User:Testbutt

Variants

I'm a big fan of variants. If you haven't tried variants, you might be surprised how easy most of them are to play! You don't need to learn a whole new skillset. In fact, many of them are less frustrating to play, because they give you a yes/no prompt before allowing you to do something foolish.

Here are some fun things you can try if you want to sample a variant!

FIQhack

• try a monk! thanks to FIQhack's power regen formulas, you can actually use your starting spells regularly!
• as you play, you'll start to notice that the UI is trying to help you, instead of getting in your way. select items from your inventory for a full menu of interaction options!
• did you forget something? watch a replay of your most recent actions... WITHOUT LEAVING THE GAME! or, press control+f to search for objects on the floor. it searches the whole dungeon for that thing you lost! these features are, as far as i know, completely unique to FIQhack, and extremely helpful.
• Also fun: play a gnome tourist, and try to do the protection racket. Much more fun than doing it as a healer! And you'll be pleasantly surprised what you see in the shops.

Fourk

• valkyries have intrinsic flying. very convenient, very cool, very fun.
• a sylph healer starts with a magic harp. if you were to say, use a fountain or a smoky potion to wish for a PYEC, then you can get a nice little army of pals to fight for ya!

dnethack

• A dwarf anachrononaut can gun down a shopkeeper with just their starting machine gun. Go have fun in minetown! Generally, any anachrononaut will start the game with something fun and powerful: drow have vicious unarmed strikes and some magical powers (press control+f), incantifiers have a lightsaber, elves have reflection, etc...

Splicehack

• a dragonmaster's starting pet can usually take out most shopkeepers by itself, especially shopkeepers that spawn in early Dungeon floors.
• you can not only play the common and popular vampires and convicts, but there's some really neat original ideas, like angels, infernals, cartomancers, and dancers! see here: https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Roles_and_races_(SpliceHack)

If you think you have to "master" vanilla first, you're missing out! Suggestion: win a game in each variant, instead of punishing yourself by forcing yourself to win every vanilla role first. (Due to ascension kit requirements, all those roles play extremely similar anyways.)