Talk:Riders

This page threw me a little... I thought I'd wandered into a different wiki by accident :-O GreyKnight 22:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Yep, it was a bit off-tone. I've done a complete rewrite. --Jayt 23:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Monster templates

I think this was one of the few articles still lacking the standard monster template, so I've provided them. One thing I didn't do was add the "attributes" section, since that seems to be formatted rather than free-text, and darned if I could find a description of how the formatting is supposed to work. So I just added the line in the article:

Riders can fly/float, are humanoid, can regenerate themselves, can see invisible creatures, and have teleport control.

If anyone wants to work out how that goes in the template, fantastic!--Ckbryant 11:40, 15 February 2008 (EST)

Seven deadly sins patch

greyfire.org is dead so the patch is no longer available.

http://bilious.homelinux.org/?178 --Kahran042 13:14, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Can Anyone Explain This?

Randomly spawned Famine? Can anyone explain how this happened? --Daniel Draco 00:14, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Wait, nevermind, I figured it out...leftover bones from messing around in wizard mode. --Daniel Draco 02:42, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Engulfing

What happens when riders are engulfed? Can a purple worm take care of them for good since no corpse is left? DemonDoll 19:21, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I've done the purple worm thing, but mine have never been strong enough to attack the Riders. You'd probably have to level drain the Riders to bejeezus and back (so you could only do this to Famine and Pestilence in any event). I've honestly been kind of underwhelmed by what worms can do for you on Astral, though it is fun to do once.--Ckbryant 15:10, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

You mean you'd have to level drain them simply because a pet won't attack something much more powerful than itself? What are the rules on that anyway? And can someone confirm that sacrificing riders gets rid of them for good? DemonDoll 15:18, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Your purple worm will die instantly (there is even a special message for that). You cannot sacrifice the riders because you have to hold stuff to sacrifice it on the astral plane, and their corpses will revive if you try to pick them up. -Tjr 15:39, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

@ Tjr: But what if you kill one of them while they're standing on an altar tile, then sacrifice the corpse directly from the ground? That doesn't require picking up, so it might work.

That specifically doesn't work on the high altars on Astral; you have to have the object in your inventory to sacrifice it. Since the Riders' corpses will always revive if you pick them up, you can't have them in your inventory, so you can't sacrifice them. The only ways to to permanently get rid of them I know of are to fill the whole level with monsters and kill them so they have nowhere to revive, slime them, or for Famine and Pestilence, level-drain and tame them. -Ion frigate 10:41, May 19, 2010 (UTC)

You can also have their corpses eaten by a non-tame gelatinous cube, or let them live in a jail of boulder or sessile monsters. There are no other ways to get rid of the riders. Tjr 10:53, May 20, 2010 (UTC)

Is it really possible to have a gelatinous cube engulf the riders? I recall trying that once; the cube "ate" the corpse, but a few turns later it revived, giving a message like if the cube had simply picked up the corpse and didn't digest it. The same message as if a nymph picks up the corpse and it revives while she's carrying it. -- Qazmlpok 15:21, June 8, 2010 (UTC)

Congrats, you catch every time I don't wizmode-test things. What happens if you kill and eat the cube after it engulfs the rider? At least, there shouldn't be any object around to carry the corpse-reviving counter. Tjr 18:11, June 9, 2010 (UTC)

Nothing. Again, when a gelatinous cube engulfs something (i.e. doesn't eat it), it really just picks it up. Although engulfing the corpse at all should be considered fatal/impossible (I believe this is the bug), the corpse still isn't considered organic and just gets picked up. Killing the cube will simply result in the corpse being dropped, like any other object in the cube's inventory. Digesting the cube has the same effect; the rider corpse will simply appear on the ground as if the monster had died normally with no corpse. However, what you can do is steal the corpse - the rider corpse will revive if you pick it up, but not if a cube picks it up. I've seen nymphs pick up corpses, but I haven't been able to confirm that a nymph will pick up a rider corpse. Stealing the corpse does not revive it, so you can then sacrifice the corpse from your inventory on the high altar. Of course this will require polymorph, killing the rider and quickly getting a cube to engulf it, and carrying the 1450 corpse to the co-aligned high altar. I believe this should be another method to permanently get rid of the riders, although it certainly won't be easy to do outside of wizard mode. -- Qazmlpok 20:10, June 9, 2010 (UTC)

Ambiguity of source comment

I am a novice C++ programmer, and I think that the source comment does add a bit of ambiguity because the double equal sign is the comparison operator, as in "if (foo == 8)", so it may mean, "Is the player war?"

Deleted mythology notes

Some unregistered user deleted a big chunk of text from the Mythology section. I took the liberty of undoing it. While it's only tangentially related to NH, the Mythology section is really set aside for this sort of fluff. If you're going to delete this much content from an article, at least make a note in the discussion justifying your actions (and make the effort to register an account). --Darth l33t 06:23, January 6, 2010 (UTC)

Cancellation

Does it affect rider's attacks? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Newtkiller (talk • contribs)

As explicitly stated in cancellation, no. -- Qazmlpok 12:05, June 24, 2010 (UTC)

Rider corpses in inventories

What happens when a Rider corpse is in a gelatinous cube's inventory? Does it still have a chance to revive, or will it not revive until after the cube is killed? Also, I'm guessing you could also (semi-)permanently get rid of a Rider corpse by locking it in a chest, although that would require wishing for a chest. -Ion frigate 09:38, September 3, 2010 (UTC)

The corpse is considered a part of the cube's inventory, the same as if any other monster was carrying it. The corpse can still revive, and the cube will drop it, "startled". Also, confirmed that locking the corpse in a chest works. A non-locked chest/box can be escaped from (same as a troll), but a locked chest is permanent. It also generates the "You feel less hassled" message. -- Qazmlpok 13:05, September 3, 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we should enumerate all ways to destroy inventory items. That leads clutter. Just off the top of my head:

1. Repeatedly loot a cursed bag of holding. Advantage: takes 0 turns.
2. Sacrifice it at the coaligned altar.
3. Polymorph the container it's in.
4. Let it rot in a locked container or a bag of holding.
5. Bury the container it's in, and let the container rot.
6. Ascend with it in an ice box.
7. Explode the bag of holding it's in. (tricks, cancellation, another holding)
8. Place it in (a sack in) a locked chest, and #force it with a blunt weapon.

I propose we leave only the cursed bag of holding in the article because that is the safest and fastest method, and tell the reader there are a host of other ways. Tjr 13:27, September 3, 2010 (UTC)

• Make a black dragon disintegrate the gelatinous cube carrying the corpse. This is conduct-proof.

Tjr 17:39, October 14, 2010 (UTC)

How many levels do you need to drain before you can charm the Pesistlence and Faimine? I am on the Astral Plane right now. I've never tried permanently ridding myself of them before. It has always been a mad race to the appropite alter. Also how do you put a rider into a containr if touching them automatically revives them? Ndwolfwood

You need to drain them to below your current level. For a level 30 character, that's only one level you need to drain them. Mind you, they'll resist your attempts to tame them ~99% of the time that way, so it's probably best to drain them all the way to level zero - then they'll only resist ~77% of your attempts (see magic resistance (monster), the riders have MR = 100 and base level 30). Draining them to zero has no ill effects on them, since their HP are determined specially and not from their level.

Putting rider corpses into containers is a real corner case, but if you read above, what you can do is kill a rider, let a gelatinous cube engulf its corpse, polyself into a nymph, steal the corpse, and put it in a container. Given that you have an average of 15 turns before the corpse revives, this is quite difficult outside of wizard mode.

Getting rid of the Riders permanently is mostly a bragging right: it doesn't make ascending any easier, since if you can get rid of them permanently, you are obviously quite capable of ascending. -Ion frigate 22:14, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I polyed into a genetic egineer wielding a cockatrice corpse and I have tamed death as a gray ozze. I do't want to ascend wth any of them as my pet I want to kill them afte I've wiped out the astral plane. No good reason its just I never realized it was a possiblity. I'm goingto this method and see if it works. Whenever I get to this point in the game I am always kinda paranoid so it takes me several minutes for each move I make.

If you're playing SLASH'EM, the riders are trivial if you're willing to selfpoly. Just turn into a genetic engineer (and you already have) and hit them until they turn into something that doesn't resist stoning. Hit them with the cockatrice corpse and they're permanently a statue. Disintegration will probably work as well so long as they aren't in their natural form. -- Qazmlpok 22:44, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I just realized this and petrifid one of the riders. My wand of wishing has no charges left. So I am going towait until I've cleared the level. I want to wish for a spellbook of stone to flesh. I'd like to break the riders statue and then cast stone to flesh to make meatballs. Will this work or will the rider comeback and/or I will die from eatng the meatballs? I kinda want to kill them off permanently for all the misery they've caused me over the years. Obviously I suppose I could see if my pet necrmancer will at them but I'd rater to it myself.