Forum:What to do with potions?
I'm very new to Nethack (as demonstration, personal best progress: stoned by stepping on a cockatrice corpse while wearing a blindfold in Sokoban Zoo... also never got wishes). I often struggle with managing potions, and so far, I think I've seen three main pieces of oft-occuring strats:
1. Quaff everything that is unidentifiable by dip-testing + price-testing. Advantage: Gives you a lot of knowledge so that you can use already-identified potions wisely later when you find them. Disadvantage: Seems wasteful.
2. Dilute everything for holy water. Advantage: Scrolls weigh much less and some (e.g., genocide, identify) are much more powerful than any potion when blessed. Disadvantage: Luck-dependent (fountain hazards and needing co-aligned / convertable altar). Also potentially passing up on life-saving potions (e.g., healing for defense, paralysis for offense). The potions will also burden you.
3. Stash for blessing later. Advantage: Cautious and not wasteful. Disadvantage: It takes time and hence wastes food to run back and forth. Otherwise the stash will not help you until the endgame. You also lose opportunities for holy water.
What are your personal preferences? Also, are there authoritative opinions or is it really very personal playstyle-dependent? Thank you!!
- I would pick the tactics based on the available resources. If I have a unicorn horn, then dip-testing will be extremely effective (though not perfect) at weeding out harmful potions. If I find a coaligned altar early, producing a lot of holy water early could have enormous benefits. Stashing can be effective even with limited resources, although if I have high physical stats and a sack, I can carry more potions and delay stashing them.
- Additionally, in my opinion it's more important to avoid drinking a bad potion than to avoid wasting a good potion. Most potions aren't so amazing in the early game, especially if their BUC is unknown. --Aximili (talk) 04:57, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- Well, pet-testing ensures you won't be quaffing any cursed potions. Dip-testing avoids sickness and polymorph. And if you quaff in a shop while standing a knight's step away from the shopkeeper, he will block the door for you, saving you from consequences of confusion, hallucination, paralysis, blindness, and sleep. Apply-testing plus price-testing further protects you from acid (which probably won't kill you anyways). Hence, I think there will be no negative consequences from quaff-testing, save for potentially wasting turns from waiting out status effects. Loresend (talk) 18:10, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- I do agree with you, though, that potions are just not that cool. Maybe holy water is simply the best choice, even if that passes off on good potions. Or just simply stashing when burdened until you find enough blessed ?oID. Loresend (talk) 18:14, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- Moving away from the ideal and considering how I actually behave - I almost always stash excess potions when burdened (if I survive long enough to have that many). Whereas diluting unknown potions to make holy water is a tactic reserved for when I really need to bless something like a scroll of enchant armor or a magic lamp. Usually there are enough “known irrelevant” potions that I’m happy to waste, for example potions of object detection from a nymph or potions of booze and fruit juice from a food shop. —Aximili (talk) 19:22, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
- Generally I stash most potions until I can formally ID them, which is as soon as I can bless the scroll. There's enough obviously useless ones which I'm willing to dilute and bless to that end without potentially wasting healing or gain energy or any other good ones. I also concur that there's not much benefit from quaff-testing very early, as potions are generally not good escape items: even extra/full healing is often not worth the 20 aum it weighs. Wands or even scrolls are just better. Tomsod (talk) 07:21, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
