Stuck in a rut

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Awhile ago (August 14, 2004), I finally Ascended my first character,
a Human Wizard. < http://tinyurl.com/4zysx > Since then I've been trying
valkyries, with little success. I had two that were close (past Dlvl 40,
full Ascension kit). One died in a horrific system accident (recompiled
and it overwrote my saves directory), and another died in one of the worst
Nethack flubs ever - choking on a lizard. Not for any reason mind you ...
I had just killed a lizard and I felt like eating it. Go figure.

So now I'm stuck in a rut. I've been playing valkyries pretty much
exclusively since my Ascension, and one way or another, something bad
always seems to happen before I can get too far. Most recently it was
poisoned pit trap ... before that, I had a naked encounter with a pack of
ants.

I guess the only thing I can really do is keep playing. *Sigh* I
really envy those people that can Ascend most of the games they start. My
games played:Ascension ratio is in the thousands, if not tens of thousands.

--
~ Cyde Weys ~
So say we all.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Cyde Weys wrote:
> [ascendind a wizard, then dying with valkyries]

Most people do the reverse...

> So now I'm stuck in a rut. I've been playing valkyries pretty much
> exclusively since my Ascension, and one way or another, something bad
> always seems to happen before I can get too far. Most recently it
> was poisoned pit trap ... before that, I had a naked encounter with a
> pack of ants.

Maybe you play too fast? Even valkyries are advantaged by taking their
times gaining experience. Are you nurturing your pet? Do you use the
wands you find? Do you do sokoban before the mines?

I'm no protection racketer, but I like to keep a low XP level (4-6)
before I've located Sokoban and minetown. XP Level 6 is uncomfortable
if I don't have both poison resistance and a good AC. The point being
you must balance your experience level, not only for your AC and
dungeon depth, but also with the intrinsics/extrinsics you have.

Maybe you should play a couple of tourist games, just to reset your
outlook and basic strategies, tourist must be very prudent from the
start else they die - which could be said for most classes, but it's
most pronounced with the tourist.

These days I tend to play almost exclusively T, Ro, A and W. When I
switch to one of the fighter class, I find the early game very very
easy in comparison. It might help you to vary a bit your type of games.
I never play Samurai, monks and knights.

> I guess the only thing I can really do is keep playing. *Sigh* I
> really envy those people that can Ascend most of the games they
> start. My games played:Ascension ratio is in the thousands, if not
> tens of thousands.

I guess like most of us... I have about the same ratio - 3 ascensions
to date.

cheers!
--
Jean-françois Côté

P.S. Posting from google - reformating quotes by hand - tell me if I
screwed it up.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Cyde Weys wrote:
> I take advantage of wands, but not pets so much. I don't like pets.
> Usually they end up dying or running off and turning feral. They're
> just too much work. I want to go where I want when I want. I don't
> like having to wait around on the stairs for my pet to come to me.

No-one likes pets. They do a lot of stupid things and are a pain in
the arse, but they are the only way to avoid gaining levels until you
get the equipment and intrinsics you need to deal with higher level
monsters. Pets are cowardly, greedy, obstinate bastards, but I'll take
about all I can get.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Jacobs wrote:
> "Philip Bollom" <philip_bollom@yahoo.com> wrote in
> news:1109796692.254415.307430@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:
>
> >
> > Cyde Weys wrote:
> >> I take advantage of wands, but not pets so much. I don't like
pets.
> >> Usually they end up dying or running off and turning feral.
They're
> >> just too much work. I want to go where I want when I want. I
don't
> >> like having to wait around on the stairs for my pet to come to me.
> >
> > No-one likes pets. They do a lot of stupid things and are a pain
in
> > the arse, but they are the only way to avoid gaining levels until
you
> > get the equipment and intrinsics you need to deal with higher level
> > monsters.
>
> The only way?? Certainly not. I have done about six ascensions and
none
> of them used pets before the astral plane, some of them never did.

Very well, please enlighten me as to the other ways of surviving in the
dungeon while avoiding experience. Pets really do annoy me, and I
would love to have an alternative.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack,misc.misc (More info?)

Philip Bollom wrote:

> No-one likes pets.

Ooooh! I do, I do. In my current game at one time I
was ferrying eleven of them up and down stairs
repeatedly between my current working level and my
stashes on Dlvl:2 and Dlvl:8, without a leash or a
magic whistle, or for a long time even a blindfold
to let me find them with telepathy. At the best
point I had a mature white dragon, raised up from a
pup, a Murmak, and a Baluchitherium (named "John
Baluchi", of course) in that crowd, but the dragon
went mysteriously feral, ate a lot of his teammates,
and I plain lost the two mammals [they're each as
big as a _house_; how the heck do you _lose_ them?]

They're like a walking army, courtesy of the "charm
monster" spell; they off shopkeepers, the Oracle,
I've had to lock the temple door to keep them out
after displacing my war horse to protect the
priest's life, they savage the Mines Town guard, to
my benefit, and so on.

This has gotten plain silly, as I've been using
"charm monster" as a battle strategy [a dwarf lord
read a cursed create monster scroll, you've never
seen such variety as he summoned, perhaps 25 in
all], so I've ended up with pet yellow mold and
purple fungus (promptly abandoned), gray ooze, dwarf
and dwarf lord, gold golem (useless, even telepathy
won't tell you where they've wandered off to hide),
bugbear, and perhaps a dozen more types so far.

The first thing I do walking up or down stairs to a
bones or other level full of monsters, with the
first brigade of my arriving army, is cast charm
monster, and suddenly all the nearby enemy are
fighting on my team. This keeps me out of melee, and
the crowding pets absorb a lot of the ranged
attacks, too.

Silliest is that this game started off with a pet
getting killed, so no protection racket, and yet I
carried 23000-odd zorkmids in to see the priest, and
have so far gained 7 points of protection from
temple donations, that curtesy of some credit
cloning, lots of !oOD and an early broad pick
putting buried and vaulted treasure at risk, and
multiple bones levels with (BoH full of zorkmids.

> They do a lot of stupid things and are a pain in
> the arse, but they are the only way to avoid
> gaining levels until you get the equipment and
> intrinsics you need to deal with higher level
> monsters. Pets are cowardly, greedy, obstinate
> bastards, but I'll take about all I can get.

Yep, I wish I'd taken a screen snapshot before the
stupid white dragon killed off the best ones and
then itself, but I recently re-learned charm
monster, and stuff continues to get better; I'm now
casting that and identfy plus seven other spells at
0% failure, and life is good. A decedant from a
Hearse file had _8_ scrolls of enchant armor, all
cursed, but since my first water prayer produced 30
b!oW, I'm now at gross AC -18 with nothing that
interferes with spellcasting.

Sweet.

In the Sokoban treasure zoo, which I hit at maybe
XL:8 but was quite shallow at Dlvl:4, I just opened
the door and then displaced my army toward it; when
I walked in myself a few turns later, the only
surviving enemy combatant was a lone imp, whom I
ignored to go pick up my amulet of reflection.

Working Sokoban with no telepathy, and 3 - 7 pets,
meant I made a few "pet behind the rock" mistakes
that were corrected with a wand of teleport; it
didn't help that I arrived with an XL high enough to
decorate the place with large mimics, either;
luckily I know the layouts all by heart, and just go
give a mimic a kick to get it to move itself out of
the way until one of my pets can handle it for me.

NetHack is all about learning patience, and learning
to manage pets helps me learn to play the whole game
much better. This game is going spectacularly well,
almost entirely courtesy of the pets, and if some
YASD doesn't come along soon, will end up being one
of the more than a dozen I've set aside because
ascending looks boring and likely.

YMMV

xanthian.
 
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"nonobots" <jfcote@nonobots.com> wrote in
news:1109788820.884057.290630@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

> Cyde Weys wrote:
>> [ascendind a wizard, then dying with valkyries]
>
> Most people do the reverse...

I know, I was playing valkyries and barbarians for awhile and decided to
play a wizard just for a change of pace ... and wouldn't you know it ...
I ended up Ascending that wizard.

>> So now I'm stuck in a rut. I've been playing valkyries pretty much
>> exclusively since my Ascension, and one way or another, something bad
>> always seems to happen before I can get too far. Most recently it
>> was poisoned pit trap ... before that, I had a naked encounter with a
>> pack of ants.
>
> Maybe you play too fast? Even valkyries are advantaged by taking their
> times gaining experience. Are you nurturing your pet? Do you use the
> wands you find? Do you do sokoban before the mines?

In that game I couldn't do Sokoban before the Mines because I ran into a
really annoying bones level with four water moccasins surrounding the
stairs. I was planning to go into the mines to get better armor (AC was
3) to deal with them, but I hit the poisoned pit.

I take advantage of wands, but not pets so much. I don't like pets.
Usually they end up dying or running off and turning feral. They're
just too much work. I want to go where I want when I want. I don't
like having to wait around on the stairs for my pet to come to me.

> I'm no protection racketer, but I like to keep a low XP level (4-6)
> before I've located Sokoban and minetown. XP Level 6 is uncomfortable
> if I don't have both poison resistance and a good AC. The point being
> you must balance your experience level, not only for your AC and
> dungeon depth, but also with the intrinsics/extrinsics you have.

I see the advantage of staying as low a level as possible, but that
isn't necessarily possible with my playing style. If I run into
monsters I can take, I kill them, otherwise I run away ... I don't
dabble with pets. Sometimes I get bad luck and I get no good armor
while still gaining levels.

> Maybe you should play a couple of tourist games, just to reset your
> outlook and basic strategies, tourist must be very prudent from the
> start else they die - which could be said for most classes, but it's
> most pronounced with the tourist.

With my luck I'd end up Ascending the first tourist I created. I'd
rather Ascend a valkyrie first.

> These days I tend to play almost exclusively T, Ro, A and W. When I
> switch to one of the fighter class, I find the early game very very
> easy in comparison. It might help you to vary a bit your type of
> games. I never play Samurai, monks and knights.

I don't play most classes.

>> I guess the only thing I can really do is keep playing. *Sigh* I
>> really envy those people that can Ascend most of the games they
>> start. My games played:Ascension ratio is in the thousands, if not
>> tens of thousands.
>
> I guess like most of us... I have about the same ratio - 3 ascensions
> to date.


>
> P.S. Posting from google - reformating quotes by hand - tell me if I
> screwed it up.

If you click on "More Options" then "Reply" it'll do it automatically -
you shouldn't have to do it yourself.


--
~ Cyde Weys ~
So say we all.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack,misc.misc (More info?)

Philip Bollom wrote:

> Very well, please enlighten me as to the other
> ways of surviving in the dungeon while avoiding
> experience. Pets really do annoy me, and I would
> love to have an alternative.

"Good evening! My name is Rincewind, and I'll be your
track coach tonight. For your first course, may I
suggest 'running away from everything', a very popular
appetizer, perhaps followed by some 'Elbereth, name
with a view (to surviving)' for the main course, and
then perhaps some 'sleep, slow, teleport, displacement,
invisibility, heavy armor, six non-lethal monster
defenses' for dessert? The house wine tonight is
'Trapdoors and Wands of Digging, Speed Descent
Tools', a very good vintage, if taken in moderation."

HTH

xanthian.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
> Philip Bollom wrote:
>
> > Very well, please enlighten me as to the other
> > ways of surviving in the dungeon while avoiding
> > experience. Pets really do annoy me, and I would
> > love to have an alternative.
>
> "Good evening! My name is Rincewind, and I'll be your
> track coach tonight. For your first course, may I
> suggest 'running away from everything', a very popular
> appetizer, perhaps followed by some 'Elbereth, name
> with a view (to surviving)' for the main course, and
> then perhaps some 'sleep, slow, teleport, displacement,
> invisibility, heavy armor, six non-lethal monster
> defenses' for dessert? The house wine tonight is
> 'Trapdoors and Wands of Digging, Speed Descent
> Tools', a very good vintage, if taken in moderation."

Elbereth will protect you from the monsters, but it doesn't get rid of
them. If the monsters don't get killed, you're going to find it quite
difficult to get around. How are the monsters going to get killed if
you don't kill them? What are you going to use for defence before you
get all those nifty abilities you mentioned, and how are you going to
buc items without a pet? The first guaranteed altar is in minetown. I
have to say that I'm far from convinced, and since you use an army of
pets yourself, I don't think you'll object to me sticking with mine.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Cyde Weys wrote:

<snip woes>

> I take advantage of wands, but not pets so much. I don't like pets.
> Usually they end up dying or running off and turning feral. They're
> just too much work. I want to go where I want when I want. I don't
> like having to wait around on the stairs for my pet to come to me.

I think you need to seriously re-evaluate your position on pets. It can
be quite tedious waiting for a pet, but I can often find a magic whistle
by Minetown (sokoban first or not), which eliminates the need. Even
without a whistle, however, you can BUC ID, which is like having a
walking altar with you. Forget that they level up fast when you take
care of them (handy enough for diving to minetown), or that they'll help
you clean out most shops in record time (with proper encouragement),
because if you locate a wand of poly (I find one before the oracle with
GREAT regularity) then you can simply have them eat any shopkeepers you
run across, leaving you more cash than you can comfortably carry in your
sock (... or wherever)!

Remember - if your kitten is happy and well-fed, she'll follow you, but
she isn't telepathic! If you can see her (w/o infravision, telepathy,
etc) then she can see you, but otherwise, she'll take a LOT longer to
find you and the down stairs (note: this is based solely on experience,
not sourcediving - YMPWV though [that was a little obscure: "Your
Mileage Probably Won't Vary -ed.]). Name her after your worst enemy and
put her on a leash! Amaze your friends!

> "nonobots" <jfcote@nonobots.com> wrote in
> news:1109788820.884057.290630@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:
>>These days I tend to play almost exclusively T, Ro, A and W. When I
>>switch to one of the fighter class, I find the early game very very
>>easy in comparison. It might help you to vary a bit your type of
>>games. I never play Samurai, monks and knights.
>
>
> I don't play most classes.
>

When I get intensely bored playing one class, I pick one characteristic
(eg: male, or chaotic) and play random classes until I'm unbored.
Knights seem wicked dull to me though, and I rarely play them carefully.
I've ascended a Valk and a Barb, and come very close to an Arc and a
Caveman, but my top 100 scores still don't contain a single Knight.
Lowest highest score by class is held by a Tourist, at about 8500
points, low score is in the 6800 range. Does anyone else play strange
games with their record file?

stone
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

SMG <cottagestone@verizon.net> wrote in
news:OzpVd.67165$8a6.45007@trndny09:

> Cyde Weys wrote:
>
I don't like pets.
>> Usually they end up dying or running off and turning feral. They're
>> just too much work. I want to go where I want when I want. I don't
>> like having to wait around on the stairs for my pet to come to me.
>
> I think you need to seriously re-evaluate your position on pets. It
> can be quite tedious waiting for a pet, but I can often find a magic
> whistle by Minetown (sokoban first or not), which eliminates the need.
>

You're probably right that the game is easier with pets if one is
patient, but that doesn't mean it's better. I can't stand pets either.
It's just an opinion thing.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

"Philip Bollom" <philip_bollom@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:1109796692.254415.307430@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

>
> Cyde Weys wrote:
>> I take advantage of wands, but not pets so much. I don't like pets.
>> Usually they end up dying or running off and turning feral. They're
>> just too much work. I want to go where I want when I want. I don't
>> like having to wait around on the stairs for my pet to come to me.
>
> No-one likes pets. They do a lot of stupid things and are a pain in
> the arse, but they are the only way to avoid gaining levels until you
> get the equipment and intrinsics you need to deal with higher level
> monsters.

The only way?? Certainly not. I have done about six ascensions and none
of them used pets before the astral plane, some of them never did.
>
>
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

"Philip Bollom" <philip_bollom@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Cyde Weys wrote:
> > I take advantage of wands, but not pets so much. I don't like pets.
> > Usually they end up dying or running off and turning feral. They're
> > just too much work. I want to go where I want when I want. I don't
> > like having to wait around on the stairs for my pet to come to me.
>
> No-one likes pets.

Hogwash.

Richard
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

"Kent Paul Dolan" <xanthian@well.com> wrote in news:1109818778.404267.90870
@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

> NetHack is all about learning patience, and learning
> to manage pets helps me learn to play the whole game
> much better. This game is going spectacularly well,
> almost entirely courtesy of the pets, and if some
> YASD doesn't come along soon, will end up being one
> of the more than a dozen I've set aside because
> ascending looks boring and likely.

I thought you'd never Ascended before?



--
~ Cyde Weys ~
So say we all.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

"Philip Bollom" <philip_bollom@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:1109817076.408576.34760@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:

> Very well, please enlighten me as to the other ways of surviving in the
> dungeon while avoiding experience. Pets really do annoy me, and I
> would love to have an alternative.

Conflict and sleep are the two methods that leep to my mind. I'm sure
that there are others.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

begin quoting Philip Bollom <philip_bollom@yahoo.com>:
>No-one likes pets.

I like pets just fine. The occasional bit of stair-shuffling is a small
price to pay for a bit of companionship on the journey.
--
David Damerell <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is Mania, March.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

"Philip Bollom" <philip_bollom@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:1109824097.995511.158230@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

>
> Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>> Philip Bollom wrote:
>>
>> > Very well, please enlighten me as to the other
>> > ways of surviving in the dungeon while avoiding
>> > experience. Pets really do annoy me, and I would
>> > love to have an alternative.
>
I'm not a pacifist. I have never tried to not gain experience.

I don't want to gain Tooo much, so I am careful not to altar-camp etc,
but if you don't drink potions of gain level and don't eat wraiths then
the amount of xp you'll gain by killing monsters is quite manageable
indeed. I never have trouble giving enough gold to donate either.
there's a lot of gold in the dungeons if one cares to look.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

On Wed, 2 Mar 2005, SMG wrote:

> she isn't telepathic! If you can see her (w/o infravision, telepathy,
> etc) then she can see you, but otherwise, she'll take a LOT longer to
> find you and the down stairs (note: this is based solely on experience,
> not sourcediving - YMPWV though [that was a little obscure: "Your

I once had an early pet with infravision (Water troll, died in the mines,
the bones file was awfull, just ruining two games in 1). He certainly find
much more quickly than usually in light-less area. So I would agree that
pet seing you are more likely to follow you.

> When I get intensely bored playing one class, I pick one characteristic
> (eg: male, or chaotic) and play random classes until I'm unbored.
> Knights seem wicked dull to me though, and I rarely play them carefully.
> I've ascended a Valk and a Barb, and come very close to an Arc and a
> Caveman, but my top 100 scores still don't contain a single Knight.

A male Valk and a chaotic knight ? :-D

Hypocoristiquement,
Jym.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Boudewijn Waijers wrote:

> Philip Bollom wrote:
>
>> No-one likes pets.
>
> Speak for yourself!
>
> 🙂

Okay, so far that I've seen two people have mentioned that they don't like
pets (I'm not one of them). Are there any others?

Occasionally I get frustrated with pets, and I may leave them behind
sometime in the middle game if I can't find a magic whistle, and I won't
always try to replace them in the later game if they die, but in general I
think pets are great.

--
Benjamin Lewis

I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of
oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate
commerce. -- J. Edgar Hoover
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Seraphim wrote:
> "Philip Bollom" <philip_bollom@yahoo.com> wrote in
> news:1109817076.408576.34760@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:
>
> > Very well, please enlighten me as to the other ways of surviving in
the
> > dungeon while avoiding experience. Pets really do annoy me, and I
> > would love to have an alternative.
>
> Conflict and sleep are the two methods that leep to my mind. I'm sure

> that there are others.

Again, what are you going to do until you happen to find that ring of
conflict? My argument was that you are stuck with your pet until you
get the items and intrinsics that allow you to deal with higher level
monsters. Doesn't citing these very items strike anyone as a bit of
circular reasoning?
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Philip Bollom wrote:

> No-one likes pets.

Speak for yourself!

🙂

--
Boudewijn Waijers (kroisos at home.nl).

The garden of happiness is surrounded by a wall so low only children
can look over it. - "the Orphanage of Hits", former Dutch radio show.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Philipp Lucas wrote:

> Benjamin Lewis <bclewis@cs.sfu.ca> wrote:
>
>> Okay, so far that I've seen two people have mentioned that they don't
>> like pets (I'm not one of them). Are there any others?
>
> Here! I'm playing pettype:none since Virgo's patch came out, and used to
> abandon my pet on level 1 before that. Pets in NetHack are just too
> annoying. I do not care whether curse-identifying, robbing or the
> additional fighting power would make the game easier,

Easier or not, I find it more fun with pets. This is a matter of taste, of
course, but I think pets add variety.

> just as much as I do not care that solving Sokoban would make it easier.

Sokoban is fun too 😛

--
Benjamin Lewis

I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of
oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate
commerce. -- J. Edgar Hoover
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Benjamin Lewis <bclewis@cs.sfu.ca> wrote:

>Okay, so far that I've seen two people have mentioned that they don't like
>pets (I'm not one of them). Are there any others?

Here! I'm playing pettype:none since Virgo's patch came out, and used to
abandon my pet on level 1 before that. Pets in NetHack are just too
annoying. I do not care whether curse-identifying, robbing or the
additional fighting power would make the game easier, just as much as I
do not care that solving Sokoban would make it easier.

--
Philipp Lucas
phlucas@online-club.de
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

On 3 Mar 2005 20:08:12 -0800, "Philip Bollom"
<philip_bollom@yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>Seraphim wrote:
>> "Philip Bollom" <philip_bollom@yahoo.com> wrote in
>> news:1109817076.408576.34760@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:
>>
>> > Very well, please enlighten me as to the other ways of surviving in
>the
>> > dungeon while avoiding experience. Pets really do annoy me, and I
>> > would love to have an alternative.
>>
>> Conflict and sleep are the two methods that leep to my mind. I'm sure
>
>> that there are others.
>
>Again, what are you going to do until you happen to find that ring of
>conflict? My argument was that you are stuck with your pet until you
>get the items and intrinsics that allow you to deal with higher level
>monsters. Doesn't citing these very items strike anyone as a bit of
>circular reasoning?

It would appear you're actually looking for the answer to a different
question from the one earlier stated. Do you want to _kill_ monsters
without a pet and without gaining XP, or just leave the pet and avoid
gaining XP? There have been several ways posted that can be used as an
way to continue adventuring without killing monsters yourself. This
continued adventuring will allow you (with time and patience) to find
more gold and items.

Granted, it's not easy to go entirely without killing monsters. But
then, you didn't ask for _easy_ alternatives, just alternatives. A
couple that haven't been mentioned: jumping (spell, boots, Knight
ability), let monsters trigger existing traps (not made by you),
mirrors, cameras, nail monsters with !oConfusion, !oParalysis or
!oBlindness... And if you occasionally kill the odd monster, you won't
gain XP too terribly quickly.

Alternatively, play a class with enough starting equipment to be able
to handle the nasties a little longer, and don't worry about gaining
levels.

--
Keiran
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Keiran wrote:
> On 3 Mar 2005 20:08:12 -0800, "Philip Bollom"
> <philip_bollom@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >Seraphim wrote:
> >> "Philip Bollom" <philip_bollom@yahoo.com> wrote in
> >> news:1109817076.408576.34760@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:
> >>
> >> > Very well, please enlighten me as to the other ways of surviving
in
> >the
> >> > dungeon while avoiding experience. Pets really do annoy me, and
I
> >> > would love to have an alternative.
> >>
> >> Conflict and sleep are the two methods that leep to my mind. I'm
sure
> >
> >> that there are others.
> >
> >Again, what are you going to do until you happen to find that ring
of
> >conflict? My argument was that you are stuck with your pet until
you
> >get the items and intrinsics that allow you to deal with higher
level
> >monsters. Doesn't citing these very items strike anyone as a bit of
> >circular reasoning?
>
> It would appear you're actually looking for the answer to a different
> question from the one earlier stated. Do you want to _kill_ monsters
> without a pet and without gaining XP, or just leave the pet and avoid
> gaining XP? There have been several ways posted that can be used as
an
> way to continue adventuring without killing monsters yourself. This
> continued adventuring will allow you (with time and patience) to find
> more gold and items.
>
> Granted, it's not easy to go entirely without killing monsters. But
> then, you didn't ask for _easy_ alternatives, just alternatives. A
> couple that haven't been mentioned: jumping (spell, boots, Knight
> ability), let monsters trigger existing traps (not made by you),
> mirrors, cameras, nail monsters with !oConfusion, !oParalysis or
> !oBlindness... And if you occasionally kill the odd monster, you
won't
> gain XP too terribly quickly.

Since I was asking for alternatives to using a pet, I don't think it is
unreasonable to assume that the alternatives should be easier than
using a pet. I never indicated I was interested in voluntary
challenges.

> Alternatively, play a class with enough starting equipment to be able
> to handle the nasties a little longer, and don't worry about gaining
> levels.

True, since the time period between the beginning of the game and the
point at which you have the equipment to deal with tougher monsters
becomes empty.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Benjamin Lewis wrote:

> Okay, so far that I've seen two people have mentioned that they don't like
> pets (I'm not one of them). Are there any others?

Make that three.

My main gripe about pets, at least in the early game, is that they tend to
attack nymphs. They're asleep, m'kay? and I'd just as soon let them sleep.
No sleeping nymph ever pinched my cloak of protection.

--
--------------===============<[ Ray Chason ]>===============--------------
The War on Terra is not meant to be won.
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
 
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