Jelly's Adventures in Nethack (unspoiled)
I decided that I would give NetHack a try today. I played the game once or twice briefly a few years ago, and have been thinking for awhile about giving it another chance. Just for fun, I thought I would document my adventures here, completely unspoiled, as I try to figure the game out. ADOM is the only Rogue-like I've ever really played to this point, so it will be an interesting experience to see how it goes. If you have played NetHack, please don't include spoilers in this thread unless I explicitly ask for them...
Character 1: Joe the Samurai
Picked Samurai more or less because it sounded cool. I have a blessed katana and wakazashi, some splint mail, and a yumi, which is apparently a kind of Japanese bow. For some reason I have a dog named Hachi. I explore about a third of the first level before finding that I've run out of real estate. Apparently paths just sometimes stop randomly? I go back and find a secret door. Autopickup is apparently on by default, which is kind of annoying. My katana gets rusted by a trap before I kill my first monster. Kill a few other things, find the stairs. Find a chest which I pick up but can't open while it's in my inventory. Weird. Okay, put it down, figure out how to turn off auto-pickup. For some reason you open doors but loot chests. I try to force the lock but my rusty katana breaks. Equip the wakazashi and use that to pry the lock. Some gold and a melon in it. Probably not worth the loss of my primary weapon. Descend, leaving my dog behind, and level up on some goblins. Not sure what effects leveling has. Then again, I don't know what special abilities I'm supposed to have as a samurai either. Never did figure that out. Leveled again and descended again. Level 3 has two downstairs; I choose one at random. On level 4 I get attacked by two things called rothes that are doing lots of damage and get lots of hits. I retreat and remember to try my bow, but I can't shoot very well, apparently. I get trapped in a corner because you can't walk diagonally through doors if you have too much gear? But I'm not encumbered... I kill one rothe but the other one kills me.
Joe the Lawful Human Samurai was killed by a rothe on level 4, gaining 1119 points in 1160 moves, while killing 33 monsters.
Not bad for a first attempt, I guess. I note on the high score that there's religion, of course. Should have tried to pray, maybe.
Character 2: Mike the Knight
Okay, tried a knight this time. Start with some decent knighty armor, a lance +1 and a longsword +1. I have a pony this time. There's a fountain on the level, but I don't try drinking. Doing pretty well killing stuff so far. Find a brass ring which I equip to no obvious effect. Try reading a scroll that gives a "strange sensation", but no obvious effect either. Fall through a trap door! That's actually a pretty cool type of trap. Work my way back up. Leveling seems a little slower on the knight than my samurai. I find a dwarvish helmet that I equip. NetHack uses the negative AC thing I see. Okay, so it's better than what I have. Level once or twice more, descend again. A goblin drops an opal ring that I equip. Inventory in this game is annoying. There's different keys for equipping weapons, armor, and accessories, and different keys for removing them. Wandering a bit later, I suddenly turn into a blue jelly! WTF! A bunch of my gear gets dropped and I'm massively encumbered. Uh, okay. A couple monsters show up next to me as I change back. I try to attack one, but I'm not wearing my gear (oops) so I have bad armor class, and it happens to be a paralyzing eye monster. Paralysis death. Ouch. Inventory reveals that the opal ring was a cursed ring of polymorph, which was apparently the culprit of my jelly adventure. Neat trap item.
Mike the Knight died on level 3 with 726 points after 1763 moves. He advanced to level 4.
To be continued...
Hoping to win with every class, doomed. Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastfighter, Druid, Elementalist, Farmer, Fighter, Monk, and ULE Priest down.