Talk:Illiterate

Strategy and Challenges

What are the big challenges and strategies for an illiterate character, assuming no other conducts? Elbereth, obviously. Otherwise it seems to me like my main uses for scrolls in my own games are the cheap ones -- ID, enchanting, remove curse -- plus a scroll of earth in the Big Room and charging for the wand of wishing and maybe some wands of death and teleport. But you can do a lot with price-ID (especially since shopkeepers will help you with damage bonuses), and you can still engrave-ID to your heart's content, since polymorphing an 'x' doesn't break illiterate conduct. Would the Valk be the obvious choice -- besides her reduced need for Elbereth and spellbooks, she's guaranteed a highly enchanted piece of armor and lightly enchanted sword, and half damage from the Orb seems like it'd mitigate reduced AC. Is going as a neutral Valk and wishing for the PYEC cheap, or is it better to dip for Excalibur anyway? And what do you do with the Big Room, besides hoping it isn't there? -- Slandor 18:32, June 19, 2010 (UTC)

Strategy: Pickup-identifying scrolls of scare monster

You can either destroy the first scroll of scare monster you find and know the rest, or you can save all types of scrolls, later identifying scare monster safely. The first alternative means picking up all unknown scrolls three times and type-naming them. The second one means carrying a bunch of unidentified scrolls around, perhaps price-identifying them inside a container, and blessing one of each kind. A blessed scare monster will then become uncursed without disintegrating.

In case it's relevant, I'm thinking of an illiterate atheist pacifist, who needs scrolls of scare monster especially badly and doesn't get more scrolls from death drops.

Which strategy is better? Tjr 17:37, August 26, 2010 (UTC)