Nethack: What's your favourite character class?

MattyBoy · October 9, 2002, 02:58

Interested to hear what classes people have tried and which ones they liked.
Would love to know how to play other classes (Monk, Ranger, Priest, Lawful chars)

My experience is that the game is much much easier for some classes (Valkyrie) than others (Tourist).

I like Valkyrie and Wizard.
Valkyrie is clearly the easiest of those I have tried.

Currently trying Caveman and after 15-20 starts I still haven't gotten a character to experience level 11

DaveV · October 9, 2002, 07:41

Wizards. My emphasis in sword & sorcery games has always been on the latter. Wizards are pretty weak in nethack (low hitpoints, poor physical stats, poor armor), but I still find them the most fun to play. I really miss the athame from earlier versions, though...

loinburger · October 9, 2002, 10:10

Samurai and Wizard. I love the Samurai's speed intrinsic, and Wizards are just kick-ass (as long as you have a good spot to stash all of your spellbooks), especially once they've picked up MagicBane.

Archeologist is actually pretty nice too -- the Auto-Search intrinsic is helpful, and the ability to achieve expertise in Sabers makes Greyswandir a wutangerific demonbuster.

Drake Tungsten · October 9, 2002, 23:29

I just started playing NetHack again after reading about it on another thread here. Fun game but extremely hard. I've stuck with the Samurai so far and they seem to work pretty good. The speed intrinsic kicks ass, as Loinburger said. Hopefully I'll make it far enough into the game to get an artifact one of these days...

MattyBoy · October 9, 2002, 23:54

Perhaps I'll try Samurai. I was put off Samurai, because the weapons all have different names and life is too short to learn a second language.

DaveV, what has changed about the athame? Magicbane is still around, but is it weaker or something?

BTW, my caveman seems to be doing a bit better this time, but it is such hard work getting enough good intrinsics.

Trust me about Valkyrie being easy:
- the small shield is a major head start
- Mjollnir is always your first artifact and it is awesome
- the quest gives you early access to 18/** strength and fire resistance.
- intelligence is usually just good enough to give you some reasonable spell casting by the late game.

loinburger · October 10, 2002, 00:19

Samurai gets some advantages with weapons -- Tsurugis (sp) are naturally rust-proof, using a samurai bow with samurai arrows will automatically let you fire two arrows per round, and the katana-wazikashi pairing is extremely powerful (since samurai can get expertise in swords and two-weapon fighting, and the speed intrinsic makes two-weapon fighting all the more powerful). Valkyries get some nice intrinsics, but Samurai are my favorite warrior class.

Drake Tungsten · October 10, 2002, 00:32

Loinburger - Would gaining expertise in short swords have any sort of effect on my samurai's two handed fighting abilities? I'm an expert in long sword and two-handed fighting, but my short sword skill is still basic. I didn't want to run around fighting things with just a wazikashi to up its skills, but it may be worth it if it boosts my two-handed fighting skills...

Urban Ranger · October 10, 2002, 01:07

Wizards in rogue-like games. They become the most powerful after a while.

DaveV · October 10, 2002, 08:33

Quote:

Originally posted by MattyBoy
DaveV, what has changed about the athame? Magicbane is still around, but is it weaker or something?

In the build I first started playing (3.1?), wizards started with an athame (just an ordinary one, not Magicbane) as their weapon, instead of a quarterstaff in 3.4. The athame could engrave "Elbereth" in a single turn, without ever dulling.

loinburger · October 10, 2002, 09:51

Quote:

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Loinburger - Would gaining expertise in short swords have any sort of effect on my samurai's two handed fighting abilities?

AFAIK it'll have an effect on the damage that you cause with a wazikashi, as well as your chance to hit with a wazikashi, but the benefits aren't worth switching to just fighting with a wazikashi IMO. You still increase your short sword skill when you're fighting with matched katana/wazikashi, just not so quickly (since enemies tend to die before you hit them very much...)

If you head back up to the top levels of the dungeon for some reason then you might want to switch to the wazikashi as a single weapon (since the monsters up on top won't be much of a problem), but otherwise don't worry about it. As long as both your katana and wazikashi are maxed out on their enchantments you're good to go.

loinburger · October 10, 2002, 09:52

BTW, what's the point of carving Elbereth? I've never been able to figure this out.

DaveV · October 10, 2002, 10:58

Quote:

Originally posted by loinburger
BTW, what's the point of carving Elbereth? I've never been able to figure this out.

Non-humanoid monsters (all but @) will not attack you while you stand on an Elbereth square. They can still throw stuff or zap wands at you, and you have to be careful not to rub it out...

Drake Tungsten · October 10, 2002, 16:40

Quote:

BTW, what's the point of carving Elbereth? I've never been able to figure this out.

You can also engrave it on squares that contain chests or other valuables that you don't want monsters to loot.

MattyBoy · October 10, 2002, 20:50

Quote:

You can also engrave it on squares that contain chests or other valuables that you don't want monsters to loot.

Now that is a cool idea.

BTW in my current game, I stumbled across a teleport trap to the Fort in one of those secret gold rooms. I have fought so many soldiers at the entrance that when I came back to look for food I found 51 C-Rations on one square and more than 15 screens of armor!

Drake Tungsten · October 10, 2002, 21:40

Quote:

I found 51 C-Rations on one square and more than 15 screens of armor!

Wow.

I need to get better at this game so that I can do cool things like that!

Jon Miller · October 11, 2002, 00:24

so far I have done best with the elf class

I seem to die from starvation fairly often (getting killed whlie fainted

this last time I had food, I just forgot about it

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · October 11, 2002, 21:50

I need some assistance

how do you put on a ring?

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · October 11, 2002, 21:51

and how do you look?

Jpokn Miller

Drake Tungsten · October 12, 2002, 02:55

Quote:

how do you put on a ring?

Hit shift-p to put on non-armour items, rings included.

And the game looks automatically for you. If you want more information about an object, hit / and then select the item you want the info for.

Hope that helps...

Jon Miller · October 12, 2002, 03:05

I figured out rings

and also how to look in the square I am in (this is how I found out what fountains, sinks, and altars are) (I had seen them but had no clue what they were before)

there are defnitely some stronger and weaker classes

the wizard is a surprsingly good fighter

I hear everyone talking about the valkery, but s/he has very little HP and attack power

the elf and wizard are what I have done the best with (the problem with the healer is that I have not figured out how to heal myself, the problem with the preist is that my failure rate with spells is 100%)

Jon Miller

Ari Rahikkala · October 13, 2002, 04:54

Elf? What version are you playing?

loinburger · October 13, 2002, 11:21

If your spell failure rate is too high, then take off some metal items (like armors and weapons). Metal impedes magic in the game. (I'm not sure if this is just iron, or if silver also impedes magic.) IIRC the only armor that you can wear that won't impede magic is Dragon Mail. (Currently wearing (among other things): Grey Dragon Mail, Cloak of Protection, and Amulet of Reflection. I'm pretty much immune to all things magical at this point.)

MattyBoy · October 14, 2002, 02:26

Crystal Plate Mail doesn't get in the way either.
I think weapons have no impact on spell casting ability.

I actually just stop occasionally, take off most of my armour and cast a few spells to exercise my wisdom, practise my spell-casting and heal myself to exercise my constitution.

Quote:

this last time I had food, I just forgot about it

That makes it a bit hard

Valkyrie gets strong once you find some good armour. Takes a long time for her to get any decent spell casting due to lack of intelligence, but she's meant to be a fighting type anyway.

My Caveman is still grinding away. I cheated (resaving) to complete my quest, but promise not to cheat again now that I'm more familiar with the Nemesis that is subject of that quest.

This time I have learnt the value of tinning kits (can eat without getting full) and have been enhancing weapon skills as much as possible (never notice that #enhance thing before). It has made a difference when my character is caught weaponless or using pick-axe or too weighed down for favourite weapon or choosing weaponless for e.g Rust Monster.

Given this experience I would definitely be practising my dagger skill on easy monsters so that I am better at two-weapon combat when it really counts.

The caveman is tough too, as his quest is very hard and the artifact gained on that quest is weaker than the valkyrie's.

MattyBoy · October 14, 2002, 20:08

Back to the drawing board

----------
/ \
/ REST \
/ IN \
/ PEACE \
/ \
| Jack |
| 1695 Au |
| killed by a |
| minotaur |
| |
| |
| 2002 |
*| * * * | *
_________)/\\_//(\/(/\)/\//\/|_)_______

Goodbye Jack the Cavewoman...

You died in The Dungeons of Doom on dungeon level 23...

MattyBoy · October 15, 2002, 02:12

I haven't played lawful characters before and I got a bad message when my dwarf samurai killed a peaceful character. I gather that's a bad thing to do?

loinburger · October 15, 2002, 09:13

Yup, lawful characters aren't allowed to attack peaceful characters, which is a real pain because it's sometimes difficult to tell whether a character is peaceful or not (so missile weapons aren't as useful).

Monks must also be vegerarian or vegan, so it's difficult for them to gain intrinsics by eating corpses.

MattyBoy · October 15, 2002, 16:17

Sounds like too much of a pain in the ar$e to me.
I guess I'll just do some playtesting and see what the penalties are, especially if I want to play monk seriously

loinburger · October 15, 2002, 17:11

They can still eat corpses, and lawful characters can still attack peaceful creatures, but it can make their god angry if done too much. (My monk character would still eat things to gain an intrinsic, since a few alignment hits are no big deal, but it couldn't eat meat corpses for sustenance or its god would quickly become angry).

Drake Tungsten · October 15, 2002, 19:47

Quote:

I haven't played lawful characters before and I got a bad message when my dwarf samurai killed a peaceful character.

How did you get a dwarf samurai? In my version of Nethack, only humans can be a samurai...

BTW, if you want to kill peaceful characters without the hit to your alignment, just keep your pet around and let him kill the peaceful character. My dog Hachi has gotten a lot of dwarvish equipment for me in the Gnomish Mines.

MattyBoy · October 18, 2002, 01:13

Drake, I must have been wrong, because I, too, found that I couldn't make (another) dwarf samurai.

Thankyou Drake and Loin, these are useful tips.

Btw, Loin, apparently unicorn horns are effective more often if they are a higher +n.