Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (
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JPD wrote:
> Greetings all. I have been playing NH for maybe 14 years, although
> rarely in the last 3 or 4 years and so there are all sorts of nuances
> (and new challenges) in 3.4.3 which are making life interesting.
>
> Of course, I've ascended before, so I'm now being choosy: I am
trying
> to ascend a Tourist. Many many failures so far.
>
> So what is the general opinion on Tourists? How many of you have
> ascended a T, and how many of you have sworn off them altogether (and
> why so)?
Tourists are a bit challenging, since they start out with ac 10 and low
strength. You're likely to be heavily dependant on your pet at first.
I recommend doing the protection racket, remaining clvl 1 until you can
buy protection in minetown. Make your pet do nearly all the killing.
In the very beginning I recommend blinding the first several monsters
with the expensive camera so your pet can gain a few levels without
such a risk of dying. After that he should be able to deal with all
the monsters you will encounter as long as your clvl remains low.
Tourists generally start out with a good supply of food, which means
you can use prayer to get more maxhp rather than to avoid starving. I
am always on the lookout for kobold zombies (1 xp) and gnome zombies (8
xp) so that I can gain alignment points without gaining clvl.
Non-coaligned always-hostile monsters give you at least 5 alignment
points. Lawful and chaotic players have it easier in this regard,
since they can kill newts and lichens for alignment, and these are more
commonly found. If you pray while in major trouble with zero
alignment, the chance that you're trouble will be fixed is only 50%.
I've seen prayer timeouts well over 1000 moves, so I normally don't
attempt prayer until I get my alignment above zero so the aid will be
guaranteed. When my maxhp is less than 16 I will let a relatively
harmless monster attack me until my hp are less than 6, then I pray for
healing. This adds 1-5 to your maxhp. Once I'm at 16 or above I quaff
my extra healing potions, blessing them if possible. With 14 alignment
you can pray when not in trouble and have a 1/3 chance of +5 maxhp, 1/3
chance blessed weapon, and 1/3 chance nothing, so eventually you can
have some respectable maxhp and still be clvl 1.
I don't hit the mines until I have ac, maxhp, items, pets, and
intrinsics that I feel comfortable with. In the meantime I explore the
levels completely in search of items, zombies, and additional pets. I
don't loot containers until I have at least 15 hp. I head for Sokoban
in order to get more food and exercise strength. You have to be
careful to take any negative luck due to Sokoban guilt into account,
because praying before the negative luck has timed out will anger your
deity. I will generally complete Sokoban while at clvl 1 only if I
have telepathy and multiple level 9 pets, because while the randomly
generated monsters will be low level, there are guaranteed to be 2
giant mimics on the level. Usually I just make a token appearance at
the top to get the low level monsters generated, then head back out.
How do I know that my pets are level 9? I count their kills. They
gain at least 1 maxhp per kill and a large dog will grow to a natural
maximum of 72 hp.
On the way back up the dungeon I clone credit in any shops and use my
pets to get the gold back. When I enter the mines I generally have ac
-3, 35 maxhp, poison resistance, telepathy, and 2-4 pets. The more
pets you have the better, since it takes less time then to wait for a
pet to enter a square you're considering moving to. It is also very
likely that at least one pet will fall through a trapdoor or be
teleported to another level, so it's reassuring to have others to fall
back on. More pets also means that you're more likely to have a
non-eating pet available to protect you.
Once at minetown I take my pets around to kill all the gnomes and
dwarfs. I try to lock the watch captain in a room to keep him away
from the pets, or failing that I blind him with the camera to increase
my pets' chances against him. Blinding him makes him angry, so be
prepared to take a few hits.
After getting the gold from the minetown shops I buy as much protection
as possible from the priest. Naked ac 1 will cost no more than zk3200,
and getting more protection than that is a big gamble. I recently got
to only naked ac -1 with zk24000. Another time I got to ac -3 with
about zk9000. Once you've got your protection it's time to level up.
Opinion is divided on whether you should go to safer levels in order to
do this. Everyone else seems to think you should, while I maintain
that minetown and the levels below are as good a place as any to gain
experience. After all, I can probably survive indefinitely in minetown
with my pets to protect me, and there are always an abundance of
monsters I am perfectly capable of killing. I attack slow monsters
with a dagger to increase the skill; otherwise I use the camera and +2
darts. Once I gain a few levels, I head down to mine's end for the
luckstone, then find a co-aligned altar and perform as many hekatombs
as it takes to get Magicbane. I like to two-weapon +7 Magicbane and a
+7 silver sabre. I also collect as many daggers as possible so that I
can enchant some up to +9/10.
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