User:Intx13

Bio

I'm Nate... 21, male, white, nerdy. I'm currently attending college, majoring in Computer Engineering. Interests include Linux, programming in a variety of languages, digital design, and of course Nethack. I'm dating a girl named Molly, who tolerates my Nethack addiction with love :)

Ascensions

1. intx13 (hum-fem-neu-val): First ascension! Made number #325 on the top 2000 list. Took me over 120000 turns. Was also my first time ever getting past the quest. Beyond those four things, not too notable.
2. intx13 (hum-mal-law-sam): Second ascension! Also my first game playing as a samurai. This one went a lot smoother. Favorite quote:

You kick the invisible Vlad the Impaler.--More--
You destroy the invisible Vlad the Impaler!--More--

Goals

1. Ascend a caveman
2. Ascend a Monk
3. Go for a huge number of Rodney kills (no particular reason for this one)
4. Ascend an athiest (probably a valkaryie or another easy-ish class)
5. DFV!

New prayer article

The following is my work on a new prayer article, based off of Matthew Lahut's spoiler.

Prayer, invoked with the #pray extended command, is an action used to communicate with the player's god. The purpose of prayer is to ask for help from god, and as such, it must not be done too often. The player has a prayer "timeout", a counter which is raised when praying, and decrements one turn at a time. Only when this counter reaches zero may the player pray safely again (exceptions exist, see below). Thus prayer is usually reserved for one of a few things: saving the player from almost certain doom, performing some action the player cannot yet do (removing cursed items, getting out of walls, etc.), or creating holy water.

When not to pray

Because prayer is usually used in dire situations, it is important to know when prayer will not save you. In fact, praying at the wrong time can hurt you, as your god may become angry enough to strike you lightening or perform some other punishment. The following conditions make it unsafe to pray.

• You are polymorphed into a demon and attempting to pray to a non-chaotic god.
• You are polymorphed into an undead creature and attempting to pray to a non-chaotic god. (Neutrals have a 10% chance of being able to pray anyway. This creates a small chance that a potion or wand of enlightenment will lie to you.)
• Your alignment is negative.
• Your luck is negative.
• The gods are still angry at you from an earlier event.
• Your prayer timeout is not yet zero. (If you are currently suffering from a major problem, it is safe to pray with a timeout as high as 200; if a minor problem, it may be as high as 100.)
• You are in Gehennom.
• You are standing on another god's altar.

When to pray for help

Not all afflictions are created equally. Your god makes a distinction between two groups of problems: minor problems and major problems. Most players do not pray to relieve minor problems, but prayer is often the solution to a major problem.

Major problems:

• Stoning from a cockatrice or chickatrice
• Sliming from a green slime
• Wearing an amulet of strangulation
• Standing in lava
• Fatal illness (food poisoning or sickness attack a la Juiblex and Pestilence)
• Hunger status "Weak" or worse
• HP less than or equal to 1/7 maximum (rounded down) or less than 6 [*]
• Lycanthropy
• Being Overtaxed or worse as a result of strength drain (based on your base strength, not counting armor modifiers)
• Being stuck in a wall without means of escape
• Wearing a cursed blindfold
• Wearing a cursed ring or boots of levitation

Minor problems:

• Punishment
• Wearing any cursed item
• Blindness
• Poison
• Having wounded legs
• Being "Hungry" but not worse
• Stunning
• Confusion
• Hallucination

Note that if your maximum HP is less than or equal to 5 * (level + 2) and you are praying as a result of low HP, you will also receive 1d5 extra points to your maximum, and then be healed to that new maximum.

Other times to pray

The other useful purpose of prayer (besides praying for help) is a water prayer. Praying while standing on an altar, on which potions of water were dropped will create (assuming the prayer is successful) holy or unholy water. If you are standing on a coaligned altar, the water will become blessed (holy). If you are standing on another god's altar, the water will become cursed (unholy). Note that praying while standing on another god's altar will anger your god, so this should be done with extreme caution.

Aligment clues

After a prayer is completed, you will receive a message giving you a hint as to your current alignment, in the form of "You feel that <god> is <feeling>".

Feeling	Feeling (hallucination)	Alignment range
well-pleased	pleased as punch	14 or greater
pleased	ticklish	4 to 13
satisfied	full	0 to 3

Favors and gifts

God may grant you a favor after a succesful prayer.