What do I do with all these corpses?

Question

I've killed a quite a few gnomes, and there are corpses all over the place. I can't pick them up without being encumbered. Is there anything useful I can do with them?

Asked by fredley

Answer

The NetHack wiki page on Corpses suggests that they can be :

• eaten by you or your pet - with varying effects depending on the corpse type and age
• preserved in tins for later consumption
• sacrificed to your god, on an altar
• revived with an appropriate wand or spell (some even revive themselves)

Answered by raveturned

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What do I do with my gold?

Question

I've just completed my first raid of Fort Ludios. I've donated to priests enough to receive the -9 intrinsic protection and gotten major and minor Oracle consultations, but I have a bit over 40,000 gold pieces left and am wondering what to do. Is it worth burning through it to try to get more intrinsic protection? (I'm level 13 so attempts are 5200 each, with a decreasing success rate starting at 1 in 9.) Should I just leave it near the Lvl 1 upstairs to pick up on the way out?

Asked by shujaa

Answer

Spoilers abound.

I'd say buying protection is the best use, but you've already done that. It's really not worth it after 9, you'll most likely just waste all of your gold.

Of course if the priest isn't co-aligned you can always spend all your money, trap them with boulders, kill them (I frequently use thrown rocks from smashing one of the boulders), retrieve your money and possibly a robe, cloak of magic resistance or protection, and 2-4 spellbooks. Then use their ghost from the desecrated temple to train a weapon (like a wish-saving silver saber from murdering the watch captain) and/or two-handed combat. With all those pesky do-gooders dead you can convert the altar, break a fountain for some water pools and build up your holy water supply. All quite useful really. Consequences aren't too severe if you plan for it. Fix your luck before praying if it dropped into the negatives from the massacre.

Apart from spending it on protection and purchasing goods at shops, gold doesn't have much use other than end-game points. It's also quite heavy. I like to play quickly rather than for points so I tend to ditch all of my gold but a small bit for paying off demon princes in Gehennom.

Answered by Christopher Galpin

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How do you safely pray to your god?

Question

Can somebody please give me a good overview of the prayer system in NetHack? From what I understand, you can pray once and your god is more than happy to help you out, but if you pray again, you get punished pretty severely for being so needy.

Basically, how does NetHack prayer work?

Asked by espais

Answer

The most important and constant variable when it comes to praying is something called "prayer timeout". When you first start the game, you have a prayer timeout of 300. This decrements by 1 every turn (not every action you take). When it hits 0, it is safe to pray. Praying will generally save you from immediate trouble, like being low in health or starving. It can also take care of minor problems like cursed equipment, but see the following note.

As ires_and_curses points out, if you're using prayer to save yourself from trouble, then you can actually pray before your prayer timeout hits 0. Major trouble can be safely done with 200 or less prayer timeout, while minor trouble can only be safely done at 100 or less prayer timeout.

Upon praying, your prayer timeout will increase by some amount between 50 and 1000, and you'll have to wait until it drops before you can pray again. Note that if you have been crowned by your god for your services, the prayer timeout increase is actually higher. Any item that gives you enlightenment, like a Potion of Enlightenment, will tell you "It is safe to pray" when you are at 0.

If you pray before your timeout is 0, then you will anger your god, and increase the prayer timeout. If you sufficiently anger your god, then you will receive increasingly dangerous punishments, starting with cursed or destroyed equipment and ending with lightning from the heavens being followed by a wide-angle disintegration beam (this is not two separate punishments!). Praying while your god is angry with you will also be bad, you need to pacify the god by making sacrifices before you can safely pray again.

Some other factors that affect when and where you can safely pray, even with 0 prayer timeout. Praying on an altar of another god is going to anger your current god if your alignment is good. Praying in Gehennom counts as praying to Moloch, so it has the same effect. If your luck or alignment is negative, then prayer will not work (though I don't recall if you get punished here). Being a demon and praying to a non-chaotic god will accomplish nothing because the thought disgusts you. Being undead and praying to a non-chaotic god will cause the god to turn you back to living and sustain damage as you return to the natural cycle.

You can reduce the prayer timeout by sacrificing creatures. The better the sacrifice, the better the rewards. Good sacrifices are creatures of the opposite alignment to your god, especially opposing unicorns. This is the only way to reduce the timeout besides waiting for it to naturally expire.

Answered by Grace Note

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How do I loot a chest on top of a teleportation trap?

Question

Given that I don't have magic resistance yet, and walking on to the chest always teleports me away, is there a way to do it?

Asked by Bruce Connor

Answer

A general point is to move the item off of the trap, typically by kicking. A chest, however, has a special kick interaction, so even with kicking boots, you can't move the chest off of the trap. If you have a wand of teleportation or know the spell teleport away, you can teleport the chest off of the trap, and then hunt down where it lands. As long as it doesn't end up on another teleportation trap, you're home free!

Absent of having a means of teleportation, however, the only other way to get it is indeed to have Magic Resistance such as from a cloak of magic resistance. Teleport control will not let you land on a teleport trap, whether you teleport from elsewhere or from the trap itself.

Answered by Grace Note

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Avoiding hunger in Nethack

Question

A bit of a followup from How can I tell if a corpse is safe to eat?, what is the best manner of avoiding death by hunger?

Previously, I had eaten corpses and whatnot whenever I could find them, and with the info in the aforementioned post I am able to now figure out which corpses to avoid eating.

But, I've had numerous characters die from hunger. How can I go about surviving without succumbing to an empty stomach?

Answer

There are two parts to the hunger problem in NetHack: gaining nutrition and reducing nutrition loss.

Under normal conditions, each turn, you lose one point of nutrition. You start with 900 nutrition, and start feeling hungry when you drop below 150. At 0, you'll faint. Starving to death happens at a negative value based on your constitution.

Nethack is a very complex game, so there are exceptions to most of the guidelines below, and other, more obscure ways of sustaining yourself, but these general principles are good guidelines.

Gaining nutrition

• Comestibles. The most straightforward way to gain nutrition is to eat comestibles (labeled as % - food, meat and corpses). The amount of nutrition you get depends on what you eat. Early on in the game is often the riskiest time; you may not start with much food. At this stage, it's normal to eat as many fresh, safe corpses as you can get your hands on. If you make it that far, there is guaranteed food in the Sokoban levels, which are accessed somewhere between levels 6-10.

• Praying. Praying while weak will restore your nutrition, but safe use depends on your current prayer timeout. Also, using up your favour with your god could backfire if you have a sudden unforseen need (e.g. you have gained a fatal illness like food poisoning, or are being turned to stone).

• Convert boulders to food. As theist points out, you can convert boulders to huge chunks of meat if you have the stone to flesh spell. These are hugely nutritious (2000 points).

Reducing nutrition loss

• Wear a ring of slow digestion. This is a great item, if you can find one. It changes your rate of nutrition consumption to 5% of your normal rate (giving you twenty times as long to find food). As Grace Note points out in the comment below, this is because you are only paying the nutrition cost of the ring - your standard rate of consumption is halted.

• Take off your rings. In general, you lose one nutrition every twenty turns for each ring or amulet you wear. Rings of regeneration are particularly pernicious; if you're wearing one, you'll lose a point every other turn.

• Drop your stuff. If you're Stressed or heavier, you lose a point every other turn.

• Don't cast spells. Spellcasting makes you hungry (unless you're a wizard with high Intelligence).

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Do bones in Minetown remember if the fountains have slowed to a trickle?

Question

If a player dies in Minetown after being warned by the watchmen to stop dipping in fountains or receiving a message that the flow reduced to a trickle, leaving bones, does another player loading the bones get a new warning when dipping/quaffing from that fountain, or is there a chance of the fountain being destroyed with no warning?

Answer

Just tested this in wizard mode: If you get a warning in one game, die, and encounter the bones in another game, you will not get a warning in the second game. The fountain will just dry up without warning.

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Strategy for handling the oddities that spew out of a fountain upon dipping

Question

Ok, normally when I hit level 5 I start searching around for a fountain to dip for Excalibur.

One common issue I have been noticing is that sometimes I will either unleash a water demon or an endless supply of water moccasins...both of which make short work of me.

I try reading all my scrolls, zapping any wands I haven't identified in the hopes one is a teleportation, and quaffing potions if I have time.

Is there a good way of surviving this sort of event? It seems like the odds are stacked against me once this happens, and can quickly turn a promising character into a dead one.

Answer

One of the strongest defenses a low level character has is Elbereth. Before dipping, you can engrave one or more, just in case. If you're writing in the dust, you'll want to engrave it several times per square to counteract the quick erosion.

The other option is to run away. Note any doors you could close behind you. Be aware of all your escape options (Knights can jump away, for example). Also be aware of the stair locations. Running away won't do any good if you cut off your path to the rest of the dungeon.

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Why did my dog just eat my cat?

Question

I was carrying around a tripe ration in an effort to keep my dog close, when I found a nice housecat that was in need of a good home.

So I fed it my tripe ration, and a very happy heart appeared over its head. I named him Katt, and he purred and snuggled against me because he was so happy to have a real home.

Then a few turns later, my dog attacked and ate him. I don't know if it was sibling rivalry or not, but he just got angry at the cat and went to town.

Do pets not like each other, or was it something else? Up until that point my dog had a nice and sunny disposition.

---

Aside from the bolded edit above, here are some more clarifications:

1. The dog had just killed and eaten a black naga hatchling
2. The cat was alive at the time, the dog simply started biting him.
3. I'm pretty low level still, I'm not wearing any jewelry of any kind.
4. The dog has eaten pretty well...I've been letting it take care of all lichens, jackals, etc so far.
5. Also no traps within the immediate area either.

Answer

Under normal conditions pets won't attack other pets. However they have no problem eating a former pet's corpse. So one of the following things might have happened:

• Something else (a monster or a boulder trap for example) killed your cat and your dog ate the corpse.
• Your dog became confused from hunger, randomly attacked your cat and then ate it.
• You're wearing a ring of conflict which caused the dog to attack anything in its range including your cat.

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Why is autopickup on even though I disabled it in nethackrc?

Question

I created an .nethackrc to make nethack fitting my needs with the following line :

OPTIONS=autodig,!autopickup

But even if I disabled autopickup, it is still activated in game and it is very annoying...

I'm running nethack 3.4.3

Any ideas?

Answer

Some possibilities:

• Is your config file in the correct location? You can test that by setting some easily visible option like name and starting a new game to see if it has effect.

• Do you have a NETHACKOPTIONS environment variable that might be overriding your options?

• Did you toggle autopickup from the Options menu or press @ by accident while playing?

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Is there a Nethack GUI client for OSX Lion?

Question

This should not be a dupe of this question. I am trying to get Nethack up and running on OSX Lion, and the QT client no longer works (goodbye PPC support).

I found the Nethack Cocoa project, however the tileset is both slow and not very attractive IMO (I was a fan of the smaller, quicker tileset).

My question is if there are any other non-PPC Nethack tile-based clients that work with Lion (other than the one I mentioned), and if not, any way to replace the existing tiles with the more standard Nethack tiles.

To be honest, if none exist I'll probably go back to the terminal...

Answer

Nethack Cocoa supports different (and custom) tilesets via the Game > Tilesets menu item. There's an ASCII mode as well but I'm not sure if it's any faster...

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Nethack GUI client for OSX Lion

Question

This should not be a dupe of this question. I am trying to get Nethack up and running on OSX Lion, and the QT client no longer works (goodbye PPC support).

I found the Nethack Cocoa project, however the tileset is both slow and not very attractive IMO (I was a fan of the smaller, quicker tileset).

My question is if there are any other non-PPC Nethack tile-based clients that work with Lion (other than the one I mentioned), and if not, any way to replace the existing tiles with the more standard Nethack tiles.

To be honest, if none exist I'll probably go back to the terminal...

Answer

Nethack Cocoa supports different (and custom) tilesets via the Game > Tilesets menu item. There's an ASCII mode as well but I'm not sure if it's any faster...

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How does Nethack make a character for me?

Question

I recently dipped my toes in Nethack waters and so far I've been letting Nethack pick the character for me. I keep getting either archeologist or a cavewoman though for about five games now. I'm wondering, is it supposed to be that you get a random character and I've been really (un)lucky to get the same two types for my games?

Answer

The almighty Random Number God decides your fate. Have you been praying to him? If not, no wonder you have been getting the same characters over and over!

In all seriousness, it's almost completely random. To be exact, psuedo ramdom due to the nature of computers, but the distribution should be even.

If I were you, if you get the same character for a sixth time then just ask for a new character. Maybe the RNG will have mercy.

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Are there graphical Nethack clients that connect to public servers?

Question

So, there is the nethack.alt.org server where many users have gone and had their good times, using the text-based interface through a client such as PuTTY (or your favorite terminal client).

Anyway, I don't mind playing Nethack in console mode... However I do rather enjoy the graphical version far more. Are there any clients available that make use of graphical tilesets, and can connect to a public server?

Answer

I am hosting a public server which give the possibility to play a graphical nethack with tiles in a javascript frame. I am looking for people in order to try it. So you are welcome :) It's almost the same feeling as playing the windows/linux graphical version but with statistics and high-score online. And you have nothing to download.

http://newthack.com

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What's a good role and race for a Nethack beginner?

Question

I've just started to play Nethack (games you can play in a shell are useful). What is the easiest role and race to start with?

Answer

How easy any given class is depends on your playing style of course, but most people agree that valkyrie is the easiest class in nethack. They're good for fighting, they start with good equipment (+3 small shield means that once you've picked up some body armor, you'll have a very nice AC for a starting character) and food and they have a decent quest artifact. They also get speed at level 7.

Race doesn't matter as much, but dwarves are a good choice for valkyries, because they have good stats for fighting and most inhabitants of the gnomish mines will be peaceful towards you (so you can go shopping without endangering your life - as much).

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Why did my Excalibur go all explodey on me?

Question

So I was a lawful human Valkyrie...just picked up Excalibur a few floors prior, and had started working through the Gnomish Mines.

I hadn't done anything to anger Tyr, I was simply cutting away some rock in the mines to make it easier to get between staircases. I was stressed from just picking up some dwarvish gear, and all of a sudden I was blasted by Excalibur when I equipped it.

What what what happened?

Answer

Either you were not Lawful or you had a negative alignment record (from displeasing your god) at the time you attempted to equip the artifact. See the linked article for a list of the numerous ways you can piss off a deity.

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How can I tell if a corpse is safe to eat?

Question

I am playing a human wizard, and I just killed a monster, leaving a corpse on the ground. How do I tell whether it is safe to eat this corpse?

I leave the monster unspecified because I am interested in "how can I figure out whether this is edible," rather than whether any particular monster is edible. Likewise, I would prefer to avoid having to look up or memorize a list of every single monster (but rules for particular symbols are great).

Answer

First off, no matter the corpse, never eat unless you just made that corpse or you have a method of preservation (tinning, icebox). Rotten corpses cause food poisoning (unless you're a fungus or a ghoul), and it doesn't take very long for a corpse to rot. And there isn't a visual indication of rotting, either, so the safe bet is to never eat something you didn't just kill. Most undead corpses are automatically rotten, as well. (See below for a more technical explanation.)

If the monster has poison or acid attacks, or is made of poison or acid, then there's a very high chance that you'll be poisoned or take acid damage. Both of these can be fatal, the former even instantly so, but poison and acid resistance will protect against this. Note that most poisonous corpses will chance to give you poison resistance, so this can be something to risk if you have enough health. Other elemental effects like fire, cold, and electricity are traditionally safe.

If the monster causes you to be stunned, hallucinating, or confused by natural attacks (as opposed to casting a spell), then it is highly likely you will be tripping after you eat its corpse. Some of these are very obvious. Actually, most creatures with negative effects like petrification will also carry over that effect with their corpse.

While it won't directly kill you, the corpses of teleporting creatures like imps, nymphs, tengu, and leprechauns will often give you teleportitis. Note that tengu do have a chance of giving you teleport control, so it's a good idea to start eating those when you do get stuck with teleportitis.

Unless you are of the Caveman profession or the Orc race, you are not a cannibal. This means that eating a member of your own race will give you a penalty in the form of the "Aggravate Monster" intrinsic (which is as bad as it sounds) and a penalty to your Luck.

---

For specific exceptions, off the top of my head: Bats cause stunning. Wraiths are safe to eat despite being undead. All adult Dragons are safe to eat, as well as most babies, but baby green dragons are poisonous unlike their adult counterpart. Lichen and Lizards do not rot over time and carry no negative effects that some other members of the same creature class might, so they make excellent backup food.

---

The rotting process is a little bit complicated and based on luck more than anything. Every 10 to 29 turns, (+2 for cursed, -2 for blessed) a corpse gains a degree of rottenness.

When it reaches a rottenness of 4, it is considered old. When you eat an old corpse, there's a 20% chance you will lose 1-8 hp, and a 1/7 chance of it being rotten (as in rotten food, not deadly.) When it reaches a rottenness of 6, it will give you fatal food poisoning, killing you in 11-19 turns.

So, put more simply, a corpse is definitely safe to eat in all cases for 32 turns, and it can cause food poisoning after a minimum of 48. Everything beyond that is just random chance.

Undead corpses start out with an age of 100 turns, which is why they are almost always already rotten.

---

Attributions for information provided within comments to:

• WillfulWizard for reminding about teleporting monsters.
• ire_and_curses for corrections on non-rotting lizards and poisonous baby green dragons.
• Kaestur Hakarl, who investigated and discovered the safe measures for cannibalism.

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Where did my rings go?

Question

I'm currently fighting my way through the castle in Nethack. I was wearing 2 rings when I reached this level (a ring of protection and a ring of regeneration), and after a long battle both my rings are simply gone. Everything else I was wearing/carrying is still with me (including some other rings).

I don't remember taking them off, and I'm positive I didn't fight any nymphs or inccubus/succubus. I'm a dwarven valkyrie (though I'm pretty sure it doesn't influence anything).

What could have happened to my rings?

Answer

Do you have shock resistance? Lightning can destroy rings that you are wearing. Sources of lightning that you're likely to have met include:

• Blue/chromatic dragon
• Wand of lightning
• Trapped chests

You could try to cycle through previous messages until you see something about your rings.

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How can I bring my pet to the valley of dead?

Question

I've finally reached the valley of the dead, but I'm having trouble getting my pet to follow me down there. Seeing that it is a silver dragon, I really didn't want to leave it behind.

The problem is that pets don't normally follow you through trap doors (only through stairs) and the only ways to get to the valley are the trap doors inside the catle. Is there a way around this problem? As long as I'm in the valley of the dead with my pet beside me, it's fair game. I'm playing a barbarian with tons of scrolls and a wand of wishing (which I didn't want to waste).

Answer

I tend to lose my pets pretty early on, so this won't be a great answer. I think the best way to do this is to get a saddle and ride your Dragon. Ridden animals are affected by traps, so I think in the case of a trapdoor you both fall through, although I'm not certain.

The only other way down to the Valley is by level teleport, but I'm fairly sure that doesn't take your pet with you.

Once you're in the Valley, there are stairs leading back up to the Castle. I don't recall whether you can use the stairs to subsequently return. If you can, then you could pick up your pet by coming back upstairs, meeting up, and then walking down again.

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Making your actions properly repeatable

Question

Should be a simple question -

In Nethack often I've wanted to gain the telepathic intrinsic by eating a floating eye corpse. Normally I'll try attacking it from a distance so as not to be frozen.

This time, I tried making things easier by readying a group of darts, and then trying to throw them all in a row.

So I typed in n20f and continually pressed the right button in order to aim my dart.

However, this caused me to freeze up and get killed by a random giant bat, which was able to easily kill me since I was helpless.

I'm playing the Windows port, so my arrow keys move me. Is there something I did wrong here?

Answer

Once you throw one dart/dagger/etc., you can fire again in the same direction using CTRL-A.

This is IMO the best way to accomplish this.

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My pet is a public menace, what did I do wrong?

Question

In my current attempt at nethack I'm playing a dwarven samurai with a dog pet, so most dwarves I've encountered are peaceful. However, for some reason, my dog has been going beserk on every friendly dwarf we meet and I'd like to know why.

Since this doesn't really incur penalties on me, not to mention he was getting experience, I didn't mind it while going down the gnomish mines, but now it's becoming a problem. I've just reached Minetown and imagine my surprise when my pet decides to attack the owner of the first shop I visit. Though this still incurs no penalties, I'm afraid he's going to get zapped to death, so I have to lock him out of every shop I visit.

Now I wonder, did I do something wrong that is causing this?
I didn't catch any message like "Rex is confused with hunger." or something (plus, I almost starved because he was pouncing on every single corpse we made).
I've heard you can train your pet to steal by feeding him when he drops you stuff, is it somehow possible that I have accidentally trained him to be aggressive?

Answer

As far as I know, there's no way to train or otherwise cause your pet to be more aggressive. In general, pets don't much care if a monster is friendly to you or not - they'll go ahead and attack anyway, as long as the monster is close to their level.

It's quite possible that your dog has reached max level by this point in the game, especially if he's been getting a lot of kills. However, dogs don't normally attack shopkeepers, even at max level.

I can think of a couple possible explanations for your situation:

• You're wearing a ring of conflict. (Unlikely, since you'd be getting attacked too.)
• Your pet was at maximum level and ate a wraith corpse. This would put him within a level of the shopkeepers and liable to attack.

Some pertinent info from the wiki article on pets:

They say discretion is the better part of valor. Pets don't always possess such discretion, and often find themselves overpowered by opponents they take on. Although a pet will not attack a monster which could kill it in one round, this calculation takes no account of the monster's weapon or passive attack. Be especially careful about bringing dogs or cats into the Gnomish Mines, or horses into shops, especially in the deeper levels. Horses seem especially vulnerable to mimics, and have also been known to attack shopkeepers, as they reach a higher level than dogs or cats. (A pet will not attack a monster which is two or more levels higher than itself. A fully grown large cat or dog is level 9, a fully grown warhorse is level 10, and a shopkeeper is level 11.)

also

Carnivorous and omnivorous pets will eat wraith corpses and gain one level for each, capped at 15 over base level. (There is no cap for gains from engulfing live wraiths.)

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