Not so stupid death, but death nonetheless

[bron]

I've been trying to duplicate the feat of http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=2628 but without the black ooze farming. As before, I killed a bunch of characters before getting one that survived the first dozen levels, but finally had a promising candidate. It was slow and painful, although not nearly as slow and painful as the first time, and I was in fact able to avoid the black ooze trick. Killed Sauron at about 1.4 million turns. I knew I was a little light for Morgoth, but decided to go for it anyway, I mean, everything else had gone pretty well up to that point, surely my luck would hold? (Where have I heard that before?) But no. Morgoth mana stormed and summoned nasty foes like there was no tomorrow, and my seeker arrows of Holy Might missed with alarming frequency. Wasn't even close; never got him below 5 stars. Sigh.

Unfortunately, I have become convinced that *is* possible to do this (i.e. buck naked artifactless ironman without black ooze farming). So I'll probably have to waste another month or two of my life trying again. Maybe a Dunadan Ranger this time ...

[Pete Mack]

Why not start with torch(es) and food? Wandering around blind on dl 1-3 trying to find light and the first ration of food seems like a pretty arbitrary barrier to reaching the rest of the game.

[bron]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

Why not start with torch(es) and food?

As I said in the original thread, starting with one torch and one ration of food would be more honest. Starting with nothing really just means that I have to keep running characters until I get one lucky enough to find that torch and food that I should have had to begin with. No argument. But the whole thing is really only being done as a challenge anyway: how large a handicap can you saddle yourself with and still come out on top? I mean, why play ironman or no-artifacts at all if not for the challenge? In some sense, playing buck-naked ironman no-artifacts is the largest handicap the game can give you short of modifying the source. You can voluntarilly give yourself additional handicaps, like no pillar dancing, or no LoS abuse, or no ASC's, or one hand tied behind your back, but those are not birth options given by the game itself. (For the record, I don't do pillar dancing or LoS abuse, but do use ASC's.)

All that said, I am sort of leaning in favor of starting with one torch and one ration of food. Starting with nothing at all requires luck to make progress at the begining, which isn't really much of a "challenge" (sorta like saying "you have to flip heads 10 times in a row before you can begin": it's annoying and time consuming, but not really a challenge).
And for a mage, I'd add one copy of the first spell-book. There's just no way for a mage to survive the first 5 levels fighting hand-to-hand (and bare-handed at the begining no less).

[Zikke]

To be honest, if a mage didn't have at least one spellbook on him, then he would just be a weak guy that wandered into the dungeon. The spellbook makes him a mage.

Seems to me like him taking 1 book isn't a big deal, but it's the same argument as you said for the torch/food.

[ramela]

Yeah, one could try for that Artifactless, bookless Halfling Mage thing Timo Pietilä was doing a few years back.

Artifactless Bookless Naked Halfling Mage Ironman, tough enough?

Or maybe just delete everything except food and light from Items.txt and play itemless ironman? Puch Morgoth to death without Potions of Healing?

[Tiburon Silverflame]

You can give yourself a massive handicap...during character creation, use point buy, then don't spend all the points. The game will convert the unspent points into $$$...which will, of course, be totally pointless in this setup.

I would allow:

1 dagger
5 torches
5 rations of food
1 copy of the Spellbook Vol. 1 for your caster style, OR a non-magical sling...player's choice (but no ammo)

Beyond that and I think you're just overdoing it, to the point of being silly. The absolutely hardest would be to totally jerk around your point allocation during character creation...so, with a mage, you max out Wis and Char first, followed by Str if you have any points left over. Clearly, this isn't even masochistic so much as *extremely* moronic. But IMO, anything less than what I'm suggesting, is Nethack-moronic...oh, let's see if we get screwed because there's no torches or food on the first level.

[Nemesis]

Personally I don't think it would be more interesting to hear about you playing with handicaps that affect the later stages of the game, instead of handicaps that just make you do the beginning over and over again until you get a character up and running.

[buzzkill]

I think I'm mildly handicapped. I use the standard roller for all my characters, and really hate shopping before that first trip down so I usually just take the stairs on my first turn (provided I have a WoR). I never really considered these things handicaps. I try, when the RNG cooperates, to play my characters thematically, using class appropriate equipment and actions. Probably more stuff that I can't think of right now. Maybe this is why I never win. I'll have to try playing naked sometime.

[Nemesis]

When it comes to playing thematically, I vehemently refuse to sell the longbow and broad sword i started with. The game says I inherited them from my family, wouldn't it be disrespectful for a classy High-Elf to sell them? There go two store slots in my home!

[Tiburon Silverflame]

WE WANT A MUSEUM!!!!!

Or, Nemesis, if the best your family could do was some wimpy non-magical bow, they were REALLY low-class. Establish a NEW 'family bow'...like a bow of Lothlorien.