df@ptsfa.UUCP (Dave Fox) (09/13/85)
I've finally achieved my first entry into hell in version 1.0.3, which has brought up quite a bit I'd like to discuss with the rest of you hack addicts. To the questions: Can you dig through the floor in the maze? If a wand of digging can, just how do you specify down as a direction? What's with the rooms that give the message 'You have an uncanny feeling..'? They seemed to a crypt, filled with wraiths, vampires, and various ghosts. Another special room like the treasure zoos and beehives. Does a ring of adorment really work against nymphs? If not, what ring will? And now for the spoilers > 1. What's the method of going down through the mazes? > I had my potion of confusion, ring of Teleport control, > ring of teleport, and I had even eaten t's, L's etc.. > Nothing would work, is there some order to it? You need a scroll of teleport. It's the confusedly reading of the scroll that alters the teleport to different levels. I tried ^T but it didn't work. >I ended up going up the stairs to a level with rooms, and digging a hole. >Then I kept going back up to this level and going through this hole, which >was now a trap door. This was the only was I could get past maze level 26. The only way I handled it was to teleport to level 30, and then work my way up from there. As I came up each stairway, there was not a down stairway underneath but the next up stairway. I quaffed a potion of object detection on level 30 and saw the amulet at the center of the screen. I kept my ring of teleport control on, and so kept trying to get near there. After a few Sorry..'s because I was trying to land on a wall or a monster, I landed in the pool surrounding the Wizard and the hound of hell. I fell in, and attempted a teleport spell, chose just the other side of the wall of the pool, and proceeded to blast through the walls with a wand of digging, which seems to take out only one wall at a time in the mazes. I quaffed a potion of levitation and went after the amulet. The hound was on the spot where I'd spotted the amulet and Wizard was next to him. I figured stomp the hound first, then take out the Wizard. I'd loaded up with various wands, etc, not knowing what I'd need against the Wizard. I spent numerous turns beating the hound to death but when I started to whack the Wizard (with a two handed sword) I got one chance, which hit him, and he disappeared. After spending considerable time wandering the maze looking for him, I decided to go back up and regroup. Upon going up the stairs, the Wizard was waiting. Again one hit and poof! I chased him up to level 22 before taking him out and finally getting the amulet. One of those levels was wasted on trying a wand of cancellation which didn't slow him down. Is there any way to keep the Wizard from doing this? Should I have beat on him immediately, or is this how he always behaves? He was taking swings at me while I abused the hound. Do things have different properties in hell? When I read a blank scroll I'd run across there, it turned all the other scrolls I had blank! Also I wanted to get rid of my cursed helmet which had been rusted into the negative. I read a scroll of destroy armor I'd found after trashing the rest of my scrolls, and my helmet didn't just turn to dust, it exploded. Is the symbol for the amulet this: " ? Will the wizard always have it, or do you have to do the searching out of boulders and such? Whew. I've gone on for while here. Hope this generates lots of discussion. Dave Fox ..!ptsfa!df
mann@LaBrea.ARPA (09/14/85)
> > Do things have different properties in hell? When I read a blank scroll > I'd run across there, it turned all the other scrolls I had blank! > I've sworn off reading the source code to get answers to questions like this, but from observation, it appears that falling into a pool gets your scrolls wet and washes off all the ink. That's the real reason all your scrolls were blank. --Tim
wws@whuxlm.UUCP (Stoll W William) (09/15/85)
re: Hack 1.0.3 A few comments (and SPOILERS): > > The only way I handled it was to teleport to level 30, and then work my way up > from there. As I came up each stairway, there was not a down stairway > underneath but the next up stairway. > If you want a big score, go to level 40 instead of 30 (40 is as low as you can go). Every level except the one on which the amulet first appeared will have a wand of wishing somewhere. In a minute I'll tell you a new way I found to use the wands to (I think) maximum advantage. > > ... when I started to whack the Wizard (with a two > handed sword) I got one chance, which hit him, and he disappeared. > ... > Is there any way to keep the Wizard from doing this? > I find that wands of sleep and polymorph work nicely. re: maximizing score (SPOILER!!): I read on previous postings that zapping piles of rocks with wands of polymorph turned them into gems. Can we make use of this to escape the dungeon with (dare I say it) over 1000 valuable gems? First I'll say what I hypothesize, then I'll tell what I actually did that led to the hypothesis. Some facts: 1) rock piles cannot be larger than 255 rocks (unsigned char, I think; at least that was true in 1.0.2, and my game was going so well I didn't try to make larger piles). Zapping worthless gems can turn them into valuable gems. 2) Carrying all those gems and gold to level 0 is not possible -- unless you reserve a potion of confusion and teleportation (and ring of teleport control) to teleport yourself up. Spend the pre-maze part of the game getting all the gold and gems (and rocks) up to level 1 (any level should do). Line up the rocks in piles of 255 in a neat row in a big room. Identify gems whenever possible. When you've got all the wands of wishing and gold and gems and rocks, drop the gold, and drop all your food on top of it. get rid of your weapon(s) and armor -- they will diminish your carrying capacity. Watch out for L's and D's -- if they swipe your $60000+ gold pile, it will be greatly diminished after you catch up with and kill the monster. Wish for 3 wands of polymorph (I never tried this; wishing for one wand might be safer) and drop two of them. Position yourself at the end of the row of rock piles, and zap the wand into the piles. Examine each rock pile by moving onto it and using the ":" command to see if they turned into valuable gems. Any rock piles with valuable gems should be moved out of the line-of-sight of your next polymorph zap. When the polymorph charges run out, use the "extra" charge (remember, every wand has one extra zap that takes several "nothing happens" zaps to realize). Then use the other polymorph wands you wished for, one by one. Repeat the above paragraph until all the rocks/gems are valuable, then pick them up. Move onto the pile of food and gold, thus picking up the gold. This will probably force you to collapse under your load, so it would be helpful to have a tamed dog with you at this point (or be standing on scare monster or Elbereth -- you don't need to fight anymore). Use the remaining wishes (don't forget the "extra" wishes!) to wish for "3 diamonds" per wish. When all wishes are exhausted, get rid of the used-up wand. When all wands of wishing are exhausted, quaff confusion and teleport out. In my game, I accidentally discovered that polymorph zaps could affect more than one rock pile. I managed to get two piles of 255 valuable gems, and pick them up. Most of my gold got "eaten" by an L, but I still got over 2200000 points. It didn't occur to me to wish for more polymorph wands -- but that would have to be a worthwhile gamble. I left a lot of worthless gems on level 1 when I escaped. Another idea, when you run out of rockpiles, try wishing for boulders and turning them to rocks with your pick-axe (when I'm not a Speliologist, I always wish for a pick-axe first). If you can turn 60 rocks into valuable gems, that's better than using the wish for 3 diamonds! BUT I never tried wishing for a boulder, so no guarantees there. Also, I don't know how many gems you can carry! To really maximize things, people might have to zap rock piles until they turn into diamonds (reducing the endgame to luck?). If anybody tries this stuff and beats my score, I'd appreciate the gory details if you don't mind. Maybe I will have to play some more after all! Bill Stoll, ..!whuxlm!wws