Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (
More info?)
anon wrote:
> Is this game actually designed to try to kill you at critical points?
Umm, yes. Despite all the YAAPs you'll see in this newsgroup, Nethack is
a difficult game to win. When you have climbed that mountain you can
consider it a significant personal achievement (and I will look forward
to reading your YAFAP when the time comes!).
> Despite studying every spoiler, I've had so many promising characters
> YASD'd, it's ridiculous. Today, I was playing a barbarian whom I had
> painstakingly built up with Cleaver, all blessed (mithril) armor, tons
> of rings and wands, unihorn, and a pet troll. Promptly stumbled into an
> Arch lich in a corridor on level 11(!), which killed my barbarian
> immediately with touch of death. Considering that my barbarian was only
> level 9, I'm really not sure that was fair. Oh well...
>
All's fair where the RNG is concerned! If you were playing on your own
local system, my guess is your barbarian encountered a chameleon that
chose one of the more deadly forms it could have assumed, in which case
your best plan would involve early detection (telepathy+blindfold/towel
or other method of blindness) and giving it a wide berth when it becomes
something deadly. If you were playing on a Nethack server, though, you
could have been the victim of a nasty bones file.
> Question (spoiler): I think I have the general idea of the game
> strategy, but am not sure in what order I should tackle the special
> levels (i.e. Sokoban, Mines, Ludios, etc.) And what stuff can I expect
> from each? Because I had heard that Sokoban had a BoH, but it didn't
> when I finished it. (only saw three small rooms that had a spellbook and
> a wand).
Ludios is not guaranteed to be reachable in every game, and if it is
reachable in your game, you should do everything you can in the Mines
and Sokoban(1) at the very least before attempting an assault on it. It
is an extremely good idea to have reflection before trying Ludios (magic
resistance being desirable as well).
The Mines will always yield you a couple of shops and an aligned priest
where you should get as much protection as money can buy, and you'll
usually get nice armor (not ascension-grade, mind you, but good enough
to get better). The Mines End level will yield a luckstone and possibly
some other useful items (spellbooks if the Catacombs, for instance). All
the way through the Mines you'll also pick up enough gems to be able to
figure out the good from the bad for the most part, not to mention that
it may be the only place you'll find a pick-axe or mattock for digging.
Sokoban will have either a bag of holding or an amulet of reflection as
the final prize. Your description sounds like you got the latter, but
since you weren't expecting it you may not have looked around carefully
enough to discover the amulet. It is good to have a source of
reflection, so consider it a worthy prize unless you've already come
across another one, a shield of reflection or SDSM, in which case it's
_still good_ to have backups
Which order to tackle things is for the most part a matter of taste,
your playing style and your character's particular needs. If you lack
food, you might consider going to Sokoban early because it supplies it
in healthy measure. If you want to buy early protection, your best bet
is to dive into the Mines, making sure you have one or more strong pets
to protect you and help with the shops.
Survival in Nethack is a complex web of solving immediate problems as
they come up intertwined with furthering longer-range goals as you go
along. Try to keep in mind that although your next step could be your
last, you don't have to take it without thinking about the mess you're
in for as long as you want. My most recent ascension was a Samurai who
got grabbed by an eel in Fort Ludios; the best move in that particular
instance was to strike the eel, but it took me about a half-hour of
thinking, checking and re-checking inventory, consulting spoilers,
re-reading in-game messages and more thinking before I did it (and it
changed the way I approach moats permanently!).
Happy hacking!
-Ken
(1) Sokoban may not yield a necessary item for you if you find what it
normally provides elsewhere before you tackle it. It can be a good
source of food, wands and rings that you might not find as early
otherwise, though.
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