wws@whuxle.UUCP (Stoll H William) (07/09/84)
A friend of mine has won 5.3 five times (he plays a LOT and is very careful). He discovered that carrying the amulet causes levels to be empty of treasure/magic. So, when he gets to level 1, he drops the amulet and goes down again! Treasure and gold come back, and after four or five trips down, you have the best score in you system. Only catch, the second time down is still tough around levels 18-26, it is advisable to start dropping then (same as you would your first time down). I watched him in one game - he had level 17 armor on his fourth trip down. Half the monsters couldn't even hit him (his 2-handed sword was +3,+3, etc etc). Of course, you have to get to level 26 and back first... Bill Stoll
levy@fisher.UUCP (Silvio Levy) (07/11/84)
On the subject of winning big, it must be said that the game gets a bore. In particular, after shuttling between level 26 and level 1 for two or three times, you start finding *nothing useful!* I don't know why that is, but it happens consistently with me (and I've won enough times that I know what I'm talking about). Very few things are useful anyway -- basically enchant weapon, armor and raise level. The latter can be dangerous, as there is nothing above experience level 21 -- you get back to exp. level 1, but your hit points are *unchanged*. So, if you have, say, 100 HP, and 1 experience point (appropriate for experience level 1), the next big monster you kill is going to send you to experience level 5 or 6 -- and more than likely your HP are going to increase past 127, i.e. they become negative. (Of course, if you were not careful enough to offer yourself to vampires a couple of times before, this probably happened long ago.) Next thing you know you fall into an arrow trap (since no monsters can hit you) and you're dead. If it doesn't screw you one way, it screws you the other... Also, in my version 5.2 the scoreboard puts you in the first line, but with your gold score modulo 2^19 -- so your 100k gold points may be registered as 500 or some such random number...