User:Mobileuser/Infidel

Notes on playing evilhack Infidel

I assume you will have read https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/EvilHack#New_player_roles and https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/User:Tomsod/YANIs_and_patches/Infidel first. Also relevant: https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Amulet_of_Yendor

Some differences between the Tomsod patch and the evilhack implementation:

• you start with 2 uncursed scrolls of charging instead of a magic marker.
• Infidels need to carry the Amulet in order to cast spells without losing hit points and for hit point regeneration.
• the lesser homunculus starting pet is called Hecubus.
• Infidels can also start as illithid, elf, drow, centaur or giant (for draugr, see section below).
• if you kill your quest leader, the sanctum high priest will provide both clues that you need.
• Secespita has been buffed, +1d8 damage and +1d8 to-hit and poison resistance when wielded.
• The intrinsics that you got from your starting race will be removed after crowning. To compensate, evilhack adds sleep resistance to the intrinsics you get from crowning.

Starting gear

• The fire horn is very useful to kill difficult monsters. Once empty, it can serve as a tooled horn. If needed you can recharge it with your starting charging scrolls. If you get stunlocked by a gnomish wizard: when stunned, even a charged fire horn will work like a tooled horn.
• Your potions of unholy water will heal you for 4d6 when quaffed.
• You start with a +1 dagger and can get to expert with dagger. It's the only multishot weapon. Infidels also can get basic club skill, an aklys is an excellent ranged weapon. Since Secespita is a knife and evilhack merges dagger and knife skill, training dagger becomes extra useful.
• Your starting spell (drain life) can be very useful, but getting low AC can be more important in the early game.

Below are lists of Infidel challenges and advantages. The challenges pertain mostly to the early and mid game, the advantages mostly to the mid and late game. It's difficult to get a good Infidel going, but in the end you will have a very powerful character.

Infidel challenges

• prayer has a 80% chance to fail, so don't count on it to save your life. But you can try multiple times, for example when weak from hunger.
• any non-Moloch temple priest will be hostile, so you can't buy protection early (feel free to spend the money you find in shops).
• you can't wish for any quest artifacts.
• carrying the Amulet means you can't levelport. Be prepared to do a lot of walking. Also, teleporting yourself is impossible, so you may need to drop the Amulet if you need to emergency teleport.
• carrying the Amulet means your luck will time out twice as fast.
• carrying the Amulet means that monster difficulty will depend on your deepest level reached, not your current dungeon level. So be careful not to descend too quickly.
• since no unicorn shares your alignment, you can't (reliably) increase luck that way. You will need to sacrifice at altars.
• converting an altar will fail outright 80% of the time. For lawful and neutral altars, a same race sacrifice always converts the altar.
• water prayer at an altar creates unholy water, not holy. Getting holy water can be a major challenge if RNG doesn't provide. Try to find out which scroll is remove curse and hope you can find a blessed one (for confused reading). In theory you could also use a HoOA to temporarily turn lawful and create holy water at a lawful altar.
• at some point champions and agents will start to appear. Champions hit very hard and can easily kill you if you're not prepared. Agents are mostly invisible and will try to steal the Amulet.
• if you don't make regular sacrifices you will start to lose alignment points. Staying pious is not very difficult, but your alignment record will suffer and you may be forced to kill your quest leader.
• blessed armor makes spell casting more difficult. Scrolls of blessed enchant armor will bless your armor, so make sure to dip in unholy water afterwards.
• the quest nemesis (the Paladin) is very difficult to beat in direct combat. A boulder fort strategy is recommended. Use a cursed potion of invisibility to attract the Paladin, then bombard with advanced fireball (to target her directly you must be able to 'see' her, eg with telepathy). Make sure all your armor is fireproof.
• If you get crowned and turn into a demon, you will be unable to use silver items from then on. Don't get crowned too early if you still rely on a silver item for survival.

Infidel advantages

• Infidels are "weld-proof", meaning they can always remove or drop cursed items. That means they can quickly test armor, weapons, rings and amulets.
• Clairvoyance gives you valuable information about your surroundings. Use ctrl-U to remove unwanted 'I' markers.
• Getting the Orctown version of Minetown is actually beneficial for Infidels (readily available Moloch altar).
• Infidels can safely pray in Gehennom and perform sacrifices there.
• The quest home level has a Moloch altar. Created monsters are mostly champions and agents, which can be used as sacrifice fodder if you're not human.
• The Moloch temples at the ice queen branch and the valley of the dead are safe places to buy protection.
• The quest artifact, the Idol, will give you MR, half spell damage and energy regeneration. Uncurse the Idol asap, otherwise hostile demons will start flying out of your backpack.
• When crowned by Moloch you will be turned into a demon. This offers some great advantages:
  • enhanced HP and Pw growth. If you have a ring of polymorph control, it is worth it to selfpoly to demon to reset those stats.
  • intrinsic flying, but you will need to wear flexible armor (surprisingly, crystal plate mail is considered flexible).
  • drain resistance, immunity to death magic, extra sting attack, slower digestion (spell casting still causes hunger).
  • most demons will be friendly
• As an Infidel you can only receive unaligned weapons from sacrifices. This is actually pretty nice, since you will have more chance to receive the good stuff.
• Infidels are powerful spell casters. Wish for Magicbane and forge with Secespita to get the Staff of the Archmagi.

Draugr

• The draugr race can never cast spells, so this makes for a radically different game. You will have to rely on melee and ranged weapons.
• Crowning will not transform you into a demon. But you will receive Angelslayer, a strong weapon to have.
• Draugr don't start with intrinsic fire resistance, and can only achieve full fire resistance from an extrinsic source. As with all draugr, acquiring extrinsic telepathy and slow digestion are also very helpful.