Forum:Yet another YAFP (this onelong-winded and rambling!)
Been playing on and off since 2005, and finally managed to ascend Ceromar, a Neutral Human Male (formerly female) Monk. Some highlights and observations...
Pudding farming was involved. Since I'd never ascended, it seemed like fair game at least until my first ascension. It surely made the game easier, but what with not doing it to the extent many farmers seem to (for example, only getting one WoW out of it and maybe 10 blessed genocides- took out everything on the Genocide strategy page here and nothing more) it seemed like I was able to have an ascension kit and reasonable number of spares, but not that more. As a result, the turn count was around 250K. (It's not like there's a point in carrying around 10 Rings of Conflict.) Next Monk, no farming.
After my first venture out of the pudding farm, a bag of holding was lost... somewhere in minetown while farming the altar. Oops. Then lost a +5 robe and +5 shirt in a polymorph accident. I think I put a bag of tricks in it. A lot of good stuff was lost (wands of death, two AoLS) but I just went back and farmed more.
The RNG was out for revenge after that. Twenty-one wishes in total (lamps, the wand from farming and the castle wand) for The Blessed Eye of the Aethiopica (even learned to spell it!) and it never showed up, even though the chances should have been about 1/3 or 1/4 each time- and the only reason I picked Neutral over Chaotic was to wish for them. My only other wish was a blessed greased fireproof +2 GDSM.
Oddly enough, this was my first time making it beyond DL18 or so- (my previous best game ended at Master Kaen) thanks to the spoilers here, everything beyond Medusa or so was a relative breeze (Amulet of Reflection+Finger of Death), the mazes were annoying but 500+ PW and Magic Mapping helped, and running around with dozens of pets from Charm Monster is always fun.
Had no trouble meleeing Rodney to death half a dozen times on the sprint to the surface every time with a Blessed +7 Grayswandir and just chasing him and picking up the Amulet if he took it.
Of the planes, only Fire and Astral posed a challenge- confused gold detection made rushing to the other portals easy enough, but Astral was a lot of trouble. Was wearing rings of Free Action and Slow Digestion by "default" (had intrinsic polycontrol from eating a ring earlier, immediately put on conflict when arriving, and visited all three altars before realizing the first one was the Neutral one. Also, after leaving the third one, realized I had on Slow Digestion and Levitation (from Fire and Water)... and had taken off Free Action upon arriving on Fire. Big oops.)
Some final stats: XPlv30, ~550/600HP, 150/680PW, AC: -43 (9pts divine protection), maxed stats plus equipment bonuses Wearing: +5 Robe, GDSM, T-shirt, Helm of Brilliance, Gauntlets of Dexterity, Speed Boots, all blessed, fixed, and greased, Amulet of Reflection, Ring of Slow Digestion, Free Action, Eyes of the Overworld Spells: Every spell but Polymorph known, 0% failure rate on all but Cancellation and Finger of Death (14%) Wielding: +7 Grayswandir Score: ~18.4M
Probably going to take a break from Nethack for awhile, then to decide which role to try next- leaning towards a Wizard simply because lots of spellcasting suits my playstyle. (Which is why I played Monks- spellcasting + punching stuff.)
