45223wc@houxe.UUCP (W.CAMBRE) (08/06/84)
I know you experienced Rogues are probably not interested in how we amatures get killed, but I would like to hear about interesting deaths and I hope others would too. So here is my latest death, (I only play one game a month): I was doing fairly well (except I was wearing AC 9 armor because of all the Rusties around - I had plate mail in my pack), when I fell through a trap door into level 13. I took one step and fell into a white mist sleeping trap. There was a Troll standing next to it. It doesn't take a Troll long to wipe out 50 hit points from a sleeping Rogue. At least I died in my sleep! - Bill Cambre ATTISL 02272 houxe!45223wc
steven@qubix.UUCP (Steven Maurer) (08/08/84)
[=]
When I was still playing rogue regularly, I had a lot of games
which got down to about level 17. Then I would hit Umber Hulks,
and die horrible deaths.
Well, anyway, I had just gotten the amulet, and had worked my way
up to level 23 or so, when I hit an Umber Hulk, which confused me.
This was no end of pain, because I just saw the stairs when I got
confused, but couldn't reach them in my state. Pulling out my handy
polymorph wand, I turned it into a Xorn (grr..), and then found the
damned thing ran out of charges (grrr.. grrr...)
So I tried moving, and through some incredible luck managed to
get into a corridor before I was killed (7HP). (Well, I would have
preferred the stairs). Using the old capital letter "feature", to
run down the corridor sans "free" hits by the Xorn, I managed to get
into a room that I had zig-zagged in search of the stairs before...
Well, I still didn't have enough HP's to go tete-de-tete with the
Xorn, so I moved out into the room, and the confusion went off.
32 HP's, 2 Xorn hits from freedom. I had to risk it. Move one.
The Xorn Hit. 14 HP's left. That was bad. Very bad. I could
quit, and claim a place on the high scorers list (albeit not a
Total Winner). But no, I decided to risk it. Move two. The
Xorn Hit. 1 HP left. I had survived. I had won. I happily
ran to the door.
I died.
I forgot to zig zag, and was killed by a poison dart trap, I
missed when I moved across the room before.
*SIGH*
Steven Maurergordon@uw-june (Gordon Davisson) (08/09/84)
[Look out! It's the Black Beast of Aaaarrrrrrgggghhhhh!]
In response to the request for interesting deaths, and also to add
to the list of ways you CAN die, here is my tale of woe. It should be
of special interest to whoever tried to die of starvation some time
ago and couldn't. We have 5.3 here.
I had run out of food (as per the norm) around level 10 or
so, and gotten weak. I searched in desparation for another ra-
tion, and in the process started to faint. At this point I was
in pretty good shape, having lots of hit points, good armor, and
a portion of luck in not meeting any "real nasties", so I dog-
gedly continued my search. I completely searched level 11 and
part of the next before falling down a trap door, fainting on a
regular basis. I even managed to kill a centaur between faints.
I knew my days were numbered, however, and perhaps the ultimate
irony was the discovery of a ring of slow digestion. Finally,
for no apparent reason, my tombstone came up, with the words
"died of starvation" on it. It was a very long time between my
starting to faint and the tombstone, but it proves that, in 5.3
at least, you CAN die of starvation.
"I'm Invincible!!"
"You're a looney."
Human: Jamie Green @ Gordon's Account
UUCP: {ihnp4,decvax,tektronix}!uw-beaver!uw-june!gordon
ARPA: gordon@uw-junejec@iuvax.UUCP (08/10/84)
A friend of mine managed to die the following way:
While testing a wand on some insignificant creature, he had it disappear
and called the wand "teleport away." Imagine his surprise when the
Invisible Stalker killed him.
Here is a strange "narrow escape" that I had made. I had picked up a
cursed ring and hadn't identified it. While wandering around I ran into
an Eye and was transfixed. I thought -- dead meat. But, before I starved
or died of other nasties, I teleported from its gaze and managed to
become untransfixed.
--
James Conley
Indiana University
68K Education Board Project
...{isrnix|iuvax}!jecsrt@ucla-cs.UUCP (08/10/84)
Until the score file get trashed, I was listed as killed by a leprechaun. Turns out that there is a way under rogue 5.2 to save a game just after you get killed. Then, when you restart the game, you have negative hit points but aren't dead. The first time a monster hits you the game checks your hit points and if they are still negative you'll be killed again. So, after using this bug, I was attacked by a leprechaun before I regained hit points enough to be positive. Result: Killed by a leprechaun. -- SCOTT
mcewan@uiucdcs.UUCP (08/22/84)
#R:houxe:-55600:uiucdcs:34500030:000:870 uiucdcs!mcewan Aug 22 14:29:00 1984 > Until the score file get trashed, I was listed as killed by a leprechaun. > Turns out that there is a way under rogue 5.2 to save a game just after > you get killed. Then, when you restart the game, you have negative hit > points but aren't dead. The first time a monster hits you the game checks > your hit points and if they are still negative you'll be killed again. > > So, after using this bug, I was attacked by a leprechaun before I regained > hit points enough to be positive. Result: Killed by a leprechaun. > > I've used this feature to (intentionally) get on the board as "killed on level 9 by a rust monster". However, it is possible to get killed by a lep without cheating (I should know, I've done it). A lep takes 1 HP when it hits you, so if you're down to one HP, you die. And a canceled lep can beat you to death even if you start at full HP.
jon@boulder.UUCP (Jon Corbet) (08/23/84)
A painful way to go: Try to be tricky, and wield your bow and shoot that monster before it gets to you. However, you're not typing too well, and you wield a cursed ring instead. That Xorn almost died of laughter as I stood there, whacking at it with a ring....
woods@hao.UUCP (Greg "Bucket" Woods) (08/24/84)
That bug in 5.2 that allowed you to restart a game after being killed has
been fixed in 5.3 in a very amusing way. It used to be that after the tombstone
was printed, and it prepares to write the score file and says
[Hit return to continue]
you could send it a hangup signal (either from another terminal or, if you
are using csh with job control, by hitting ^Z and doing a kill -1 from there),
which would cause the game to be saved. Upon restarting it did not check
to see if you were already dead, so as long as your hit points went positive
before the next time it checked (when a monster hit you), you could keep
playing. In 5.3 it *does* check upon startup, and if your hit points are
<=0 it prints "He's dead, Jim" and exits, removing the save file.
(Yes I know someone pointed this out a couple of months ago, but it's come up
again which means we have yet more new readers on this group).
--Greg
--
{ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!stcvax | harpo!seismo | ihnp4!stcvax}
!hao!woods
"... the heat come 'round and busted me for smiling on a cloudy day..."moroney@jon.DEC (08/28/84)
Here are 2 unfortunate ends that I met in my many all-nighters at this
crazy game:
The first one, I thought this was it, all the way! I was on level 20, was
able to deal with Umbers with only some difficulty, with my +1,+2 two-handed
sword, +3 rustproofed plate and a scare monster just in case. I walk into a
room and oh, no! Confused again! Well, I managed to blunder into an unexplored
passageway and somehow managed to get all the way to the end. In the meantime
I had poor luck hitting him, and he had good luck at me. He got one good
swipe which brought me to 10hp, which meant Scare Monster time. Well the
passage was a dead-end and the only place I could move was occupied by
my buddy, I thought it would be OK to attack the ugly beast, even though
still confused. The first attacked missed, and then I tried again!
AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH I get the message "The scroll turns to dust as you
pick it up.-More-" Even though I DIDN'T MOVE!!!!!! I could have SCREAMED!!!!
In case you didn't guess, the next message was the tombstone. :-(
In a later game, I was on level 22, with a whole goodie bag
complete with 3 scare monster scrolls, some hold monsters, several good
wands, excellent armor (I forgot what) and an unidentified 2-handed
sword enchanted 3 times (+ anything it may have had when I found it)
I also had an aggravate monster scroll found at the level above.
Well anyway, I had to use a scare monster because I was confused by a U
when a J walks in. After I did lots of .'s (see above death) I became
unconfused and took both of them out. Well, then I decided that since
I just started this level I, oh foolish me, decided to bring the rest
of the monsters here so I wouldn't get cornered. I read the aggravate.
Well, it was late, and I was getting impatient, I, oh foolish me, decided
"I'm safe, I will just rest here for a while." No, I couldn't just go
find something and drag him to the scroll. I waited the quick way. I just
did 100. . OH FOOLISH ME!!!!! Well, in walks a J who lumbers up to me and
stops. Then a dragon and a ring (!) walk in at the same time through different
doors The dragon flames. The flame hits.--More-- WHAT DO YOU MEAN MORE????
The flame hits.--More-- THE #$#@^!$*!! GAME DIDN'T STOP DOING THE "."
COMMAND! All I could do was hit the space bar and wait for the tombstone.
AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, I finally won one. I looked pretty bad at first, I was running
away from a hob on level 5 with 7 hp, a scare monster, an unknown staff
when I run down the hole into this:
--------------
|..L.H?!OL../|
|!@.ZZ!...SK?|
|..?..*LE..L?|
--------------
Well, I decided if i didn't use the scare monster now I might never get
the chance. (I was not in the chance-taking mood at the time.) Well, then
I decided to try out the wand and sure enough, I got a Griffin. Well when
he bit the dust I got about 4 or 5 levels (Scare monster and polymorph,
what a combo!) I found +2 Leather on that level which was just as good
as the +1 ring I had, so I left it on (Yes I had a remove curse when I
tried it on!) Later I found an enchant armor (seemed a waste on leather!)
but actually it was good armor then, automatically rustproofed and all
Well in that whole game even though I found lots of staves, scrolls,
two-handed swords (!) I Never found Any Armor better than that leather!
After a while I gave up, so I read 4 enchant armors, and eventually BEAT
5.3! I eventually got the leather to +8. (Pity, I found a LOT
of rustoleum scrolls) Total Winner at Level 26 with 10,817 gp
[The NEXT DAY THE SCORE FILE GOT WIPED OUT!!!!!!] AAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!
Madman
Mike Moroney
..decvax!de
..decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-jon!moroney
Ahh hates VMS, I have to put up with Rogue 4.07 now. (don't ask)brian@digi-g.UUCP (Merlyn Leroy <Brian Westley>) (10/23/84)
<eat these jellies JJJJJJJ>
On the topic of interesting deaths...first, some background.
We are running a customized version of rogue (5.2 with many mods).
Two of the changes are:
cursed weapons may have 0, -1, or -2 damage
The monster J is an ochre jelly; this monster will split when struck
if it is not killed by the blow.
Now, an interesting thing happens when you wield a cursed bow/crossbow
which has a -1 or -2 damage; since the wielding damage of them is normally
1d1, the minus on the damage makes it do NO damage at all. And, being
cursed, you can't wield anything else. This led to the following
predicament (standing on top of a scare monster scroll)...
-------
|...JJ|
|..JJJ|
|..JJJ|
|..JJJ|
|..JJ@R##
|..JJB|
--+----
We have since changed the minimum damage of weapons from 0 to
be 50% chance 0, 50% chance 1 (for each hit). This will still leave
you helpless against monsters that regenerate (Trolls and Vampires),
but it's better than a wand of nothing.
Merlyn Leroy
If I only had some peanut butter...