Subject: YAAP: Travel light From: ais523 <ais523@nethack4.org> Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 11:53:45 +0000 (UTC)

So, inspired by the conversation we've been having here on RGRN, I just ascended a game of NetHack 4. (I first accidentally, then intentionally, exploited a bug in the current version of NetHack 4 on the server that makes it possible to walk on water on Juiblex's level, but I don't believe this mattered in the grand scheme of things, because I had a reliable levitation source, and don't remember taking lightning attacks there. Apart from that, though, it's pretty much identical to vanilla in terms of gameplay, apart from having a much better interface, which is one of the reasons I could bear to play through this game.) I dumped much of my inventory on the Altar to reduce score (I was aiming for the NetHack 4 lowest score trophy in Junethack, because my score was pretty awful as it was, and I'm currently in the lead for lowest score as a result), but here's what June the Valkyrie's inventory was the turn before (NetHack 4 shows the weights of items in inventory, which is quite relevant for this YAAP): Amulets '"' b - " a blessed amulet of life saving (being worn) {20} g - " an uncursed amulet of life saving {20} i - " an uncursed amulet of life saving {20} j - " the Amulet of Yendor {20} Weapons ')' a - ) the blessed rustproof +1 Excalibur (weapon in hand) {40} B - ) a blessed mace named The Sceptre of Might {30} F - ) a blessed rustproof samurai sword called katana (wielded in other hand) {40} Armor '[' n - [ an uncursed +0 dwarvish mithril-coat (being worn) {150} Y - [ a rustproof +3 helmet called telepathy (being worn) {50} Rings '=' l - = an uncursed ring of levitation {3} r - = a cursed ring of free action (on right hand) {3} Tools '(' s - ( an uncursed large box {355} u - ( the blessed Orb of Fate (1:1) {150} v - ( the cursed Bell of Opening (0:1) {10} w - ( a +0 unicorn horn {20} G - ( an uncursed frost horn named empty {18} The uncursed large box, at that point, contained nothing but a blessed scroll of remove curse. (It had contained many more items at one point, but most were used on the way up. This was pretty close to a perfect use of resources, because I was using the Bell of Opening for portal detection; if it had got cursed even a bit earlier, I'd have had to uncurse it in order to find the portal on Air, because using the Orb of Fate is too risky there.) I'd also abandoned a few items on Astral to save weight: three (0:0) wands of death, and a +1 highly eroded pair of leather gloves I'd been wearing most of the game. I'd love to have recharged one of the wands of death, but I needed the scroll of charging for the Orb of Fate. On top of all this, I had no divine protection; I'd been trying to make holy water on the ascension run to rebless the unicorn horn, but did it on a cross-aligned altar by mistake. As such, my Defence was 10 when I ascended (the equivalent of AC 0), and 11 (the equivalent of AC -1) throughout the other Planes. I had an AC of 19 for the Sanctum, IIRC. The katana turned out to be +0, incidentally; I'd wished for it at +3, but evidently didn't get that. I don't know what enchantment the Sceptre of Might had, but it hadly mattered. Evidently, this was not a normal game. I was testing out a bunch of theories about how helpul various items were, and as such was using the following rules: - When you find a large box, empty it out and use it as your container all game. No other containers can be used to store items (for more than a few turns; it's legal to empty them out to see if there are items inside.) - No DSM, of any kind. I tried an unknown base 80 scroll on some dragon scales at one point, but after it turned out to be remove curse, I decided I'd just go without DSM all game. - No reflection sources, at least knowingly. (I didn't do it unknowingly either, though, this game.) - When you get the Orb of Fate, take it with you for the rest of the game. (I ended up without it for a few turns because Rodney stole it, but I don't consider that a breach of the rules.) - No using magic markers. (I found one, and carried it around a bit, but decided that as I was doing so well I'd add a no-marker rule too. It's not like I had any scrolls worth writing identified at that point anyway, apart from genocide, charging, and remove curse.) - It wasn't actually a rule I was keeping to intentionally, but I never enchanted any armour or weapons (with scrolls of enchant armour or enchant weapon). Clearly, the main constraint on me was inventory weight, but by being very strict about what I'd deign to carry with me, I managed to stay unburdened most of the time. (I spent some time burdened, including for a few turns at a time on Astral to kick down doors or eat corpses, because my total inventory weight fit into my levitating carry capacity but not my normal carry capacity. That's why I dropped the wands of death and leather gloves; it was to make it possible to be unburdened while not levitating. In retrospect, I should have dropped the "tooled" horn instead; I emptied it intentionally in order to use it for scaring monsters on Air, but it's less good on Astral.) The luck this game was all over the place. The third altar was the correct one, and I needed to use an amulet of life saving as a result, but I was intending all along to use my amulets of life saving as healing items. I thought I'd need more, actually, having AC 1 on Astral, but it turns out that conflict + the Orb of Fate is pretty much enough by itself to do Astral, even if you have basically no armour and also have no reflection. Likewise, the Castle wand was (0:1); I used the wishes on: - 2 blessed scrolls of charging (got both, one recharged the Castle wand, the other recharged the Orb of Fate) - blessed fixed +3 Sceptre of Might (no idea what enchantment it was, and I never used it to attack; it's very valuable when playing reflectionless, though, because it both gives slotless MR (and thus protects from death rays), and because it gives conflict that can't be destroyed by lightning) - blessed fixed +3 helm of telepathy (got +3; I thought I needed as much AC as I could get, and as I didn't have see invisible at the time and I also didn't have a spare genocide for ;, I really wanted something to help keep me aware of monsters) - blessed fixed +3 katana (got +0; this is the best offhand weapon in the game against the enemies that really matter, such as Rodney, and pretty much everything on Astral; the wish lets me rustproof it, which is effectively a +3 in its own right) - blessed fixed ring of levitation (necessary for Air, and for crossing trapdoors in unavoidable locations in Gehennom) On the other hand, the game generated lots of wands of death and lots of amulets of life saving (4 total; I only needed 1), together with more wands of digging than I needed for Gehennom (although I was still stuck without digging on occasion due to leaving some of them in stashes throughout Gehennom to save on weight; wands weigh 7, which can be quite a lot under these conditions). Likewise, there was plenty of gold for buying protection (until I screwed it up trying to rebless my unihorn). I made exactly 3 potions of holy water this game; I used one on my unihorn, and one on a scroll of genocide in order to get a second blessed genocide. (My genocides were: blessed on L; blessed on D; and uncursed on master mind flayer.) Genociding D is more or less necessary in a reflectionless game; IIRC black dragons can destroy armour even if you personally are disintegration resistant (I was, via the nervewracking method of killing a black dragon entirely in melee so it didn't think to use its breath weapon), blue dragons can destroy wands and rings, and yellow dragons do reflectable damage that you can't prevent with any intrinsic. (I kept the wands and rings boxed most of the time anyway, but sometimes you have to have them in main inventory so that you can use them.) The main worries for reflectable attacks with D genocided are lightning from wands, and lightning sent by Moloch in the Sanctum, but these are manageable problems. (I did end up with a few destroyed wands, but they were non-valuable wands like digging or cold.) The remaining potion of holy water I turned out not to need, so I used it on an uncursed scroll of remove curse to save weight. I didn't really feel in danger at any point during this game, except near the start (where the monsters can be dangerous just in terms of the damage they can deal), and on Astral (where I thought I was doomed, but turned out not to be). The tooled horn (OK, so it wasn't actually a tooled horn, but close enough) is probably my favourite way to do Air, because there's so little risk; I only got engulfed by an air elemental once, and I used a wand of death charge on it in order to escape (because I thought I was almost certain to die otherwise). Twoweaponing with weapons with high base damage is a trick that many classes can't use, but it makes the endgame really easy, probably even more so than being a wizard does; it killed Riders in three attacks, for instance, which was really helpful here (because I would have died if I'd spent another turn in combat with Famine, for instance). Rodney was a little harder to melee to death than usual because my weapons didn't actually have any significant enchanment, but luckily I had plenty of wand of death charges to kill him on the way up. (Orcus' wand was abandoned in Gehennom when it emptied.) Incidentally, I had to kill Rodney 5 times in total; the mysterious force was about average for a lawful in terms of how often and far it sent me back, but the layouts of many individual levels were very kind, with a huge number of levels having the upstairs and downstairs unusually close to each other. There isn't much to talk about in the earlier game except the way I got level 14 (13 through combat, and 14 from a wraith), and the fact that I postponed the Quest until after the Castle because I needed MR due to the risk of wands of death. (And given that I actually got hit by a wand of death during the Quest, I'm glad I made that decision!) I spent a while farming up my Strength on Lord Surtur's level after killing him, so that I could almost budget for the Orb of Fate in my carrying capacity; it wasn't quite enough by itself, but dumping unneccessary items like wands got me back to Unburdened again. I did the Castle with a wand of striking and a wand of cold, which is my favourite method in this sort of game (you strike down the drawbridge, freeze the moat so monsters can leave, then run away and fight them from round a corner so that they can't attack you with wands); I didn't have MR before that point, so I had to be pretty careful about wands. (Also I was missing intrinsic shock resistance, although I had the ring for extrinsic shock resistance; the problem is, that's not a useful ring for most fights, because it only protects against wands of lightning and they destroy the ring anyway. It's really helpful against shock vortices, though.) Some miscellaneous stats: Final Strength: 18/70 Final experience level: 17 (533366 to level 18) Final max HP: 167 (boosted by quaffing healing potions off the ground) HP remaining upon reaching the correct (third) altar: 81 Weight of the Orb of Fate: 150 Weight of a large box: 350 Now will people believe me when I say the Orb of Fate is worth its weight? And that bags of holding are inferior to sacks because of how they behave when cursed? :) -- ais523