Talk:Pacifist

How do you handle the giant mimics in Sokoban if you only have a cat, but no conflict, charm monster or stethoscope? Other critters interfere if I engrave Elbereth gazillions of times around the mimic to protect my pet. I'd like to avoid "come back later". -Tjr 22:21, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

In the end, I left my pet on another floor, Elbereth-lured the giant mimic near the stairs, went around a corner for it to re-cloak, Elbereth-locked off everything, engraved those gazillions of Elbereths around the mimic, and whacked it as many times as a wizard mode test had determined safe. Finally, I fetched my pet and let it finish off the mimic. Same story with the second mimic. -Tjr 00:58, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

What if lost pet?

What can I do if I have lost my pet, say, to a trap? Usually, I starve or die to a wimpy monster. Only very rarely do I already have things such as controlled polymorph (for the eggs), a scroll of taming, or see a randomly generated domestic animal soon enough during my initial Sokoban dive. Locking off monsters with Elbereth + gold works only that good - I (level 1) have to be able to take a hit, sometimes monsters are too numerous or slow to let me through, and werecreatures end the game right away. How do you handle the situation? -Tjr 11:36, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Try going to the mines first instead of Sokoban. You're more likely to encounter a pet along the way. Minetown in particular often has a 2x2 room with two cats. Once you have multiple pets, losing one is not fatal. (It helps to be a gnomish healer, or at least a gnomish wizard - being a gnome makes the mines massively easier.) In fact, one of your main priorities from turn one should be to get another pet ASAP. If you really lost your pet to the proverbial first turn rock trap, there have been reports of petless pacifists on r.g.r.n., but it's way hard. djao 04:17, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, as a neutral human wizard, I can't safely go into the mines (see below). I wouldn't mind going petless for a short time, but werecreatures do not respect Elbereth, and they always seem to turn up around level 5-9, so I'm usually toast before I get a replacement pet. Often, if I do encounter a potential pet during the initial dive down, I do not (yet) have food to spare. I agree multiple pets are the best "solution", but not feasible in the early stage. I see all this is easier for a gnomish healer, but that's beside the point. -Tjr 10:39, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Your original question did not mention role, so my gnomish healer remark was not beside the point in the context of your original question. If you are now restricting the question to neutral human wizards only, then first of all, you are going beyond the bounds of my experience, as I have never succeeded at a human pacifist. But, generally speaking, I would say that if losing your pet is fatal, then the best advice is: don't do that. One thing I noticed is that you strongly imply with phrases like "Sokoban dive" and "fast-paced strategy" that you are playing fast -- presumably to avoid starvation. Unfortunately, fast playing has the side effect that your pet does not level up. This may be part of the reason why your pets die so easily. A fully leveled up pet is not easily lost to a trap.

If you are still encountering insurmountable problems, try a less challenging set of conducts. Praying for example gives you a lot more flexibility on food. If you want to ask questions specifically about the atheist conduct, go to the atheist talk page :) djao 07:36, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Nutrition

I don't think the section on nutrition belongs here. None of the items discussed here are specific to pacifists. The entire section should be moved to the nutrition article. The only thing that belongs is the healer-specific advice regarding stone-to-flesh, and this can surely fit somewhere else (like in the Oracle discussion). If I don't get any comments within a few days, then I'll go ahead and move it.

At best (worst?), pacifists have only two liabilities with respect to nutrition, and both of them are extremely minor compared with all of the other problems that pacifists face. Problem number 1 is that your pet is doing all of the killing, so it is more likely to reach corpses first. (But this, by itself, is no harder than say the vegetarian conduct, and any difference between pacifists and non-pacifists is only a matter of degree.) Problem number two is that you have to keep your pet close to you, which means that it is impossible to explore fast until you get a magic whistle. Problem number two is a genuine problem, but much of the advice given in the Nutrition section does not apply to this situation -- for example, a fast-paced strategy is completely impossible without a whistle, and by the time you get a whistle or a ring of slow digestion or the ability to control polymorph, you're not generally worried about food. djao 04:17, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Starvation is the number one cause of death for my atheist, weaponless pacifists (neutral human wizards). Though I have not tried vegetarian conduct, I have never had nutrition problems other than as pacifist. That's why I put it here, and at least some mention and a pointer should stay here. Since not everyone will be atheist pacifist, it could be moved; but it doesn't fit any better on the atheist page, and eating those few corpses my fast kitten leaves to my slow wizard definitely is not vegetarian. So pacifist is probably the best page to put this.

The mines are very bad advice in my experience. My starting kitten will take on a couple of gnomes / dwarves and die within 100 turns. I have no way to stop it bar not taking it in at all. But without a pet, I'm hosed (see above). Because of the nutrition problem, there is a timer (750 turns) running on my life and I simply cannot afford wait and train it up. That means no mines until after Sokoban, and no "food is plentyful there".

Exploring fast is definitely possible, but it takes some practise how to lure the kitten around best. In the beginning, I routinely spend less than 200 turns per level. A magic whistle is of course more efficient and much more comfortable, but I cannot rely on that for my first 1500 turns.

In practice, I tend to dive to Sokoban as fast as possible, tame any random cats/dogs/horses I encounter provided I have food, and then go back up and into mine town with the stack of Sokoban food. Luckily, those animals get slower when they grow up, migitating the food problem. The real solution is usually only a polymorph trap in the lower mines or the wizard quest home level - a vampire lord is an excellent pet until about Medusa's level.

Rarely, stone to flesh is the solution: I will 1) start with / find a magic marker, and be 2) fast enough to do Sokoban, 3) find a digging implement, remove curse, and some potions, 4) dive down to mine's end, 5) get the luckstone, 6) break one of the mine's end fountains, 6) blank a blessed scroll to write remove curse, 7) make holy and unholy water, 8) reverse genocide unicorns, 9) up my luck with #named gems, 10) write stone to flesh on my blessed starting spellbook, and 11) finally be able to cast it with the priest's robe or some other spell to train up healing. -Tjr 10:39, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Your problem is that you're playing a neutral human wizard, not that you're playing an atheist pacifist. A gnomish healer atheist pacifist has absolutely no problems with hunger. The mines are a cakewalk for a gnome, and stone to flesh is a starting spell. The fact that you personally enjoy playing neutral human wizard atheist pacifists is not relevant to the vast majority of pacifists, nor is this particular case noteworthy enough to merit lengthening an already lengthy article.

Regarding the location of the section, again while it may be true that you personally have never had nutrition problems other than as a pacifist, I'm sure that a lot of other players have encountered nutrition problems other than as a pacifist. By my count, none of the points that you raise are pacifist-specific. That's why I suggested to put this information in the nutrition article. (If anything, the points you raise are atheist-specific, but I'm not suggesting to add this to the atheist article. I think it belongs in Nutrition.) djao 07:20, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I moved the material in accordance with the plan above. In keeping with your suggestion, I added a mention of the issue and a pointer to the nutrition article. djao 04:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Whew, you are quick. Specific to (atheist ?) pacifist non-gnomes is the fact nutrition is such a problem, but not the solutions. Out of context, the food tips look a bit like a solution in search of a problem. I think both articles still need a lot of editing, but I haven't made up my mind how to do this best.

And, by the way, "that you personally enjoy playing neutral human wizard atheist pacifists is not relevant" is isomorphic to "who plays conducts anyway?" At the very least, it raises the question, why "everybody" plays gnomish healers, i. e. clearly separate the gnome specific parts of the article. -Tjr 10:40, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Sure, one can ask "why play conducts", but if the article itself is about the conduct, then the "why" part is at least accepted as fact. What I'm resisting is the idea of putting every possible combination of pacifist conducts in the pacifist article. That would lead to an unreadable article. I don't think neutral human wizard atheist pacifists should merit special attention, any more than say zen samurai illiterate pacifists. Gnomish healer is a special case, because it is genuinely easier and more common than the other combinations. djao 16:34, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Gnomish healers are definitely a special case, I think some words should be lost on what is different for the rest of the world. I agree not every possible combination needs to be considered. As a rule of thumb, if the interaction between "popular enough" conducts introduces additional challenges, that should be described, but not if nothing new arises.

The interaction atheist <> pacifist introduces additional twists (nutrition) worth mentioning somewhere. Before we start arguing, there are enough rgrn posts to prove people actually play such combinations. What's unclear if this combination goes under pacifist, atheist, nutrition, or perhaps a separate "atheist pacifist" page. I feel it fits nowhere perfectly, but pacifist sounds best.

I think a separate article on atheist must exist before we can possibly make a determination as to where atheist-pacifist specific material belongs. No matter how common athiest-pacifists are, they are not more common than atheists. Right now the atheist keyword redirects to Conduct. Perhaps you could start a separate atheist article? I've never ascended an atheist so I'm not really qualified to write about it. djao 03:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'm going to make an atheist article. I have to do a lot of real world work first and would like to bring "pacifist" to an end before, so this will 1-2 weeks. -Tjr 09:19, 7 July 2009 (UTC)