patience and luck. I think it's worth aiming for, but understand it may not happen overnight.

The MOST IMPORTANT TIP FOR SUCCESSFUL PLAYING OF NETHACK FOLLOWS:

Slow down.

I am dead serious. Slow down, look at your enemies, look at your areas of exit. Watch your hit points at ALL times. Most (though certainly not all) Nethack deaths are due to impatience or failing to take stock of a situation/forgetting an inventory item that could have saved you/pressing the wrong button. (Many of my deaths are probably due to typos.)

Other tips/notes that might save your life (very minor spoilers may be included):

1. Your dog (cat, pony) is your best friend. They fight for you, and they identify cursed items. They are very good ESPECIALLY if you are a low-level spellcaster. Usually if I am playing a spellcaster, I let my pet take a lot of the first kills so they gain hit dice (it's not extremely important for you to level up right away as long as you know how to keep distance from attackers). Then it's a lot easier for me to let them attack while I snipe with spells or daggers from a distance.

2. Do NOT let yourself travel encumbered. Dump that stuff. You need every ounce of speed you can get (as a player you need to slow down; PCs need to be as fast as possible). If you've found a bunch of neat stuff, create stashes (I usually make stashes on "special" levels like ones with extra stairways to the Mines or Sokoban, or the Oracle level, or any level with an aligned altar on it). Spellbooks are very heavy, so stash them safely and go back to them when you start forgetting your spells, but you don't need to carry them all the time. The main things you need to travel with are your weapons, armor, some scrolls or wands of teleport, and something you can engrave "Elbereth" with (preferably an athame; otherwise I usually use a hard gem). Some food (note rations fill you but are heavy; K and C rations are lighter and about as filling); maybe a wand or two to shoot enemies with when necessary.

3. Get your armor class as low as possible. This is a key priority. Use blessed scrolls of Enchant Armor, and donate to NPC Priests at 400 x your level.

4. Spellcasting and rings make you hungry. Before you start flinging spells or putting on loads of rings, make sure you have enough food (or ring of slow digestion, etc.)

5. Your god is there for you. Usually. Remember you can pray to your god in a pinch, but pray too often he gets pissed. Don't do it very often, and items of enlightenment can also help you determine when you can pray. And you can't pray in Gehennom of course, but if you've gotten that far you should be able to take care of yourself.

6. Important items: Unicorn horn, magic marker (and blank scrolls), items that confer magic resistance, items that confer reflection, magic whistle (good if you've still got your pet around), bag of holding, scrolls or spellbooks of identify. Of course there are plenty others, but these are sort of what I consider key. Oh, and of course you need 7 candles once you hit the bottom of the dungeon (but not before then, but if you're not carrying them, put them where you'll find them easily).

7. Early dungeon exploration: usually I go down into the Gnomish Mines first to at least get to minetown, where there's always an altar. Even if it's not aligned, I can use it to ID blessed and cursed items. If the Mines are kicking my butt (gnome spawns with a wand of lightning, polymorph trap in a bad spot), I go back up, go back down into the main dungeon, then look for the stairs to Sokoban. Sokoban is relatively easy to handle combat wise (the hard part is the puzzle that is the whole dungeon), and it always has either a bag of holding or an amulet of reflection at the top.

8. Good classes: My first ascension was with a wizard, and I'd say they're probably one of the easiest to play. They've got great gear and once you've learned spells like Charm Monster and Finger of Death, you've got an excellent chance of winning. The key of course is that they are weak at low levels, so as long as you're careful in the early game, you can do well.

Lots of other people recommend Valks and Barbarians because they're tough and combat savvy, though I find it easy to be irresponsible with them and get myself into fixes where their butts get kicked.

Samurai are a very good melee class, very powerful.

I don't necessarily agree with the other poster that suggested healers--they can be very weak and I've not had good luck with them--BUT yes, careful healing, stone to flesh, and letting your pet kick butt can let you do some amazing things with them. BTW, though, I think (a)pplying the stethoscope does take a small amount of time, so may not be recommended around very fast enemies.

That's all I can think of for now.

And again, take it slow, watch your hit points.... and have fun!

[adanedhel9]

I enjoy Nethack, but I've never gotten very far. The furthest I've gotten, I fell down several holes in a row and found myself in the middle of a puzzle with boulders and pits. Since I fell into the middle of the puzzle, as opposed to approaching the puzzle from the same level, I couldn't find a way to either solve the puzzle or work my way back up. I ended up dying of starvation.

I usually play archeologist; I had one too many instances where I found myself unable to find the path forward. With the archeologist, you start with a pickaxe, so you can always make your path forward.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Good classes: My first ascension was with a wizard, and I'd say they're probably one of the easiest to play. They've got great gear and once you've learned spells like Charm Monster and Finger of Death, you've got an excellent chance of winning. The key of course is that they are weak at low levels, so as long as you're careful in the early game, you can do well.


Something I heard about Wizard-low-level:

Elbereth, Elbereth, Elbereth!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ziren]

I don't necessarily agree with the other poster that suggested healers--they can be very weak and I've not had good luck with them--BUT yes, careful healing, stone to flesh, and letting your pet kick butt can let you do some amazing things with them. BTW, though, I think (a)pplying the stethoscope does take a small amount of time, so may not be recommended around very fast enemies.


From my experience you always have one free use of stethoscope between each of your actions. But of course it is possible that I simply didn't encounter any speedy monsters before I was speedy myself. Oh, and something I've forgotten to mention: If you make a healer, choose gnome as race or you'll seriously handicap youself.

Another good class would be ranger. Auto-search helps you avoid traps a lot, they can use ranged weapons against those pesky floating eyes (and everything else) without sucking totally in meele. Their not that great if you try to finish the game, but to get a feeling for the game and its mechanics, their pretty good.

[Zeful]

I'm currently Lv10 (auto-search ftw), I lost my pet due to a trapped door (second one on the level). I managed to get very lucky and get an uncursed pair of gauntlents of power, making my Str 25. I've got the telepathy intrinsic (thank you floating eye *sneeze*beholder*sneeze*) and a towel for a blind fold so I can hunt down those stupid nymphs and leprechauns. I've completed the first level of Sokoban and can't figure out the second one. The only altar I've come across is the one in Minetown and it's aligned to Mog (not chaotic) so I can't sacrifice to get my god back on my side, (he's mad about the pet thing... still). I'm keeping every blessed thing I own in my inventory to improve my luck.

I haven't come across a scroll of Identify yet, only the base 100gp and 400gp scrolls. So I'm doing good... kinda.

[DeathQuaker]

I've completed the first level of Sokoban and can't figure out the second one.

If want tips for Sokoban:


- It might take an unlucky fool to try it, but boulders can always be broken
- Teleport-less levels apply only to creatures.




The only altar I've come across is the one in Minetown and it's aligned to Mog (not chaotic) so I can't sacrifice to get my god back on my side, (he's mad about the pet thing... still).

In a way, that's good 'cause it forces you to be careful. If you're worried, though, you might exit Soko and see if you can find an aligned altar deeper in the dungeon. That's hit or miss, though.


From my experience you always have one free use of stethoscope between each of your actions.

Whoops, you're right! I just fired it up and noticed the time-ticker doesn't go up when you use it.

[Zeful]

Well I lost again. Stuck on a floor with no food, no edible monsters, and weak. Kos was angry with me. I was stuck with no options (I had even eaten all my tripe rations for Pete's sake). I did have 44,000 points at the end.

How do people survive the early game without praying for sustenance at every opportunity?

[Bitzeralisis]

I play Wizard mode. :smallamused:

[factotum]

How do people survive the early game without praying for sustenance at every opportunity?

Personally I always go for Sokoban, because you can guarantee there's going to be quite a bit of food lying around there--I'd have to be extremely unlucky to come out of there with less than half-a-dozen food rations, which will last you nearly 4000 turns if you're not wearing rings or amulets. I also make sure to eat things like lichen corpses whenever possible--they're a bit too heavy to carry around for the amount of nutrition they have, but they never get corrupted so you have no chance of getting food poisoning when eating them.

[Dove]

Hah! Funny to see this at the top of the forum; nobody ever knows what Nethack is and it's one of my all-time favorite game. My most impressive ascention was an atheist genoless wishless wizard. I've actually got two atheist wizards, and a whole host of other classes.

Some keys to early-game survival . . .

- Eat corpses. Every (safe) corpse (non-zombie, non-poisonous, non-other-bad-stuff) should be eaten on the spot. If you're really low on food, push for Sokoban. You can also push for the gnomish mines; gnomes can be eaten, and they are plentiful. Conversely, carry all food that won't rot: lichens, lizards, fruits & vegetables, tins, and of course rations. Eat it very last. See my Eating For Food And Intrisics (http://www.geocities.com/dcorbett42/nethack/corpse.htm) spoiler, if you're spoiler-inclined, to see what's nutritious and safe.

- Don't get too deep in the dungeon; things get dangerous as you go farther down. Go back and finish sokoban. Go halfway down the mines, then come back up.

- Always go down the down-stairs when you find them and immediately come back up. That way, if you fall you'll know where the up-stairs are, and the monsters on that level will be easier (monsters are generated when the level is loaded, based partly on *your* level).

- Take the following critters EXTREMELY seriously. Like, do something drastic when they show up, earlier and not later: Soldier ants, Killer bees, Leocrottas--these usually show up before you're ready. To a lesser degree, unicorns, warhorses, mumaks, killer apes--these are midgame critters that can hit hard. Run like heck from trolls unless you're sure you can take them. They have a tendency to kill midgame low-armor characters.

- NEVER wear anything you haven't identified at least the bless/curse status of. Use altars. It IS worth dragging that ring back four levels to identify it before putting it on.

- Learn the technique of shop-iding items.

- Don't be afraid of standing still to heal. I usually do it on up-stairs, n100. several times in succession. It doesn't cost that much in terms of food, and can save your bacon. STAY AT YOUR MAX HP, as much as possible. Yes, this IS worth standing around for.

- Get poison and sleep resistance ASAP -- these are big early-character killers. Poison, early game, can come from eating cave spiders, mostly. Killer bees are good, but they're poisonous, so wash them through a tinning kit first. Sleep resistance is pretty much elves or bust.

- If the temple in minetown is friendly, you are safe there. Use it as a fort.

- Consider milking an altar for an artifact/stat boosts. Yes, this is dull. You will feel like a stud the first time you do it anyway.

- Acquire a unicorn horn as soon as you can.

- Stay on good terms with your deity.

- Basically acquire as many emergency 'outs' as you can. You know, wands that can engrave Elbereth or dig holes; scrolls of scare monster; scrolls of teleport. That sort of thing. The earlier advice to stay on good terms with your deity is basically keeping a reserve 'out'.

ABOVE ALL, take Izchak's advice: Slow down. Think clearly. You almost always have more options than you think you do. Pray? Engrave Elbereth? Use a wand of sleep? Scroll of teleport? Potion of healing? Scroll of earth? To extendthat, slow down early. Be proactive. Don't wait until dangerous situations develop to deal with them. Read that scroll of teleport when you're three moves away from dying, not one.

The folks on RGRN (the nethack list) will occasionally begin a post with something like, "So this situation has been developing in this game, and I've spent the last couple days thinking about how to get out of it . . . " and someone on the list will say, "Well, do you have a tin of spinach?" And that totally solves it. Treat it as a puzzle game. When things get out of hand, stop. Think. Look at your inventory. Look in your bag. Look at your spells. Come up with something creative.


Some tips for growing as a player/further resources, in ascending order of controversiality -

- Consider reading RGRN (rec.games.roguelike.nethack). It is the authoritative nethack community.

- Consider using explore mode to learn the game better (in-game type "X"). This is a cheat code that prevents you from dying, allowing you to experiment with the game at higher levels. Of course, expore-mode games can't score.

- Consider reading spoilers. A good index can be found here: http://www.steelypips.org/nethack/ .

- Consider using wizard mode (google it) to explore the game. This is a mode that allows teleporting, instantaneous wishes, etc, all from the command line. Massively a cheat code, but it can let you nail down, say, the damage output of silver daggars vs. an elf shooting arrows from an elven bow.

- Consider savescumming. This is the act of making a copy of your saves files (look in the nethack directory--it's not hard to figure out) so you can resume the game from earlier points. This WILL screw up your high scores table, and is generally considered evil and vile by true Nethack players. But I think it's a useful set of training wheels for beginners . . .

Edit: A lot of the same points are made in The Absolute Beginner's Guide To Nethack (http://www.melankolia.net/nethack/nethack.guide.html).

[Ziren]

Hah! Funny to see this at the top of the forum; nobody ever knows what Nethack is and it's one of my all-time favorite game. My most impressive ascention was an atheist genoless wishless wizard. I've actually got two atheist wizards, and a whole host of other classes.

Some keys to early-game survival . . .

- Eat corpses. Every (safe) corpse (non-zombie, non-poisonous, non-other-bad-stuff) should be eaten on the spot. If you're really low on food, push for Sokoban. You can also push for the gnomish mines; gnomes can be eaten, and they are plentiful. Conversely, carry all food that won't rot: lichens, lizards, fruits & vegetables, tins, and of course rations. Eat it very last. See my Eating For Food And Intrisics (http://www.geocities.com/dcorbett42/nethack/corpse.htm) spoiler, if you're spoiler-inclined, to see what's nutritious and safe.


You forgot to mention that it is also unwise to eat corpses of your own race unless you are about to starve and can't pray (even then it is bad, but an angry god is better than a dead player, right?).

[Rutee]

Why is this in the Games forum? I know we don't have an "Organized Masochism" forum, but... :smallbiggrin:

[Antacid]

Get ahead of the curve. Nethack is random, right? What items you find, what monsters are generated. But there are rules to how the dungeon and monsters are generated - you meet progressively harder monsters the deeper you go, and the higher your player's experience level. But here's an unpleasant fact: for most of the early game, the monsters will get tougher faster than you do because of how the game judges monster 'challenge rating'. Even as one of the 'tough' classes, you need to do more than kill monsters and gain XP or you'll eventually meet something that can kill you just by looking at you.

So the key is to squeeze the absolute maximum out of everything you find, because you can't rely on the game giving you kit suitable to the job. That means: try to identify everything. Engrave with wands (you often get a message that tells you what the wand is, if it doesn't Id it outright). Use the pricing system to identify your loot by the $ you're offered for it in shops, with this tool (http://nethack.roy.org/clippy/clippy.pl). Go to the Gnomish mines and have your pet kill some dwarves: they have the best non-magical armour in the game (hard hats, hard shoes, dwarven mithril) and the best non-artifact weapon in the game (the broad pick). Try everything possible to get an early wish (sit on thrones, dip items in fountains on low levels, and rub blessed magic lamps, zap wands) and wish for silver or grey dragon scale mail/boots of speed/your artifact of choice - any item that can boost your survivability. If you find an altar for another alignment, sacrifice fresh monster corpses on it with #offer and try to convert it to your own. Once you have a co-aligned altar, you can manufacture holy water by dropping clear potions on the altar and #pray-ing, and you can tell which of your items are cursed much the same way.

Google "list of nethack spoilers" and read them: particularly the monster manual (http://www.juiblex.co.uk/nethack/VernonSpoilers/MonsterManual/contents.html). One of the more ludicrously unfair things about Nethack is that particularly lethal monsters (elves, soldier ants) will often be generated in groups - and some lone monsters will have insanely high damage output per round (anything represented by a q, z or T), or an AC that make them very difficult to hit at the point when you meet them. Best to have an idea what's worth expending wand charges on before your tourist tries beating a mumak (butt 4d12 and bite 2d6) to death in hand-to-hand combat. Some monsters below level ~12 have horrible special attacks (mind flayers, liches, cockatrices, dragons) that you need to understand how to avoid.

If you can get ahead of the curve with enough kit and intrinsics to avoid the numerous means of instadeath, the game eventually becomes a matter of avoiding death by stupidity until you get to the castle and the wand of wishing, at which point you have a good shot at winning the game.

And if in doubt, engrave Elbereth.

[DeathQuaker]

How do people survive the early game without praying for sustenance at every opportunity?

Note all the stuff Dove said, for that and general purposes.

Also, it's just a mixture of luck but mostly practice and common sense. To reiterate some key points

- eat everything you come across that's safely edible.
- Either head towards Sokoban, which is full of food, or take the mines which usually has a lot of edible corpses, and there is almost always a food shop in Minetown.
- Don't cast a lot of spells or wear rings unless you have a good stash of food. Of course if that spell or ring is going to save your life, use it, but be careful about it.
- When I said the god is your friend, usually, I noted it's good not to pray too much. Praying for sustenance should be your last resort after you've run out of other options (I prefer holding off praying for healing instead).

Also:
- Don't put on un-id'd rings. Nothing worse than realizing you died b/c of equipping an unidentified Ring of Hunger (these are not always cursed, so don't think it's safe to wear just because it's uncursed or blessed).

- Repeating what I said: DO NOT LET YOURSELF BE ENCUMBERED. That's a drain on time and therefore hunger (it might even increase your hunger).

- If dealing with food really is a hard thing for you, start off with a class that starts with food already. Tourists have a ton of food. Archeologists have food and sometimes start with tinning kits. I think Barbs and Valks have at least one or two food rations to their name. (Exception: Monks start with a lot of food, but they require vegetarian conduct, so don't play them until you're good at food conservation).

- Also remember tricks like if you play a character starting with Stone to Flesh (e.g., the Healer)--use that spell on things made of stone, and voila...

- Take note of what foods are more filling than others. A food ration will keep you sated much longer than a banana, so if you only have so much money in a shop, save it up for the big stuff.

- Don't engage in stuff like sac'cing at Altars unless you have a lot of food on hand. I've often starved myself by wasting time doing something repetitive when I have no or little food.

And as for angry gods:

- If your god is really angry with you and you can't find an aligned altar, and you really feel like other options aren't available, sac at the unaligned altar. The unaligned god might accept you as a convert. Your alignment will shift, of course, but that's better than dying. There are probably spoilers you might want to look up about that.

But speaking of angry gods, I will share my favorite Nethack story:

I was early on in the game, had no intrinsics, and the only magic item I had was a Ring of Warning, which I had equipped..

I somehow manage to piss my god off; I think I accidentally kicked an altar (hit the wrong direction key) or killed my pet.

I think I'd kicked the altar because I think the death was due to my god quickly taking his vengeance.

My "summary of status" death message was most apropos:


You had sinned.
You were warned.
You are dead.

[Roland St. Jude]

Much good advice above, and I don't have time to say a whole lot, but two things come to mind. First, knowledge is power. In game, make liberal use of the look command (;) to see what things are at distance. Out of game, read the very helpful wiki (http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page) about things you don't know all about and checkout any of the many spoilers hanging about (I find this list (http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~eva/nethack/spoilerlist.html) helpful. Second, discretion really is the better part of valor. Don't be afraid to run away, use your pet as a shield, leave stuff behind that burdens you, review your inventory carefully when things seem to be spiraling out of control (and otherwise remember that it's a turn-based game, so you have all the time you need to think.)

I ascended a Lawful-Human-Priest last week; I'm working on a promising Lawful-Valk right now. I've ascended enough characters over the years to feel like it's inevitable that it'll happen again, but not so many that it's lost its thrill (or that I'd try some crazy conduct like foodless, nudist, athiest :smallamused: ). Ooh, I know, that's another thing, some classes are easier or more difficult to play, especially in the early game. I usually let it pick randomly, but I don't think it's a coincidence that my Priests, Valkyries, Barbarians, and Knights tend to get farther all else being equal.

[factotum]

- If your god is really angry with you and you can't find an aligned altar, and you really feel like other options aren't available, sac at the unaligned altar. The unaligned god might accept you as a convert. Your alignment will shift, of course, but that's better than dying. There are probably spoilers you might want to look up about that.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it impossible to Ascend if you're not the same alignment you started the game as? Seems a bit pointless surviving if you can't finish the thing...

[Bleen]

Yeah.

Can't ascend without being the alignment you started as.

However, you CAN offer corpses on an altar of a different alignment, and if you're lucky (and your level is high), you can convert the altar to your alignment. Failing usually means death and/or smiting and/or big nasty servants of the opposing god coming down to kick your ass, and/or accidentally converting yourself to the other god's alignment, which is bad.

[DanielX]

I've almost ascended once (Sigrdrifa the lawful dwarven Valkyrie, she got the amulet and made it to the Elemental Planes, but I forgot to get her hover boots so when she got to the plane of air she had difficulty moving around and got surrounded by dragons....she's now a character in The Town).

Some advice:
- DO NOT put on armor, use a weapon, quaff a potion, read a scroll, or wear an amulet or ring unless you can determine its blessed/uncursed/cursed status, or can at least make sure an item is not cursed (i.e. you are a priest, found an altar, or have holy water handy). Some of these

- Some good starting classes:
- Valkyrie. My personal favorite. Good fighting stats. Start with a good weapon (long sword), very high str/con, great melee potential, easy quest, can be played as a dwarf (mines are friendly, tough), cold resistance.
- Samurai. Also good. The best starting weapons set in the game (a katana AND a bow), good in melee.
- Barbarian. Great melee, poison resistance, good weapons if you like two-weaponing (I personally having a second hand free for a shield or twoweaponing).
- Priest. Not the best melee, but they can tell B/U/C status of items automatically, so altars are slightly less important.

Races? I favor humans and dwarves, as they have the highest strength potential, humans can be of any class, and dwarves can be Valkyries (a good class). For, say, a ranger or wizard, you might prefer an elf or gnome or something.

- Know what monsters not to melee, or be cautious about them. Floating eyes, of course, unless you are blind or have sleep resistance (gaze). Same with any creature with Touch of Death, unless you have Magic Resistance.

- You basically have to assemble two sets of stuff. At the beginning, you need an "keep me alive" set - full set of armor, good weapons, whatever, to gather when you're in the gnomish mines and the upper levels of the dungeon to keep going. Then, you need an 'ascension kit', almost all artifacts and special items which you'll need to survive Gehenna, kill the assorted big bads, grab the amulet, and go through the planes.

For the first, here's a good line-up. Others already whipped up good ideas of ascension kits... keep in mind everything should be 'blessed' or 'uncursed':
weapon:
melee: long sword or katana (if you're lawful and level 5+, dip long sword into a fountain - not one in minetown, it'll anger the guards - to get Excalibur, which is a very easy artifact weapon to get). Possibly have a spare, to handle if your main weapon gets corroded or something (or switch to a spare when fighting something you know is acidic or corrosive). Silver saber also works, especially against undead or demons. If you love two-weaponing, a two-handed axe or a dwarvish mattock are good. Stick to one or two weapon types that work well with your class and max your skills with them. If you don't have a shield and are a samurai or another class that supports two-weaponing, give it a go. Some classes automatically get a specific artifact weapon from sacrificing - Mjollnir for Valkyries, Magicbane for Wizards, Snickersnee for Samurai, the Barbarians get an artifact two-handed axe whose name I forgot, so max the skill for that.
a ranged weapon: thrown daggers, or a bow or crossbow with ammo. Something to hit floating eyes and weaken stronger enemies before they hit you.
If you can find it, also get an athame - especially if you're a wizard. They're good for carving "Elbereth", but are extremely rare.
armor:
- any hard helm you can find. Orcish helms are easy to find, they work decent enough.
- Elvish or dwarvish mithril coat. Fairly light armor for its +5/6 protection power
- boots, gloves, maybe a shield, whatever you need to get your AC below 0.
other stuff:
- holy water - to bless or uncurse anything you might want but happens to be cursed.
- a pickaxe (unless you wield a dwarvish mattock as a weapon)
- scrolls of identify, to find out what stuff is.
- a unicorn horn, to cure your mishaps with mind flayers, poison, or other stuff that reduce stats.

- Remember that you can get randomly screwed over sometimes. Once, I had a fairly low-level character making her way through Sokoban, pushing boulders around. She filled a hole with a boulder and... behind it was a randomly generated common soldier with a wand of death.... :smallfurious: . Or you wander around and fall into a poisoned, spiked pit before you get poison resistance...

[Zeful]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it impossible to Ascend if you're not the same alignment you started the game as? Seems a bit pointless surviving if you can't finish the thing...

What's fun is that you can shift back to your starting alignment (I think(hope)). I'd thought of switching to neutral to grab the wizard quest artifact (Eye of Somethin' or Another) for branchport and then sacing the appropriate unicorn at a chaotic altar to rejoin my old alignment.

What?:smallconfused: It seems chaotic enough.

Or if I got really lucky:

Level 5: Become lawful, dip for Excalibur- sell it
Level 6: become neutral then play untill I get the wand of wishing. Wish for 2 blessed scrolls of charging, wish for Wizard quest artifact.
Level 14: Become Chaotic again, wish for Tourist quest artifact and get the Rouge quest artifact.
Rest of the game: Cackle manically at my awesomeness. Polymorph into an elf to get both Sting and Orcist- sell them.

[Antacid]

What's fun is that you can shift back to your starting alignment (I think(hope)). I'd thought of switching to neutral to grab the wizard quest artifact (Eye of Somethin' or Another) for branchport and then sacing the appropriate unicorn at a chaotic altar to rejoin my old alignment.

Alas, that doesn't work. You can't change back to your old alignment after converting. In fact, if you change alignment before the Quest, the game becomes impossible to win because your quest leader is generated hostile.

The Gods are... unforgiving.

[Bitzeralisis]

Oh, crap. You've all made me want to play NetHack again. Noo! Such a waste of time! :smalleek: :smalltongue:

[factotum]

armor:
- any hard helm you can find. Orcish helms are easy to find, they work decent enough.
- Elvish or dwarvish mithril coat. Fairly light armor for its +5/6 protection power


Neither are good for spellcasters, though. (I think all hard helmets inhibit spellcasting, and mithril armour definitely does).

[Theork]

I believe in Netheck you can use a spade to dig through the shop wall.
If you can dig it until you need one more to go through, then go into the shop and swipe everything you can. then use the spade to dig out and escape without paying or being killed by the angry shopkeeper.
(NOTE: You Cannot return to the shop after this, as the shop keeper attacks).

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Ziren]

I believe in Netheck you can use a spade to dig through the shop wall.
If you can dig it until you need one more to go through, then go into the shop and swipe everything you can. then use the spade to dig out and escape without paying or being killed by the angry shopkeeper.
(NOTE: You Cannot return to the shop after this, as the shop keeper attacks).

Correct me if I'm wrong.

It is possible, but I wouldn't advice you to do it. You're familiar shouldsteal anything for you because that doesn't anger the shopkeeper/your god and it's not summoning those annoying policemen.

[Penguinizer]

I rarely get past level 6 or so for some reason.

[DeathQuaker]

Alas, that doesn't work. You can't change back to your old alignment after converting. In fact, if you change alignment before the Quest, the game becomes impossible to win because your quest leader is generated hostile.

According to This (http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Alignment) you shouldn't change your alignment before the Quest (I had forgotten).

But it shouldn't affect the endgame, IIRC. In fact, I recall people saying on RGRN that they have ascended by going towards the nearest Altar on the Astral Plane, and if the altar is the opposite of their alignment, they Wish for a Helm of Opposite Alignment (http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Helm_of_opposite_alignment) to change their alignment and then sac the Amulet--rather than try to wade through the rest of the Astral Plane to find the right Altar. Anyone wanting to be certain might want to research the spoilers more thoroughly however. It's honestly not been much of an issue for me.


I believe in Netheck you can use a spade to dig through the shop wall.
If you can dig it until you need one more to go through, then go into the shop and swipe everything you can. then use the spade to dig out and escape without paying or being killed by the angry shopkeeper.
(NOTE: You Cannot return to the shop after this, as the shop keeper attacks).

Correct me if I'm wrong.

You can use a pickaxe, but shopkeepers won't let you bring one into the store, so you have to be lucky to get one in there. Also, digging with one of those takes a lot of time, and I don't remember if you can dig straight down with them enough to create a hole (at least not before the shopkeeper stops you). Leaving a shop with unpaid merchandise will cause the Shopkeeper not only to attack you but also fill the level with Keystone Kops. While the Kops are relatively weak, if you do this early in the game they'll easily overwhelm you and kill you (and still are a pain if you are high level).

If you MUST steal, you should be high level and find more efficient ways to travel from place to place. Oddly, digging with pickaxes is slow, but digging with "sticks" seems pretty rapid.

[pendell]

I have ascended every race and class combo in Nethack. My YAAPs are recorded on rec.games.roguelike.nethack.

My advice?

0) SLOW DOWN.
Nethack is turn-based. Consequently, your single greatest advantage is your ability to take as much time as you like to think through what you want to do. Many of my characters died from hitting the keys too quickly when a moment's forethought would have saved him.

1) Become familiar with the spoilers at www.steelypips.org . Everything you ever wanted to know about the game.

2) Play a Valkyrie for your first ascension. She has cold resistance, rips her way through bad guys like no one's business, and gets a nifty artifact weapon.

3) Become intensely familiar with David Damerall's Object Identification spoiler (google). 1/2 the challenge of Nethack is properly identifying objects.

From this follows: Never read a scroll without some idea of what it is (typically by dropping it in a shop to discover the price, then picking it up again without selling it). THe price gives you a rough clue as to the type of scroll it might be. Free hint: The Identify scroll is always the cheapest in the game, usually around 14 GP to buy.

Never drink a potion without some idea of what it is. Never try on any armor, ring, or amulet unless you know it's not cursed. If you see a gray stone, kick it. If it moves, you can safely pick it up. If it doesn't move and you hurt your foot, DON'T pick it up. I'll let you find out why.

4) Your bodyguard -- your pet.

Pets will save your life in the early part of the game, especially if you're playing a weak class. Let your pet level up by giving it approx. half the kills. If things get too rough, engrave "E" and stand still while your pet clears out the monsters.


5) Use ranged weapons.

Many monsters have touch attacks that are downright vicious. Cockatrices turn you to stone. Nymphs rob you blind. Mumaks kill you in one hit. Mindflayers will eat your brain. Floating eyes will paralyze you.

All of these attacks can be negated simply by staying out of melee range. Consequently, if you fight from a distance, you'll stay alive a lot longer.

I like daggers the best because A) many classes can throw up to 3 or even 4 at a time 2) They can be enchanted to +5 (or higher) 3) Unlike arrows or crossbows, they never breaik. So you can go through the whole game with just your stack of 12 +5 Daggers of Dangerous Death.

Next on my list is arrows, which can also reach high skill levels and are moreover plentiful due to the large number of bow-carrying monsters and the prevalence of arrow traps. It's not unusual to find 400 arrows in the course of a game and use maybe half that.

After that comes "anything". Crossbows and crossbow bolts exist, but are too rare (IMO) to be truly useful. After that, anything can be thrown as a ranged weapon in desperation, even rocks. In fact, a stack of rocks is probably your best bet at low levels for killing something like a floating eye.

6) Don't blunder about in the dark.
Many early deaths are due to walking into a nymph or floating eye I didn't know was there. This can be avoided by:

A) Playing a dwarf, gnome, elf, or orc. All have infravision, which allow you to see most of the dangerous monsters at a distance.

B)Acquiring telepathy, which will identify all non-mindless creatures at distance.

C) A ring of warning, which will give ranged identification of dangerous monsters.

D) If all else fails, push your pet in front of you and let *him* blunder into the floating eyes.

7) Save prayer for food and water.
There is a timeout -- when you pray once, you must wait around 800 turns before you can do so again. Consequently prayer is most useful in the early game when praying for food you don't otherwise have. Lots of my early characters starved to death because they didn't catch on to this.

From this also follows: Don't be picky. In the early stages monsters don't provide much nutrition, so you have to be willing to eat ANYTHING that isn't actually poisonour or rotten. Goblin flambe? Delicious! Floating eye a la mode? Wonderful! Orc stew? Yum!

When I first started playing this game back in 1990, my early deaths were due almost entirely to food mistakes. I would eat a kobold, and be poisoned. I would not eat enough, and starve. I'd eat a corpse that was a few turns too old (corpses must be eaten fresh -- within a few turns of being killed) , find "that meat was tainted", and die. Eat too much -- past the point of being satiated -- and die that way too. Lots of ways for your stomach to kill you in Nethack.

Later in the game, prayer is used to make holy water ... but that's a spoiler. I'll let you find out, or read the spoiler guides.

8) Be prepared to escape.

IME, teleportation scrolls are very common in the maze. So are wands of digging. Both provide a one-turn escape from trouble. If you use them, you will live longer. They are so common for a reason.

9) Don't be shy about using your items.

I can't tell you how many of my characters have died with a bazillion wands of fire or cold or lightning or striking in their possession. If I find your corpse in the maze, let me find it with all it's wands dry, it's last arrow fired, and the sword broken. False economy kills more characters than thrift saves.

Does that help?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Bitzeralisis]

Hmm, Nethack needs sound...

[factotum]

Hmm, Nethack needs sound...

Maybe they should add some 3D graphics and guns as well...we could call it Quake! Think that works? :smallamused:

[Zeful]

I think you're a little late there factotum (http://users.tkk.fi/~jtpelto2/nethack.html)

[DanielX]

Neither are good for spellcasters, though. (I think all hard helmets inhibit spellcasting, and mithril armour definitely does).

Just about any metal armor inhibits spellcasting. I generally say "to hell with it", and don't bother with spellcasting much. Spellbooks are a great way of earning money for other goods, divine protection, and the oracle - as they usually cost a lot. Thus, I tend to play "bludgeon it" classes - Valkyries, for example, tend to have high hp, good weapons/armor and can do well by just meleeing in most cases - same with Samurai and Barbarians. A Tourist, OTOH, is dead if they try meleeing at the start (actually, a Tourist is a pretty bad choice, period), they're best hope (inasmuch as they have any) is to blind enemies with their camera and kill from a distance using their darts.

Another thing - different classes demand different strategies. "Crawl through the dungeon and melee unless its a floating eye or something" is a decent enough strategy for Valkyries, Barbarians, and Samurai - they're tough enough to do it (though Samurai should use their bow for distance fighting, and Valkyries should use noncursed daggers for throwing - for floating eyes, gas spores, and other creatures you don't want to melee), that'll kill a Wizard quick - Wizards need careful use of spells to soften creatures up, and only rely on their quarterstaff when 'low on juice' or when the bad guy is weak enough that you can save on energy.

[factotum]

I think you're a little late there factotum (http://users.tkk.fi/~jtpelto2/nethack.html)

I know about Falcon's Eye and Vulture's Eye, ta, but they just add isometric 3D graphics...I don't see any guns!

[Koga]

I know about Falcon's Eye and Vulture's Eye, ta, but they just add isometric 3D graphics...I don't see any guns!
Guns are only in the slash'em expansion. Pistols are actually rarer then shotguns.


Don't get too excited, though I have no info on the nethack wiki to tell me the exact numbers, from my exprience guns suck, which might be because no particular class is very good with them. (You'd think they'd make tourists good with guns, it'd be fitting. And undead slayers, so they can pull off Alucards/Van Hellsings...)


I stopped playing it when I figured out there was no chance of winning it.. Ever.. I've been playing on immortal mode only to get stuck. Whether an infinite loop or a level I just don't know how to go beyond. Seeing as there's so much crap to know.


People complained halo was hard and I beat that in a day or two. I'm good at fast paced first-person shooters. I pwned at Zelda too, defeating bosses way before I was suppose to encounter them. Like the level eight boss I encounterd while I was at first level. (IE: Three hearts)

It's having to remember a bunch of situational crap and lugging around tons of equipment I only use occassionaly that I suck at.

[Were-Sandwich]

Guns are only in the slash'em expansion. Pistols are actually rarer then shotguns.


How does one acquire this awesome sounding thing?

[King_of_GRiffins]

I... I want to cry now. :smallfrown: After reading this and talking to one of my friends, I've started picking up Nethack again over the past couple of days. I'd never gotten farther then the mines, in which I'd always got killed because of a horde of angry bees/wasps/pointy flying creatures, but this time around I was smart enough to avoid it. I was doing well and made it to Sokoban, solved the first three puzzles without help, and cheated a tiny bit for the fourth. It was during the fourth that I died.

Earlier, since I realized I was burdened, I thought it'd be a good idea to drop some of my items that I hadn't identified and were weighing me down; potions, wands, books, scrolls, rings, anything potentially valuable really. To complete the scene about to unfold, I don't have a number pad, and don't want to take away the convenience of pressing a single key for an action by calling directions to them. Instead, I click which space I want, and occasionally I'll click a space far away because I've been there already and want to get there fast. If I want to hurry without 'traveling' then I hit the up, down, left or right keys. Of course, going back and forward pushing rocks isn't the most exciting thing, and I wanted to be done with it since I had fairly much solved the fourth level after pushing them into their proper positions.

On my way back towards where I stowed my loot near the stairs in order to push yet another block, I encounter a large kobold who had picked up all of my stuff, or at least what in hindsight seems to be a wand of fire or something to that liking. This might not have been a problem, if not for some reason I was stunned either by the automove or by something thrown at me, and promptly disintegrated by a kobold with a wand. Just before I had my equipment identified on death, the game humored me by asking what I wanted to call that wand :smallsigh:

Short to say, I think I'm going to be glad Sokoban doesn't have bones files...

Edit: In total hindsight of the matter, I believe what occured may have been the following; I had auto pickup on from earlier so I could pick something from a hole before falling down it, and the kobold had moved some of my stuff directly into my paht, thus removing several dozen of my possible turns in order to individually pick up my moved stuff...

[Adumbration]

All right, here's the deal.

I hit the jackpot. :smallbiggrin: I drank from a fountain, got a wish. At level 2 with a wizard. I wished for that dragon scale mail that gives reflection - looked up some advice from wikipedia.

What to do next? How to survive?

[King_of_GRiffins]

All right, here's the deal.

I hit the jackpot. :smallbiggrin: I drank from a fountain, got a wish. At level 2 with a wizard. I wished for that dragon scale mail that gives reflection - looked up some advice from wikipedia.

What to do next? How to survive?

Don't back yourself into a corner, don't put on or use something until you know if its B/U/C, don't used wands you haven't identified at all in desperate situations unless you're prepared to handle the consequences, and don't kick in doors at mine town. That's what I've gathered so far :smallsigh:

[Adumbration]

Don't back yourself into a corner, don't put on or use something until you know if its B/U/C, don't used wands you haven't identified at all in desperate situations unless you're prepared to handle the consequences, and don't kick in doors at mine town. That's what I've gathered so far :smallsigh:

Level 6 now, in the gnomish mines. I'm a gnome too, so I'm not too worried - although I am now escaping from a ghost, it dodged all of my force bolts and I ran up stairs.

Oh, and I lost my kitten. At one point it just didn't come, and I got bored of waiting and went downstairs without it.

[King_of_GRiffins]

Level 6 now, in the gnomish mines. I'm a gnome too, so I'm not too worried - although I am now escaping from a ghost, it dodged all of my force bolts and I ran up stairs.

Oh, and I lost my kitten. At one point it just didn't come, and I got bored of waiting and went downstairs without it.

I'm a level 7 dwarven Valkyrie, I'm in minetown, stuck in a shop after a yeti and mimic double teamed me. I survived on low health by dodging into the shop and buying something, blocking myself in. Now the shopkeep won't move...

Edit: Additionaly, I have made myself invisible at some point to help me survive. this has resulted in the shop keeper blocking the door. Of course, never expecting to become invisible, I didn't bring any mummy wrappings, and that is why I am trapped. I'm not at all sure how to get out without murder...

[Adumbration]

I'm a level 7 dwarven Valkyrie, I'm in minetown, stuck in a shop after a yeti and mimic double teamed me. I survived on low health by dodging into the shop and buying something, blocking myself in. Now the shopkeep won't move...

Edit: Additionaly, I have made myself invisible at some point to help me survive. this has resulted in the shop keeper blocking the door. Of course, never expecting to become invisible, I didn't bring any mummy wrappings, and that is why I am trapped. I'm not at all sure how to get out without murder...

That's funny, at the moment I'm trapped inside a room with mummy wrappings in it. What do they do if worn?

I think I'm screwed, by the way. Outside the door there at least 2 unicorns, and a bunch of soldier ants. The only reason I got away in the first place was my Wand of Teleportation, and that now has only 1 charge left. I'm keeping an eye on things with my telepathy (blindfold + ate floating eye corpse), and I've engraved Elbereth in front of the door in case something opens it.

Once my pp and health is full, I think I'll try to make a run for it. Any suggestions?

Oh, and there are two shops and a priest of Anhur there somewhere. Does that help?

EDIT: A bit of good luck, a gnome zombie opened the door and Elbereth saved me. Ants almost came in, but I got couple of them with Force bolts. I'll wait out now and go.

EDIT 2: Nope, just died. A peaceful dwarf dug in and let a soldier ant in. I died.

[King_of_GRiffins]

[QUOTE=Adumbration;4273993]That's funny, at the moment I'm trapped inside a room with mummy wrappings in it. What do they do if worn?
/QUOTE]

They work like cloaks, can be B/U/C, and have 0 AC. They can make you visible while invisible. That's it really....

[Raroy]

I can't seem to get pass the mines. I always get ganged up by gnomes with ranged weapons. Part of the problem is that I pick up crap when I try to run. I guess I could turn off auto loot and spam Elbereth but I would like a more sound strategy.

[King_of_GRiffins]

I can't seem to get pass the mines. I always get ganged up by gnomes with ranged weapons. Part of the problem is that I pick up crap when I try to run. I guess I could turn off auto loot and spam Elbereth but I would like a more sound strategy.

I've found that the best strategy is to avoid them and come back later. I like going down until I find the Oracle level, search and play through Sokoban, then go back up and see what I can collect from the mines. After a while though, a luckstone doesn't seem too worth it...

[DanielX]

I can't seem to get pass the mines. I always get ganged up by gnomes with ranged weapons. Part of the problem is that I pick up crap when I try to run. I guess I could turn off auto loot and spam Elbereth but I would like a more sound strategy.

Play as a dwarf. The gnomes are friendly if you're a dwarf or gnome. They're also more likely to be friendly to neutral-aligned characters.

[Raroy]

Skipping levels doesn't sound so smart. I'd probally be killed before I get out of there anyway.

If I have to play a smallkin then I guess I should. Until I become experienced enough to not need to, that is.

[Ziren]

My strategy for the mine is usually to clear the first level (from my experience, there is a good chance of getting a magic whistle there) then go back up. Then I get down in the normal dungeon until I find the oracle. Get back upstairs, clear the mines until minetown (possibly further if I got lucky with the equipment).

Also, I found being a dwarf for the mine, as I usually have to waste a prayer for food because of the lack of corpses.

[Inyssius Tor]

THERE we go!

(Well, kind of:

REST
IN
PEACE

Ialis
3048 Au
poisoned by a
rotted gnome
corpse

Goodbye Ialis the Wizard...

You were poisoned in The Gnomish Mines on dungeon level 10 with 19080 points,
and 3048 pieces of gold, after 4807 moves.
You were level 9 with a maximum of 58 hit points when you were poisoned.

...but that's the farthest I've ever gotten by about three levels.)
I guess I'm finally learning to slow down! After killing a whole bunch of dwarves and gnome lords and a gnome king, I waited for a few turns to get my HP up above 15 via my ring of regeneration, then went to devour some corpses to compensate for all that lost nutrition. Oh well, chalk it up to YASD and start again!

[Raroy]

The furthest I ever got was with a level ten knight. Of course that was before I turned auto loot off so no character will ever die from being attacked while immobile. I'm getting better at this now. Only seems to be occasional horrendous luck that gets me.

[Bitzeralisis]

I'd win this game if I had more patience. But, alas, I do not.

[Inyssius Tor]

I wonder what percentage of deaths happen on each level of the dungeon? Some sort of map (http://steamgames.com/status/ep2/ep2_stats.php#) detailing how many kills happen per level, and to what classes (see if there are any significant differences there)...

[factotum]

I guess I'm finally learning to slow down! After killing a whole bunch of dwarves and gnome lords and a gnome king, I waited for a few turns to get my HP up above 15 via my ring of regeneration, then went to devour some corpses to compensate for all that lost nutrition. Oh well, chalk it up to YASD and start again!

See, that's why I always go for Sokoban first rather than the Mines...unless the entrance to Soko is really deep in the dungeon you have a reasonable chance of reaching it without having to pray for food more than once, and you'd have to be majorly unlucky to not pick up enough food for ten thousand turns in there. Once you have enough food you can go back up and do the Mines to get that elusive luckstone.

Randomly eating old corpses is disastrous...not even poison resistance will save you against food poisoning!

Oh, and I assume you realise that a Ring of Regeneration pushes your food consumption rate WAY up? I wouldn't ever wear one unless you had plenty of food available!

[King_of_GRiffins]

I wonder what percentage of deaths happen on each level of the dungeon? Some sort of map (http://steamgames.com/status/ep2/ep2_stats.php#) detailing how many kills happen per level, and to what classes (see if there are any significant differences there)...

http://www.alt.org/nethack/topdeaths.html has a list of player deaths. If you back out to http://www.alt.org/nethack/, there are links to that sort of thing all over the page. However, it'd be rather hard to make a heatmap for randomly made dungeon levels.... Maybe for the pre-set ones I suppose...

[RS14]

Well, I've not got much to add, as many of the other posters have given good advice.

http://www.alt.org/nethack/avg_dlvl.html lists the average depths reached by the 2100 top players.

Try throwing daggers. They never disappear, do decent damage, and are an easy ranged weapon. Let me illustrate the power of ranged weapons.

Unlike in D&D, melee attacks take one round. You attack, everyone else attacks. Ranged attacks, however, can consist of up to about 5 shots per round. I believe the average for an expert archer is 3. Furthermore, if you enchant bless stacks of arrows, they rarely disappear. A large stack will last you for the whole game. Did I mention that it costs just as much to enchant a single sword as it does a huge stack of arrows? That bonus (+8 if you split the huge stack into smaller pieces, so you can enchant it above +7 with only the loss of a few arrows) gets added to every shot as damage. Now add poison for +1d6 and a chance of an instakill, if I remember correctly. And you do all this several times before your enemy even gets close (unless they can teleport). An optimized ranger is nuts, and even a low-level wizard using a small stack of daggers can deal decent damage.

[Raroy]

A guy on that list ascended 234 times. He deserves to be the best just because.

I always seem to die while helpless now a-days. I got pretty far in mine town with a monk though.

[pendell]

[QUOTE=Adumbration;4273993]That's funny, at the moment I'm trapped inside a room with mummy wrappings in it. What do they do if worn?
/QUOTE]

They work like cloaks, can be B/U/C, and have 0 AC. They can make you visible while invisible. That's it really....

Also, if you are killed while wearing it, your body will rise as a mummy.

It's not under your control, of course. But if a bones level is left you may encounter an 'M" containing the corpse.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[DeathQuaker]

Randomly eating old corpses is disastrous...not even poison resistance will save you against food poisoning!

No, but certain spells, prayer, or the famed body-part of a magical creature will (which once you find one, you should NEVER be without).

But you still shouldn't eat old corpses anyway.


Try throwing daggers. They never disappear, do decent damage, and are an easy ranged weapon. Let me illustrate the power of ranged weapons.


Question: how many daggers do you recommend carrying? I've tried doing this and always manage to weigh down my character too much. I certainly could be packratting too many other things (one of the hardest things I've had to learn in this game is how to travel light), but if I could get a guideline for how many daggers I ought to have I can probably figure out how to balance that with the rest of my stuff.

I've heard Rogues do especially well with throwing daggers.

[RS14]

Question: how many daggers do you recommend carrying?
I usually wind up with 10 or 11, if I'm using them significantly. It depends somewhat on how skilled my character is with them.
Rogues do quite well with daggers, yes.