Talk:Genocide

item drops?

the page doesn't say what happens to items that a monster may be carrying if they are genocided. if a nymph steals my +7 stormbringer, will she drop it on the ground? what are the steps that the game goes through when removing the genocided creatures, and when? --195.157.154.29 12:52, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Monsters killed by genocide always drop their inventory no matter where they are. (Exception: * genocide in wizmode.) Incidentally, talk pages here are usually oldest on top, newest on bottom. No big deal. Thanks for noticing the oversight. Blackcustard (talk) 15:17, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

added unicorns

As my first edit ever to any wiki, I added unicorns to the list of monsters to reverse-genocide. If you polypile the resulting horns, you might get a magic marker, and thus replace the scrolls used for reverse-genociding unicorns! Riley Riley37 22:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Reverse Genocide and Extinctionism

Can you reverse genocide extinct monsters? --TBF01 23:25, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Not according to Scroll_of_genocide

Checking what you genocided?

Is there any way to check to see what you've genocided without dying? (I've played a bit too much Nethack in the past few weeks and can't keep track of what the current character did versus the character who died yesterday, etc...)

Strategy

I'd love to read a bit on strategy. Can anyone add some tips? Shmoo 06:07, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I have a personal strategy for sea monsters (;) Do not genocide them until you arrive on the plane of water (just deal with them with a ranged attack, eg use a spell of magic missile if you can). Then genocide them will clear nearly completely the plane of water instantly! If you had genocided them before, then they would be replaced with other difficult monsters). Has anyone tried that apart from me ?

Personally, I don't genocide sea monsters at all because they are quite easy to avoid (perhaps except on the plain of Water), and in the mid-game, I value cursed genocides more, and I tend to overprepare for Astral anyway. On the planes, I just teleport them if they grab me, and use normal methods if not (evade, fight, tame, conflict,...). However, if you really want to avoid encounters at all cost, genociding them late is the common sense approach. It might work to storm through the Plane of Water and genocide them only once they pose an actual threat. -Tjr 21:58, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Nymphs

If a nymph is robbing you blind, you won't get your stuff back if you genocide her, right? Does a nymph ever steal the amulet? Tjr 22:10, 21 March 2009 (UTC) if you genocide nymphs, then all there stuff falls on the floor, including whatever she stole.60.242.66.41 23:32, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Gelatinous cube

Is it really worth it to reverse genocide them as a monk... you should have all the interesting intrisincs by the time you got a magic marker, a permanent elbereth method/free action.

According to the shock resistance page, gelatinous cubes are the only vegan corpses to give shock resistance, and brown puddings are the only other vegetarian corpse (black pudding are not vegetarian). Shock resistance is also the last resistance granted for monks by leveling up, and the exponential XP requirements mean the character would need to go a decent amount of time before hitting level 15 - not to mention other roles going vegetarian for the conduct. A gelatinous cube is also the only source of sleep resistance besides divine favor, and I would personally not be required to wear a ring of free action all the time to avoid wands of sleep. The other resistances are also certainly helpful for an early character that chances upon a scroll. I'd say it's definitely worth it, although maybe the page should say vegetarian players and not just monks, as non-monk vegetarians would actually benefit more. -- Qazmlpok 21:49, October 1, 2009 (UTC)

"Vegetarians can reverse genocide gelatinous cubes for the intrinsics once they defeat them and take the acidic corpse damage. Monks going for speed runs or pacifist atheist will rather eat cubes than meaty corpses. The alignment hit is relevant due to the early-game cap for speeders if they eat at all, and because raising it is so hard for pacifist atheist non-healers."

Copied the above here, because somebody who can't imagine other people don't play like him keeps removing it. --Tjr 23:58, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

watch for name conflicts?

It might be worth adding something definitive about what happens when a monster name is the same as the class name. I was faced by water moccassins, so genocided snakes...but it only worked on snakes, not ALL snakes. Which leaves me wondering, if it has been a blessed scroll, would it have genocided all snakes, or just snakes called snakes? I would expect all snakes, but is that the case? Did that make any sense at all? 79.71.72.211 09:31, October 17, 2009 (UTC)MartinB

If it was a blessed scroll, it would ask "what class" of monsters would you like to genocide. You would enter "S" and all monsters that appear as "S" will be removed.

--71.216.174.198 17:35, November 24, 2009 (UTC)

Genociding Mimics Doesn't Increase Orcus Town Items

Instead, you get a bunch of empty spots where the mimics would have been. I didn't change the article itself because I haven't verified this with the actual code, but I did genocide them before entering Gehennom and found the shops half empty.

I just tried it in wizard mode and found it did increase the number of items. It's quite possible you had visited it but hadn't realized it; the maze outside of Orcus Town looks just like the rest of Gehennom. Also, monsters may have picked up some of the items - the skeletons in Orcus Town seem to be fond of doing that. And there is a very, very slim chance it was a bones level, unlikely but possible. If you ask me though, I think about 10 or so extra items is hardly worth a blessed scroll of genocide anyway, especially since by that point in the game you probably have your ascension kit together or mostly so anyway. -Ion frigate 10:50, February 21, 2010 (UTC)

Reverse genocide and movement

Reverse genocide sends in a number of monsters. Are these monsters guaranteed to not move until after your next turn? This seems to be the case from experience, and I just tried it with warhorses while polymorphed into a skeleton (to give a huge difference in speed), and even then they didn't move until after I got a turn. So is this absolutely guaranteed, or am I getting lucky? -- Qazmlpok 14:05, May 31, 2010 (UTC)

Do you have in mind some way to exploit this? -Tjr 15:07, June 1, 2010 (UTC)

A character could get a good number of powerful pets through reverse genociding minotaurs (as an example) and taming them. Minotaurs would work well because they hit hard and will never resist taming. They're certainly not the best pets, but I know from experience on my pacifist ascension that if you tame a lot of minotaurs and have a magic whistle, stuff dies. Really fast. In SLASH'EM it could be used to tame a large number of gnoll (warrior)s, as they can grow up into a gnoll chieftain and reach level 45, or shoggoths (level 49). However this is extremely dependent upon the summoned monsters not getting a turn before you do. Reverse genocided minotaurs would tear you apart, doubly so as they don't respect Elbereth. And any monster that does respect Elbereth would move away from you and get out of taming range, requiring either an elaborate Elbereth cage, a magic harp, or confusion and a scroll of taming. It's just another idea on a method to get powerful pets early and with little risk (but moderate cost, as it'll probably require high luck and a magic marker to get both scrolls), doubly so since polymorph traps in SLASH'EM aren't permanent. -- Qazmlpok 16:08, June 1, 2010 (UTC)

What's the problem with an Elbereth cage? It's only 17 E-squares, 8 if in a corner. ... Dragon_scale_mail#Acquiring_dragon_scales -Tjr 17:05, June 1, 2010 (UTC)

I don't think Elbereth cages are a valid strategy for non-wizards, or more specifically players without an atahame. If I do a SLASH'EM pacifist ascension, I'm planning on trying for a dwarven caveman (lawful=minions, dwarf=peaceful gnomes and dwarves, can gain alignment through cannibalism as well). The only way I would be able to engrave with an athame would be to wish for an athame, or maybe Firewall. Failing that, I'd have to use junk weapons (time consuming), dust (not practical), or wands (wasteful). Furthermore it'd be useless against a minotaur if it IS possible for the summoned monsters to get a turn in, and minotaurs are probably the best choice if I have a magic whistle, as unlike the higher level monsters they don't turn traitor. Actually, one option would be to summon dragons, try to tame them and get most (20 MR) and have the tame and untame ones kill each other. That would definitely require a cage, due to the breath.

I could be wrong about the feasibility of a mid/early game non-wizard creating an Elbereth cage, as I've never actually made one. I've always either felt I didn't have the resources or didn't have the need. -- Qazmlpok 22:21, June 1, 2010 (UTC)

Elbereth-cage: For the outer squares, a maximum length string of dust Elbereth is more than sufficient. Just check there are at least four of them intact. You need one turn to move away, and you can smudge at most three letters per turn by movement alone. (See talk:Elbereth for a smudging mini-spoiler.) For the fighting spot, things are a bit more delicate. In my experience, a maximum length string of semi-permanent Elbereth is sufficient. You can engrave with certain rings (starting inventory, Sokoban) or hard gems (Mines). Of course, you have to prepare all this _before_ summoning the monsters; an athame only makes it more convenient. Tjr 11:10, June 2, 2010 (UTC)

Update: The engraving page claims you can smudge up to 5 letters, so 6 dust-E are safe.Tjr 12:03, June 2, 2010 (UTC)

Liches and Athames

It's true that high-level liches occasionally carry athames, but it seems a little crazy to refuse to genocide L in the hope that an arch-lich will drop an athame for you. You'd have to kill three arch-liches to get over 50% chance of an athame, and if your character is strong enough to take out arch-liches like that you don't need an athame once you've genocided arch-liches. You won't get caught in any summoning storms until you start running into Titans and Archons, and you should have enough wands to burn Elbereth as often as you need to. -- 65.183.153.101 01:08, June 10, 2010 (UTC)

Yes and no; athames do have some benefits over wands. The fact that they don't run out makes you more likely to actually use them; it's far too easy to not engrave Elbereth when you should, because you were trying to conserve charges on your wand. Also, they're great for fighting your way to the up staircase. You don't need permanent E-squares because you aren't planning to stay where you are, but you may need a lot of them if you're far from the up stairs. Also, wands of lightning always blind you when you engrave with them: this can really be bad if you move off your E-square, since you now can't engrave reliably. Personally, I like to use athames for most cases, and save the wands for truly dangerous enemies, such as mind flayers and Demogorgon. -Ion frigate 06:03, June 10, 2010 (UTC)

Are there numbers (NAO?) on how many people actually get their first athame from a lich? I personally never have, not even in conduct games without Magicbane. Tjr 13:29, June 10, 2010 (UTC)

I have once (genoless monk who fell down to the castle through a trapdoor). That's out of only about three or four games where it might have happened. Of course the most Elberething I did in that game was when I was desperately running back to the stairs and hoping the arch-lich didn't use the touch of death, because I hadn't done the quest yet and lacked magic resistance.

Anyway, it may just be because I play a pretty Elbereth-light style, but I really find that wands serve fine, and that Ls are the most common late-game cause of Elbereths, direct or indirect. There's only one Demogorgon, who's pretty unlikely to appear in vanilla, and master mind flayers are a lot rarer and easier to escape when you don't have Ls summoning nasties at you. Whereas a summoning storm from an arch-lich on a no-teleport level is a huge mess, especially when you have to cross it five times thanks to the mysterious force. (And it was Juiblex's swamp, so I wasn't engraving anything anyhow.) -- I guess I hadn't thought of the lightning problem, since the characters that had to engrave a lot were monks and didn't have to worry about blindness. But the reason they had to engrave a lot was that they hadn't genocided L. (I might change my tune if I ever meet an Archon as a non-Lawful.)

Original post was from me, BTW -- sorry for not signing. -- Slandor 23:33, June 30, 2010 (UTC)

Many people consider liches too much trouble for the athames they can provide and for good reason too. They can curse your items, surround you with more monsters and master and arch-liches can steal the book of dead and force you to chase the pesky lich up to floor 1. The wizard of yendor can do this too, but the death magic can kill him in a instant while liches are undead, therefore invulnerable to death magic.——Cockatrice corpse (talk) 07:03, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Master and arch-liches cannot steal the book of the dead as they don't have an SAMU attack, FWIW. —bcode ^{talk | mail} 19:14, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

It is true that liches lack a stealing attack, so you do not have worry about your pair of speed boots becoming stolen (do worry about them getting cursed). If look up the lich page in the wiki , you see that master and arch-liches want the book of dead, therefore whey are Covetous and can still steal the book of dead——Cockatrice corpse (talk) 08:23, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect. They are covetous, but that doesn't mean they can steal the Book of the Dead. They'd need an AD_SAMU attack for that, and only the Wizard and quest nemeses have that attack (and the Master of Thieves even if you're a rogue as he's also the Tou nemesis). See mhitu.c, line 1329. —bcode ^{talk | mail} 08:59, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Gypsies

Anyone thought about adding a section for reverse genociding gypsies. It seems like the most prudent course is to get through the mines in order to get a large number of gems. If possible get as much unholywater as you can in minetownand then aquire magic resistance. Then reverse genocide gypsies the first chance you get. You could either save the last one and wish for 2 cursed scrolls of genocide or aquire them by polypiling. You can get 120 wishes in this manner. The only hard part about this is getting enough gems for 120 wishes. --Ndwolfwood 09:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It's actually slightly easier than that, although extremely tedious. this spoiler details how to cheat at 3 card monte once you have max luck. Personally I recommend using many smaller bets of 999 gold rather than one big bet of everything you can so that monte luck stays at 0 as long as possible. Furthermore, it's somewhat possible to manipulate cards with 99, so if you're extremely careful you can both eliminate the threat of magic resistance, demon summoning, and punishment and farm a single gypsy for gems (especially if the month is april, or anything else that gives high value gems). Gypsies are honestly the most broken part of SLASH'EM, although it is a pain in the ass to abuse them to their full extent. -- Qazmlpok 14:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Werespiders

I just genocided "s" in Slashem. Among the genoicided creatures were werespiders. I am assuming this is a oversight. I am going to put a addedum to the genocide page regarding werecreatures. If anyone capble of looking at the source code could do so in order to verify I'd apperciate it. Ndwolfwood 19:39, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The animal forms are genocidable, the human forms are not. Probably an oversight. -- Qazmlpok 19:52, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I have not done the lawful quest yet does that mean the werespider will still be generated and he will not be able to turn into a spider? The same result whatever it may be with a reverse genocide?--Ndwolfwood 21:33, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

SLASH'EM

I removed the level-draining monsters part: shadow ogres are not randomly generated, while deep dragons only drain life via their magic-cancellation-affected claw attack (their breath attack is just poison, trivially resistable). I also removed the high-level monsters bit - firstly, that's almost never worth doing, and secondly, the worst monsters in SLASH'EM aren't genocidable. If you can't handle a deepest one, you're going to get killed by a crystal golem. -Ion frigate 13:13, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Specific instructions (what to type?) for new/first-time users

Hi, I am a first-time user of a blessed scroll of genocide. I wish there was some instruction on exactly what I should type to achieve the genocides in the two tables of "Genocide by class (blessed scroll)" and "Genocide one species (uncursed scroll or throne)". The problem is that both tables list "Glyph" and "Monster" (a character and name, respectively). But do I type the character or the name when I actually use the scroll? Elsewhere on the page it talks about genociding a character ("if you are a dwarf, genociding h with a blessed ..."). But for my first genocide reading, I would not like to screw things up! For example, I am a dwarf, but I want to genocide mind flayers and master mind flayers. Does that mean I could type "mind flayer" or must I type "h" for that (which it says I shouldn't do because I'm an "h")?

Anyway, some clarification of what the implications of what I type would be helpful for newbies such as myself. Thanks! --KA --169.234.38.174 00:07, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

For an uncursed scroll, you need to type the monster name, for example, "master mind flayer". For a blessed scroll, you specify a monster class, typically by letter; for example, "h" for humanoids (including dwarves). You mentioned using a blessed scroll &ndash don't genocide 'h' with that as that includes dwarves.

You cannot genocide just (master) mind flayers with a blessed scroll; you need an uncursed scroll (or a throne) for that.

However, the page might indeed need a little note on input; perhaps I'll add that later today. —bcode ^{talk | mail} 00:15, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Mind Flayers for Intelligence

Genociding Mindflayers has another big drawback. They are one of the few sources for extra intelligence. If a Barabrian or Caveman genocides them early in the game, he will probably never be able to cast any spell at all. It may be possible to ascent that way, but it is usually easier to boost your intelligence to 18, and hoard unused spellbooks in you stash, so you can learn them before the endgame. The most usefull spells for a Fighter class is probably Identify, this can be done by eating some Mindflayers in gehennom, then if you have enough intellignece, take all your spellbooks return to Dungeon level 1. read them until you find Identify, then take off your armour, and try to cast it until you succed. An occasional Force Bolt may also be possible, and the Plane of Earth will be easier, if you can use Rodneys Digging Spell. The Ability to identify your stuff, makes the risk of Amnesia tolerable, and a careful player may be able to boost his intelligence to 18 without a single brain drain. A good strategy is to carry always a Wand of Digging while in a Maze (Minotaurs have them) And engrave 2 semipermanent Elbereths when a Mindflayer apears on the Level. Than, lure him to the Elbereth Square (and throw some Daggers or Spears at him (he will throw them back, but with a good AC they will hurt him more than you)) than take a good Melee Weapon (Battleaxe, Cleaver, Vorpal blade,...) and hit him everytime he stands next to you (ON THE ELBERETH SQUARE !!!) - 79.210.38.56 17:29, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

A barbarian or caveperson will probably never be able to cast any useful spell at all anyway. :)

Seriously, by the point you can learn it as one of the fighter roles, you don't really need identify anymore, I think. AFAIK dig is a spell you're unlikely to be able to cast even as caveperson who has it as their special spell; it may be possible, but wands of digging will probably be faster IIRC.

There are other ways to raise your intelligence, though; helms of brilliance and blessed potions of gain ability will work.

As for the "A good strategy..." part of what you wrote, using at least a semi-permanent fast Elbereth is all you need against mind flayers, yes. You can even reverse-genocide them at experience level one if you want to as long as you stay on a working Elbereth (and survive the mental blasts if applicable, though these are secondary). The danger is when they are summoned right next to you when you can't use Elbereth at all (over water, for example). —bcode ^{talk | mail} 00:45, 6 April 2013 (UTC)