From: msaari@cc.jyu.fi Subject: Absolute Beginner's Guide for Nethack Date: 19 Jan 2000 10:11:09 GMT Ok, here is the 1.0 version updated with some comments from you people. If you are mentioned, but don't like how, tell me what name I want me to use of you. I just picked the names from posted comments I got... It will also be available at http://www.iki.fi/msaari/nethack/. HTML and ASCII version will be there, as soon as I create the HTML and upload the files. Additional comments are welcome, I will post new versions whenever I see fit. Absolute Beginner's Guide for Nethack 3.3.0 v.1.0 =================================================== (a.k.a. I Keep Dying And Dying And Dying, What Should I Do? a.k.a. I Keep Dying In The Game And I Must Suck. What Am I Doing Wrong?) Written by Mikko Saari with contributions from Raisse the Thaumaturge, JPV, Aaron and Scott Schulz. Thanks to Gary D. Young for the second subtitle, though this honour probably belongs to the endless stream of newbies of r.g.r.n. May Moloch leave you in peace, for you are our future! Nethack is, without a doubt, the best game ever written. There are many reasons for this. First, it's free. Second, it's more complicated and deeper than pretty much anything else. And third, if zipped, it fits on single 1,44" diskette. How many games today can achieve all that? It is also one of the most difficult games I've ever met. I've never been able to finish it, I've never even been close. And I've played it for years. Ok, I suck, but it's also because the game is so difficult. Especially in the beginning. And that's why I wrote this, to help beginning players to get some idea what is going on, without spoiling the fun. If you have any comments/additions to this, please mail me. This is valid for Nethack 3.3.0, but most things should be correct for earlier versions as well. That I won't guarantee, however. And before you whine and complain to me, please read the disclaimer in the end. First, some quick notes which can help survival a lot, not in any particular order: * Don't get burdened. You want to be as fast as possible and being burdened slows you down. It's bloody embarrassing to fall down the stairs every single time, too. You can even die of that! * Treat your pet with care. Gods like those who take good care of their pets. Besides, your pet is often a lot wiser than you are. And a lot tougher... * Do not lean on keys. Learn the repeat command (n 10 s, if you use number_pad, will search ten times). * Turn rest_on_space off. It can be very dangerous, when skipping messages during a battle. Pressing it more than enough will give the monsters free chance to hit you. * Keep your eyes open. If you miss any messages, use Ctrl-P to read them. * Do not shift-run. It will run straight into traps, push boulders and so on. Running with g- is safer. * Leave peaceful creatures alone. They should not be killed unless there is a very good reason to do so. Let pet kill them... * Try to remember what you have in your inventory. It's not fun to die when something you had in your pack would have saved you. Use the 'i' command often; it doesn't take any time. * Put valuable and fragile things in safe containers. Holding multiple potions and scrolls in your pack just screams for a fire trap to appear. * Be wary when (q)uaffing from from fountains. Beginning characters usually just get killed that way. If you're low on hp's, leave fountains alone. Sinks too. * Nethack is not Quake. If there is a monster besides you, it doesn't mean you have to act quickly. Take your time and think! * Read the Guidebook. It has loads of useful information, for example one good way for beginners to survive a bit longer. It has to do with engraving, but I'm not telling it: go read the Guidebook! * If you can't find a stairway down, try (s)earching for secret doors. Each normal level has an exit down; special levels which don't have are rare. Then, some more information about following topics: * Choosing your character * Food * Identifying things * Monsters to avoid * Two stairs up/down?? * Immortality * Devteam thinks of everything * More information * Disclaimer = Choosing your character = Good idea is to play a lot of random characters in the beginning. If you get stuck on one character, you won't see the whole picture of the game. For example, playing only priests with their ability to detect cursed or blessed state of an object might make you too dependent of that ability. Play different classes to get the whole picture, then choose your favourites. There is, however, big differences in the survival rates of different classes. Barbarians and Valkyries are the strongest classes and so usually survive better than weaker classes. Lots of hit points, decent equiptment and strength to use it. Archeologists can identify gems. They start with a pickaxe (and should probably wield it, until they get a better weapon; a dwarwish mattock, that is). Barbarians are strong warriors. They start with good weapons and some food. Caveman are a weaker version of Barbarians. Not good, play Barbarians instead. They, however, don't know what cannibalism is and that can be useful sometimes. Healers have some interesting equipment and spells, but are rather weak. They should have no problems getting food, though. Knights have good equipment and are decent fighters. They can jump and turn undead. Monks are difficult, they are martial arts experts and should not use weapons or eat meat. Food rations are vegetarian, but you can't eat meaty corpses. Priests can identify blessed/cursed status of objects. It is very useful ability, but watch out that you won't get too used to it. Rangers are experts with ranged weapons and can be very deadly from a long distance. Rogues can throw multiple daggers in turn, which is good. They can also be experts in two-weapon combat. Samurais can fight with two weapons too and are strong warriors. They probably should start fighting with two weapons immediately to learn it. Only when it's really important to hit something, use one weapon. Tourists are a bit curious bunch. They have lots of money and food but not much else. One of the most difficult characters. Valkyries are the best choice for newbies, they are the strongest warriors and survive easily. Wizards start with force bolt spell, which increases their survival rate. Still, they are not the easiest class. Don't care too much about the race of your character. It has little impact on beginner's playing. Humans are the basic choice, other races have some benefits (infravision, mostly). Dwarves are ok for warrior types, elves for wizards. = Food = One thing that kept killing me in my early Nethack days was starvation. Many characters start without any food at all and it won't take very long to get hungry. After you're hungry, you get weak and sooner or later you'll be fainting and finally starving to death. Where to find food? Well, there's pretty much food just lying around. If you're getting hungry and the level in which you currently are is empty of food, try going down a level, there might be some food. One option is to kill something and eat it. However, while eating some corpses might give you certain benefits, eating some corpses will give nothing but a food poisoning. Few rules of thumb are a) eat your corpses fresh and b) your pet knows certain things better than you. Don't eat anything your pet won't. It'll keep you out of the worst trouble. Lichens are good, while not very nutritive. There also one way to get content stomach, but that should be left to the uttermost emergencies. If you have a healthy relationship with your god, praying will fill your stomach. However, one should not pray too often. Gods get angry and when they are angry, mere mortals should beware. So, save praying for food to those situations where it's a choice of praying or dying. = Identifying things = One of the first things you might notice is that you have little clue what different items do. The item descriptions are always randomized, so for example oval amulets are usually not what they were in previous game. However, all oval amulets in single game are the same. This same principle works for all objects, of course. One way to identify items is to use them. Put on an armour and see what it does to your AC. Wield a weapon and look how easily the monsters die. However, it's not a way I'd recommend. Armour might be cursed. That amulet you try might just be cursed amulet of strangulation. Whoops, you just died. The safest and the best way is spell of identify (usually from a scroll of identify) which will identify at least one item in your inventory, sometimes even more. Amulets and rings are pretty to safe to try on if you know that they are not cursed. If they cause anything hazardous, just take them off. Same goes for armour and weapons. Wands can be identified when you engrave with them and rings can be dropped in sinks. However, wand loses a charge when you engrave with it and ring is lost in the sink. If you don't know what the message you get means, you've just lost something you could have used. Sometimes, you don't identify a thing but are instead asked for a name to call it. You can also name items yourself, just use command #name. If you don't name just single item, the whole class of items gets named. That is useful for example if you identify a wand when you engrave with it but the program doesn't identify it for you. Just #name the item class yourself. There are some easy ways to figure out the blessed/cursed state of objects. If something is cursed, your pet won't step on it, or "moves only reluctantly". Also, if you drop things to an altar, it will whether they are cursed or blessed. Remember also the '\' command, which gives you a list of what you already know. You might have seen a monster use something and know it that way. = Monsters to avoid = You shouldn't be killing everything you meet. That will most probably result in horrific deaths. Some monsters should be avoided, unless you have means to combat them. Floating eyes (e) - these little eyeballs are one of my favourite monsters. They seem to be pretty harmless, but do not let their peaceful appearance fool you. They are deadly! Even though they can't damage you, their attack will freeze you and then you will be killed by some newt or other passing monster. Yet they are useful to kill, for their bodies hold useful magical powers. They are slow, so you should just run away and throw sharp and pointy things at them. Also, if you can't see them or they can't see you, they are safe to attack. Nymphs (n) - do not disturb nymphs unless you are prepared (with ranged weapons, that is). They steal your stuff and then teleport away. However, they won't usually leave the level so if you hunt and kill them, you'll get your stuff back. Leprechauns (l) - leprechauns are similar to nymphs, but instead of stealing equipment, they steal money. They are annoying, but easy way to handle them is to drop all your money and then go and beat them. Rothes (q) - rothes are dangerous to beginning characters. Their attack does lots of damage, mostly because they attack many times in a round. Besides, they usually appear in groups. Watch out for them. Fungi (F), molds (P), blobs (b), jellies (j) - while most of these are pretty harmless, some of them can do surprising amounts of damage to beginning characters. Also, they might be acidic and corrode your weapon. Avoid them, kill them from distance. They are very slow if they move at all. Mimics (m) - if you see a shop and there are some items, which don't fit in the general content of the shop, they are probably mimics. They are a dangerous bunch! They are slow, but do lots of damage. Especially as it's hard to flee from larger mimics. So watch out, they've been known to kill a lot of promising characters. It's also advisable to pick up all potions, scrolls and wands you see lying around. Even if you have no use for it, some monster just might. Intelligent monster know how to use them and a puny gnome is a lot less puny if it zaps you with a wand of lightning. And if you've never met a monster with a wand of digging, you've been lucky! = Two stairs up/down?? = Few levels down from the beginning of the game, you will find a level with two stairs down instead of one. The other stairs lead to Gnomish Mines, which is a branch of the main dungeon. It is easily identified when entered to, as it looks different from the normal dungeon. If you play a fighter character and have descended carefully enough so that you have about 50 hp:s, you might consider entering the Mines. Weaker characters should continue down the main dungeon and return when they are tougher. Gnomish Mines goes down about 8-10 levels. Halfway down there is a town, where one can find some shops and a temple with a priest. In the bottom, there is some interesting stuff (mostly valuable gems). The second stairs up can be found deeper in the main dungeon, below the Oracle level. They lead to Sokoban, a puzzle which has four levels. There you have to push boulders into holes that prevent your access to upper levels. The last level has a prize (random one of two good and very useful items) waiting. It's worth a try, at least to pick the food available in the first level. It's not required, however, so don't worry about it if it seems to be too hard. There are other branches, but I don't know much about them; if you can reach them, you shouldn't be reading this anymore. = Immortality = This ever-so-desired state can be achieved in this game. There are few ways, but the most reliable is the explore mode. Just press X and answer yes to the question. Ta-daa! You are now immortal. You won't get your score recorded, but that's a small prize to pay. Indeed, if you ever feel like quitting playing when you've died once or twice too often, try explore mode. You can freely experiment on various things (especially if you start game with 'nethack -X', when you will get a wand of wishing), without the fear of the errors in trial and error leading to an early doom. = Devteam thinks of everything = Most things have multiple uses, many of which you probably wouldn't think of. Try to do unexpected things and get unexpected results. For example, towel. You've read "Hitchhiker's guide to galaxy", haven't you? Towel is very useful item, in many different ways. As the proverb goes, "Devteam thinks of everything". They certainly do... = More information = Maybe the single best source for information is the newsgroup, rec.games.roguelike.nethack. There you can find lots of experienced players and source divers, who can tell you anything you want to know about the game. However, before asking questions there, check the guidebook. If your question is answered there, you won't make people angry. Nethackers are usually quite a jolly bunch, but it's annoying to answer the same questions again and again. One of the best web sites is Sascha's Nethack site at http://www.nethack.de. It has lots of spoilers and other useful information, so it's a good place to take a look at if you want to know more. Of course, the best source of information is the Nethack source code. It takes a little knowledge about programming in general to understand, but there are maps (Sokoban, all the Quest levels, endgame levels and so on) and other data files you might like to take a look at. = Disclaimer = I refuse any responsibility and so on. I am no Nethack god, not even a demigod (never ascended, not even been close - seen Gehennom once in explore mode). Instead, I'm rather experienced in dying with low level characters, which I think is more than enough for me to write this guide. This is merely intended to guide some beginners into safer waters, more experienced players will surely do things in different ways. Copyright (C) 2000 Mikko Saari. Distribution of this file is freely allowed and encouraged, just keep it as it is. If you want to see some changes, please contact me. I can be reached by e-mail at msaari@iki.fi. The latest version of this file is always available, in ascii and html at http://www.iki.fi/msaari/nethack/. -- Mikko Saari For you I even be a sunflower msaari@cc.jyu.fi Do you hear my enlightening laughter? 168 another reason to cut off an ear