ron@uthub.UUCP (Ron Wessels) (01/07/85)
Some clever person recently suggested zapping your friendly neighborhood
Fido with a haste monster. Has anyone thought about what would happen if
you zapped him with a polymorph? He (she?) stays tame! So you can have
a pet Dragon following you around the dungeon (I had to settle for a pet
Purple Worm when my wand ran out of charges :-).
As for wild dogs in the dungeon, has anyone tried throwing food at them?
They prefer tripe rations, although they'll take cadavers or regular food
rations.
Speaking of food, I presume people have noticed that various cadavers give
various intrinsic properties when eaten? Such as teleportation for Leppies.
Others exist too. Try eating a floating eye and watch what happens next
time you are blinded.
As for chrysknives, you know that long worms give a "worm tooth" weapon
when killed. You also know that a crysknife can be produced from this
tooth (type "/w"). Now what sort of enchantment would it take to turn
the worm tooth into a crysknife? Beware, though. The crysknife you get
is unfixed (read Dune for details).
Finally, you get some really interesting results when reading certain
scrolls while confused. I won't give details ... go ahead and experiment.
Some of the results are quite useful, too!
To start another branch of this discussion, what type of characters do
people generally start off with? I have successfully returned from level 28
with the Amulet of Yendor running a cave-man (gloat!). The good strength
means that you can carry lots of stuff. Others insist that wizards are the
way to go ... two tins of Spinach and you're set in the strength department,
and you've got all that initial stuff. Nobody that I know of has managed to
get past level 2 with either a tourist or a speleologist. Fighters aren't
bad, and knights have good armor. What's the general opinion of the net?
--
Ron Wessels Computer Systems Research Institute University of Toronto
{ decvax , floyd , ihnp4 , linus , utzoo , uw-beaver }!utcsrgv!uthub!ronrobison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison) (01/09/85)
I hastened a pet and it soon starved. It may be
that a hastened pet has trouble getting enough to eat.
When polymorphing my pet, I prefer speed to
absolute strength, unless I have a magic
whistle (makes a "strange" sound). A
leucrotta does very well, for example.
If a tamed dragon breathes fire, you might get
accidentally burned. Anyone have this experience?
You can do really interesting things with the ball
and chain. For example, if you are in a shop,
away from the door, and the shopkeeper isn't blocking
the door: throw your ball at the door. You will
fly through the air, following it, and be able to sneak
out of the shop. The ball makes a terrific weapon, too.
I have gotten to level 6 as a speleologist, by being careful
to carry the icebox as little as possible. I think the
icebox is really a handicap.
The tourist can do very well. You must be very careful
about gaining experience points, since the tourist can
only afford to fight alone when s/he will win. Blind
everything with the camera, stay close to your pet, and
let it do most of the fighting until you get a weapon,
armor, and experience.
Ghosts of tourists will bequeath their cameras to posterity,
so for more interesting dungeons, its a good
idea to play as a tourist sometimes.
NOTES FOR FUTURE VERSIONS OF HACK: Here's an idea for
a new type of character. He starts with the HP, strength,
etc, of a tourist and an inventory consisting of only:
2 wands of wishing. Call him the "Svengali".
- Toby Robison (not Robinson!)
{allegra, decvax!ittvax, fisher, princeton}!eosp1!robison