User:Handrocles

About Me

My first roguelike was ADOM, but I'm glad I switched to NetHack, which I find less frustrating. I'm uncomfortable applying words like easier and simpler to NetHack, so I won't, but it's certainly been a more pleasant introduction to the genre.

Now that I've ascended on NAO, I feel pretty cool.

These are the inventory letters I habitually use for common items.

My semi-current game log.

Ascensions

My Table of Ascensions

Date	Name	Role	Race	Gender	Alignment	Level	Conducts	Points	Notes	Dumplog
11/10/2007	Brunhilde	Valkyrie	Human	Female	Lawful	30	Arti-wishless (accidentally)	7078150	A first!
12/19/2007	Gerhilde	Valkyrie	Human	Female	Neutral	30	Polyselfless, Polyless	6067056	Pretty similar
5/3/2008	Handrocles	Wizard	Elf	Female	Chaotic	30	Arti-wishless, Survivor	4426322	Insanity. See below.	[1]
6/13/2008	Handrocles	Samurai	Human	Male	Chaotic	27		4565802	Helm of opposite alignment FTW	[2]
8/6/2008	Handrocles	Ranger	Elf	Male	Chaotic	30	Geno-less	3919316	Died twice via stupidity. Thanks, "oLS!	[3]
2/1/2009	Handrocles	Priest	Human	Male	Neutral	30	Atheist, Polyselfless	3934740	Had to wish for candles. Altar on third try. Killed own high priest, which seemed appropriate.	[4]
4/8/2010	Handrocles	Barbarian	Human	Male	Lawful	24	Polyselfless	4112674	Found +5 HoB. HoOA again. Pwnd Yeenoghu	[5]
2/13/2013	Handrocles	Valkyrie	Dwarf	Male	Lawful	21		4251372	Didn't actually plan to ascend this character. Killed all 9 Nazgul, got away with 8 of their rings	[6]
2/22/2013	Handrocles	Rogue	Human	Female	Chaotic	23	Polyless	3554838	Lost most of my loot when my BoH got cursed. Luckily I had a backup containing 90863 zm	[7]

I just don't wish for artifacts much, so I'm not putting it in there anymore.

The Checklist

I Have Yet to Ascend As:

Role	Race	Gender	Alignment	Conduct
Archeologist	Human	Male	Lawful	Foodless
Barbarian	Elf	Female	Neutral	Vegan
Caveman	Dwarf		Chaotic	Vegetarian
Healer	Gnome			Atheist
Knight	Orc			Pacifist
Monk				Weaponless
Priest				Illiterate
Ranger				Polyless
Rogue				Polyselfless
Samurai				Genocideless
Tourist				Wishless
Valkyrie				Artiwishless
Wizard

News, Such As It Is

2/13/2013: Aaaand I'm back, after just about three years away from NetHack. Spent most of my time in the interim playing Dungeon Crawl, Dwarf Fortress, and Minecraft, so I wouldn't say I've gone soft. I started a Valkyrie just to get re-acquainted with the game, and ended up ascending her (later him). Not much of note happened, except that a Castle-dwelling golden naga vaporized my GoP, so I had to blow a wish on another pair. Fortunately I found two magic lamps, so I wasn't short of them. After some magic-markerage I had -33 AC and 200 HP at level 21, and decided I could handle the Planes without much issue. I wasn't wrong.

7/2/2008: What do you want to eat? [fhjlpyBQ or ?*]

Using your elven dagger you try to open the tin.

You succeed in opening the tin. It smells like chickatrices.

Eat it? [yn]

5/3/2008: Blood and souls! OK, I just ascended a Wizard on NAO, and it was a totally hectic game. I've been trying to ascend a Ranger for a while, but I decided to take a break and start a Wizard. I never thought this game was going to get off the ground. I started knowing Force Bolt and Haste Self, which was near useless as I had a huge failure chance. I nearly died repeatedly as I ran into yetis, although maybe this engendered the proper paranoia necessary to survive. For a long time, I got almost no spellbooks, and no attack spells until I got a hold of Cone of Cold. Woot! That led to major ownage, and I soon got crowned. Cone of Cold, Finger of Death, and the Eye made my life a lot easier.

I found an elf figurine, which I blessed, applied, and named Galadriel. I let her go crazy in the Fort, and she was soon promoted to Elvenking. Later on I got gifted Stormbringer. Now, one of the reasons I'd been playing chaotic Rangers was that I really wanted Stormy, but by this time I was pretty attached to Magicbane. Not wanting to let it go to waste, I dropped the great black battle-blade in front of Galadriel, and sure enough she wielded it.

Now I'd had somewhat bad luck with gear (note that I ascended with leather gloves), but my AC was ok because I'd gotten some magic markers. In fact, the six markers I found were my main source of win and spells, but when I got to the castle I still had no body armor. I made for the wand but ran into a black dragon along the way. I thought I was all but disintegrated as I still didn't have reflection, but instead, almost as bad, I lost my cloak of MR and my hat or something. I zapped the dragon and hotfooted to the chest, which... exploded. Taking my wishes with it. Fortunately I still had MR from Magicbane, and there was a silver dragon around that dropped scales, so I came out of the Castle demoralized but alive.

I wrote a spellbook of Magic Mapping, and dropped through Gehennom with some ease. After I wasted Asmodeus I ran into a bones pile. Score! I got the rest of my ascension kit from this player, who I think was a Wizard, on his way up with the Amulet! I upgraded my SDSM, got a new [MR, an HoB, a +5 Mjollnir and, bless the luck, a cursed wand of wishing (1:1)! At this time I was still pissed about the Castle wand, and I decided not to use the wand and try to ascend wishless. More on that later.

Got the Amulet and started back up. I was doing fine and was confident about my chances of ascending with Galadriel. The Planes of Earth and Air were fine, but the Plane of Fire was an unmitigated disaster. I blew most of my pp healing my tankenelf, who was finally killed by a boulder. I picked up the sword and started looking for the portal. I wasted a ton of time and got surrounded repeatedly by Archons and the hordes they summoned. At some point there were like three near me, summoning nasties and resisting my spells. Finally I decided I'd rather win than keep wishless, so I hit conflict, uncursed the wand and wished for a cockatrice corpse. After stoning some Archons I looked about me and saw that some demon had gated in Yeenoghu. By this point I was numb and just stoned the bastard on my way past. I got bogged down again, having used my only wish, but then I found a live cockatrice nearby, so I weaponized it and went to town again. By now I felt like an idiot wading through the plane looking for the damn portal, so I broke out the last of my lifesaving markers, wrote a ?oGD, found the portal closer to the entrance that I'd like to admit, and jumped over to it.

I tried to take my time on the Plane of Water and regen some pp, and once I got to Astral I was ok. By now I felt OK about crowds, though of course I hadn't brought any /oTeleport, but I zapped Famine and Pestilence, found the correct altar on the second try, picked up two bits for an ale, and put an end to my longest (in real time) game so far. The dumplog is here.

11/10/2007: After five months of ignoring my news thingy, I have finally ascended! Woot!

5/21/2007: Man, I haven't really played in a while. Still having fun on NetHackWiki though.

3/1/2007: YASD. Finished Sokoban, got a bag of holding. My pet cat-turned-devil had gone feral on me, and when I got back out of Sokoban I was going to try to convert an altar nearby. I read a scroll of create monster that I hadn't buc tested yet, and sure enough it was cursed. I killed about half of the monsters summoned though. I ended up with about 68000 points, more than twice my previous record. I just hope I never see that bones level...

2/28/2007: I started a really good game of Nethack last night. I'm now at level ten and I've cleared the Gnomish Mines. By sheer good fortune, I have three luckstones, a cloak of magic resistance, a ring of invisibility, and maybe a wand of death, and by sheer bloodymindedness I have Mjollnir as well. The Watch of Minetown is mad at me because I was trying to dilute my potions in their fountain, like a dumbshit, but I got away unscathed, and I think I can dodge them if I need to go back. Also my pet cat got turned into a horned devil. Oh yeah, I can train my pet horned devil on the guards! Hmm....

The Lloyd Dobler Conduct

"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."

• Don't buy or sell anything in shops. Stealing, price-iding, and buying protection are fine. Buying at most seven candles from Izchak is fine if you don't want to steal from him.
• Don't create anything new, such as: scrolls with magic markers; potions with alchemy; DSM with scrolls and scales; dipping for Excalibur. Wishing and sacrifice gifts are fine.
• Don't repair damaged items. Fooproofing is fine, as long as no existing damage is repaired.

Indeed

And yes, Andronikus is my real nickname.