Re: YAFAP Faux the Necromancer

_.-In rec.games.roguelike.nethack, Faux_Pseudo wrote the following -._
You offer the Amulet of Yendor to Anhur...--More--

Ok yesturday I posted the facts of the offering. Today I will talk a
little bit about how I got there.

I have been playing off and on for 6 years now. A few years ago I
stopped playing on my home system and started playing at NAO.
http://alt.org/nethack/player-stats.php?player=faux

I decided a long time ago that I would try to focus on one class and
make the most of it. As the link above shows I focused on the Wizard
class. Almost all of the non-wizard games that are shown there were
played within two weeks of my ascension. I decided to strech my legs
a bit and see how the other half die. When I came back to playing a
wizard I ascended on my first try. Looks like that was a good
plan. :)

When I started this game I decided to head down to soko as fast as
possible. If I found the steps I went down them and didn't look
back. Before I got to soko I had identified a ring of teleport
control and created a leprechaun corps. This set the tone for the
game. I finished soko without any errors and grabbed the amulet.

After that I went down and found an alter. I found a magic lantern
and got myself the silver dragon armor. I managed to get two wands of
poly and milked those for a =SD and a spell book of identify. MBane
came shortly after that. At this point I knew that as long as I
didn't do anything stupid I was good to go. I was already fast
because of a wand of speed monster in my starting invatory.

Because in less than two hours I had what I think of as a wizards kit
for the early game I headed over to the mines. No problems there.
Came back up and camped on my alter long enough to wish for a
spellbook of polymorph. I milked polymorph for the rest of the game.
With it I removed unneeded items from the game and filtered out useless
items like wands of striking for wands of fire/cold/tele/death. I
kept one cancellation wand and one of the rest in my main inventory and
stashed the rest in my bag for the end game when I knew the amulet
would hinder my spell casting.

I used polymorph and identify to go through every piece of armor I
found until just after Orc town. If I found something that was a +3
or better I polyed it until it either vanished or I got something safe
for a wizard to use. At Orc town I found a bones file that had a full
compliment of +5 items and changed out my +3s and +4s boots, cloak and
dragon mail for those. That bones file also had all the holy water I
could hope for and the Master Key of Thievary. With that and a -42 to
-50 (depending on how many ring fingers I had free) AC I never dropped
more than 20 HP from my max. All that nurse dancing for naught.


Until I got up to about 340 HP I danced with every nurse I could
find. I even went back up to Soko so I could reverse genocided them
just after finishing the Quest. I even went so far as to wear a
negativly charged ring of protection to insure they could hit me as
much as possible. I didn't bother with foocubi.

Even though I got a few potions of gain level I avoided them till I
was ready to run back up with the amulet. I didn't want my max level
too big down at the bottom of the dungeon. Even then, as my inventory
shows, I didn't drink them all. I did drink plenty of gain ability
and gain energy options that I got from the poly pile.

I kept my travel bag of holding in a oilskin sack. In here I had
esential items like a spair pair of water walking boots, =oSD, =oL,
3 ?oRC, wands, etc. It was just enough stuff to make sure that if I
fell through a hole I would be able to get back up to my main stash
without needing to go down looking for stuff first.

I dropped my bags of holding at each set of stairs as I went down
them. Carved Elbereth and explored each level unburdened. After
defeating all of the demons I went all the way back up and started
digging clean paths from stair to stair on each level to shorten the
amount of time I would be running from Rodney.

Being burdened was starting to be a hastle so I dumped my bag of
holding with all my gems in it. My score didn't matter. I just
wanted to get to the end in one piece.

At this point it was a cycle of kill something, look something up in
the spoilers to make sure I had everything right. Rinse and repeat.
If anyone was watching me play they were likely to think I was
retarded for just sitting there a minute between each kill or series
of actions. I was trying to be safe and no sorry.

When I decided it was time to storm the tower I read up on my spells
and rechecked my invatory to make sure that everything was in place.
I killed the wizard and priest with no problem. It was actually too
easy. For Rodney I cast dig into his tower and did Finger of Death
on him. For the priest I didn't want to step on each fire trap even
though it wouldn't hurt me. I opted to jsut force bolt each part of
his walls until I found the hole. Then I moved back and forth till he
was in the right spot and used Finger of Death again.
I dropped the book and the candle stick but kept the bell in case I
needed it again.

On my way back up I did a final equip check at my stash. Read up on
some spells that had gone stale and put FoD, Force, MM and I think one
other book in my travel bag just in case I needed them for later. I
left all the rest with the rest of my stuff.

I ran for the planes and once out of hell I didn't have any issues
with going backwords. But I did have lots of issues with getting out
of hell because of that. Rodney showed up a few times but I was able
to FoD him before he ever got a chance to do anything. He did try to
double team me on the plain of air because I got caught up with a
whole mess of nasties. So when he showed up I was in a Conflict zone
and while the monsters were busy beating eachother I was able to FoD
him both times without isssue.

The plain of water was a pain. I kept loosing the portal. Had to
burn at least two scrolls to find it. I got to the final level and
had the only moments of panic I had had in the whole game. Pestilence
came up first and he kept making me sick. Even with my blessed
unicorn horn it was taking two or three tries to make myself better.
I thought I was going to die two or three times from that. Then I
managed to kill him. After some trial and error I learned just how
valuable a wand of teleport was. Too many things in the way? Zap
them. Next time I polypile everything under the sun I will be keeping
more than three wands of telport for the run.

As the screen capture shows I had to hit all three alters to find the
right one. But it was worth it.

Now I have some hard choices to make. Do I keep playing? If so do I
try another class? Try to play wizard again without abusing
polymorph? Or do I go out and meet people in the real world?
Well it is time for me to go buy a T-Shrit:
http://www.zazzle.com/i_ascendedand_all_i_got_was_this_lousy_7_t_shirt-235085067236320682


--
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Relevant Pages

  • Slash, War of Wizards, Mini-Review, BRs and VP (was Re: Official 7DRLPC Review Thread)
    ... roguelike playing compo has begun. ... Setting up a game could not be easier; ... the wizard Glowie, whom breath is cold like a frozen depth. ... Add magic equipment (Affects base spell list) ...
    (rec.games.roguelike.misc)
  • Re: At the gates of Gehennom!
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  • Re: 4e - return of the golf bag
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    (rec.games.frp.dnd)
  • Re: dirty harry v.s. White water?
    ... The rules are completely vague it's as if you get to ... the wizard ... Don't know that I'd ever hold that against a game if I'm playing it at ...
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  • YAFAP Indyal-Val-Hum-Fem-Law (long, spoily)
    ... Early in the game I found some killer items: ... on my first ever polypet attempt got Felix the arch-lich. ... Fortunately I had a huge sack of rings and wands named made redundant ... large dogs ...
    (rec.games.roguelike.nethack)