Foodless Monk - any advices?

[zsomkovacs]

I'm trying to complete the game without eating anything. /I can pick up food, but can't eat them, and I don't use the Survival skill. So I have to use potions, scrolls and piety./

I started a gnomish monk, so I need less food, gain experience quite fast and can use Pick pockets. At the moment I'm at Level 17. I did the portal quest, reached water temple. I've visited HMW. Water Temple seems to be too hard for me (I have darkness, but grues are too dangerous). I'm thinking about some gremlin hunting and then doing ToHK. I still have some potions and a scroll of satiation. There's a scroll shop on D:5. I've never prayed for food and I'm very close to my deity.

So what do you think I have to do now?

[Grey]

Well, stacking up on drinkable potions would be the biggest thing. And blessing any scrolls of satiation. You can get about 10 prayers in total for food before the piety cost because unsustainable.

A wish for alchemy may be useful in future, so you can turn less satiating potions into better ones. I don't have a list of all the satiating stuff myself though.

[gut]

you are afraid of water grues in dark?

[zsomkovacs]

I thought grues see in darkness...

[zsomkovacs]

Wow! Potion shop on UC1! Just what I needed.

[JellySlayer]

I thought grues see in darkness...

It makes no sense, but no they can't. Except stone grues, I think.

[Ascaron]

For reference when choosing what potions to buy:

http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Potions

That page includes information on the satiation value of (almost) all potions
(Quick version: Go for anything with toughness in the name, or berzio potions)

[zsomkovacs]

OK, I've done the Water Temple with darkness. Some levels deeper I found an amulet of teleport control, so I raided Darkforge. I got staff of the archmagi and Long Sting, but I don't use them. I was pretty lucky with pools, I got a wish /which I spent on magical writing sets - now I can write 14 scrolls. I wrote 5 scrolls of satiation but I still have 9/, a few nice resistances (including fire), invisibility, teleport control and teleportitis, so it's getting easier now. Mystic gave me the scrolls (and 7 potions). I'm crowned (lightning immunity + ring of immunity). I have a ring of ice as well. Now I'm hunting for some booze in Lawenilothehl for the wand of cold. I have a spellbook of Ice Ball in DT and I can increase my Wi above 32. I have plenty of extra healing potions, so ToEF won't be too hard to deal with...

[zsomkovacs]

Finished.

After ToEF, nothing was too hard. Cat Lord fell to wand of paralyzation, others were simply beaten. Food wasn't a problem at all after getting the writing sets. D50 would have been far too dangerous for me to clear, so I decided to dig a path to the levers without meeting any monsters (level 13 monk power rules), so I just had to swap position through the two small rooms. I pulled the lever, swapped position with the chaos wizards so the balors couldn't teleport on it, teleported away and did the same on the other side. This way D:50 took me less than 200 turns. At the end I did the Unicorn quest to get rid of the corruptions.

According to the flag, there were pretty nice artifacts in the game, like Executor and Preserver, but unfortunately I hadn't seen them. Maybe they were in one of the three greater vaults.

I think this was one of the strangest restriction I've ever tried. With this much luck it wasn't too hard, though. This was my fastest win as well (something like 55300 turns).

Thanks to everybody for the tips and to Ascaron for the link!

[gut]

i wouldn't have even thought this challenge was possible, honestly.
very cool to see it accomplished in < 80,000 turns. hopefully that
will help it get the nice final score that it deserves.