Ascended Nethack

nethack end </a>Wohooo! I have finally managed to “Ascend” (finish) nethack! You can read all about it on my newsgroup post titled First Ascension. It’s taken me about 3 years of on-again off-again playing to finish it. I was playing a Barbarian - I can see that I’ll now have to try another race - perhaps a Wizard?

The screenshot on the right shows the final endgame level - click on it for the full-sized version.

This was my first time into the elemental (and astral) planes so it was an adventure!

Here's a couple of highlights:

Jubilex was rather easy... he was already dead! Not sure how I managed this, but it was a bones level - this was actually my "big break" because I managed to pick up something like 3 magic markers that hadn't been re-charged, and heaps of other goodies like rings and scrolls.
I played this game over a period of four weeks. Including last night, when I went to bed just as I landed on the astral plane! (It was too late and I would have made a stupid mistake!)
I managed to kill Rodney 6 times, including when he cast "Double Trouble". The last time he had stolen my amulet, and I was hovering over some water (Medusa level I think). So I had to drop everything and dive in :)</i>
I think that I was very fortunate on the Elemental planes. I didn't have any portal detection devices except for the amulet. Somehow I didn't have any trouble with water elementals and I even managed to kill one.. somehow! I think that the ring of conflict made my life a lot easier :)</i>
I killed 5 master mind flayers before genociding them :)
I killed death twice, both times with my cleaver, however he wasn't guarding my altar. Famine was, and I didn't have to deal with Pestilence :)
On the Astral Plane, I walked into into a doorframe and was confronted by famine! There were ants behind me and my food was in a bag. Took a crazy swing and killed him with one hit! Using only my basic +5 Cleaver! I think that my ring of conflict must have made my life a bit easier :)
This was the first time I'd ever seen an Archon - putting a towel over my eyes made things a lot easier!
Never had an amulet of life saving :) (Or a ring of regeneration)
Never wrote Elbereth :)
Didn't polymorph anything, including myself. Never really had the need to (but I'm not really against it... as yet)
Got a score of 4325374 - my best so far!
Took 81943 moves - how does that stack up?
183 HP (could have sworn it was more like 210 at one point)
Character was level 22, AC -29, St 25, Dx 18, Co 18, In 17, Wi 18, Ch 16. I don't think that I ever casted any spells (except to make me confused when neccesary) </i>
I forgot to make a copy of my inventory to note down.
One thing I've never worked out. How do you take only 1 item out of a bag? If it's stacked?

Anyway, big big thanks to the DevTeam for creating an awesome game, and a big thanks to everyone on r.g.r.n - I think I spent just as much time googling for nethack info as I spent actually playing the game :)

Unnecessary statistics:

Vanquished creatures: