Nethack: Death by Green Elf Gang

Gunthur the Barbarian was going about his business of pillage and amulet hunting when he goes down some stairs and four Green Elves pounce on him. He tries to escape but the elves stand between him and the stairs (that's where he was placed when he descended the stairs). Even worse, they box him into a corner and proceed to zap him with wands of sleep while chopping him to bits. In three moves, it's RIP Gunthur.

The final tableau looked like this (with Gunthur in the top right corner):

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..<.....
.......#

As usual, it was going passably well until the unexpected end. Gunthur had cleared out the Gnome Mines and Sokoban levels, and he had Cleaver and Dragonbane. Annoyingly, the Sokoban level had neither an amulet of reflection nor a bag of holding!

Math: No Wizards on Weekends?

I noticed that I haven't been starting as a wizard in Nethack for a while. Maybe the DevTeam have special code for weekend players just like they have for the new and full moon? But that's jumping the gun. There are 13 roles in Nethack, so assuming that any role is generated independently at the start of a game, what is the probability that I wouldn't get a wizard after n starts? In other words, what is P(k=0) after n trials?

Using the binomial distribution C(k, n) * p^k * q^(n-k), let p=1/13, q=12/13, k=0 …
if n=20, p(k=0) = 0.20 and if n=40, p(k=0) = 0.04. So, I should only start to wonder about special code if I don't see any wizards in 40 starts!

Nethack: Death by Exploding Wand

Things weren't going so well for Mannix the Monk. He'd finished exploring the Sokoban levels but only found a bag of holding, not an amulet of reflection. The Gnomish Mines had no co-aligned priest and the only temple in the main dungeon wasn't co-aligned either. He scraped together some money to gain some holy protection but that was all he could manage. Then, he killed a nymph with a force bolt spell and broke her looking glass (bad luck!).

Things go from bad to worse; he discovers a level with a barracks with plenty of soldiers. His centaur was too wimpy to take on these soldiers and was just hanging around. Retreating to the stairs, Mannix fries a soldier with a wand of fire. A sergeant rushes into the room and zaps Mannix with a wand of lightning, causing the wands in his pack to explode. Mannix cops the full blast and dies.

This was a pretty hard game. It really sucked not getting an amulet of reflection in the Sokoban level. Not finding a co-aligned temple or even a plain altar made it impossible sacrifice monsters to improve my luck. I didn't find any good gloves, helmets, boots or cloaks from any of the corpses. None of the floating eyes left any corpses, so I couldn't scan monsters in a level.

On the other hand, I suppose I was forced to be a bit more inventive. I tamed many cats, dogs and horses because I needed help fighting monsters, and used the magic whistle to herd them up and down levels. I even managed to charm a centaur and increased my skill at casting enchantment spells just before I walked into the fatal last level. If I'd been thinking straight, I'd have charmed more monsters (for example, I found some stone giants) and brought them with me to the last level, then zapped them with my wand of teleport to drop them among the soldiers.

Nethack Death by Carelessness

My female human barbarian was in level 17 when she got jumped by six fire giants in an unlit room. They shouldn't have been a problem normally, except she was burdened, so she used one turn to drop her bag of holding then used another turn to put on her ring of regeneration. These two moves cost her half her hit points. She finished off one giant and caused another one to flee, but caught up in the heat of the moment (I forgot to monitor her HP), she proceeded to fight the remaining giants instead of withdrawing. Death by carelessness, I'm afraid.

She was a promising character, having finished the Gnomish Mines and Sokoban levels, and was about to go on her mission. She had acquired all the usual intrinsics, was invisible, was stealthy (had Elven boots), had extra luck which did not time-out (luckstone from the Mines), wielded Firebrand (no enhancements yet because she only found one uncursed scroll of enchant weapon), amulet of reflection (from Sokoban levels), +2 gauntlets of dexterity, banded armour and cloak of protection. She had also identified most of the gems, armour, scrolls and potions. She even found three magic markers and an uncursed magic lamp.

Despite all her armour, her AC was a poor -6. Her pet dog, Fido, was polymorphed into a vampire lord in the Mines so it made short work of all the guards and shop keepers in Gnometown. Unfortunately, she let Fido kill the co-aligned priest of Crom, so she lost the opportunity to improve her natural AC by donating to the temple. That's a good reason to keep pets on a short leash!

Nethack Death - Cleaved by Tsurugi Muramasa

It was going pretty darn well; I was a samurai with AC -26, strength 18/26, dexterity 18, blessed +2 Greyswandir, invisible, can see invisible, ring of slow digestion, amulet of reflection and a whole raft of intrinsics. I had finished the mines and Sokoban levels and cocky enough to take on my nemesis. There was no problem dealing with the ninjas and ronins in the donjon. Finally, I met Ashikaga Takauji. We fought for five rounds then his Tasurugi of Muramasa cleaved me in two. WAAAAAH!

After that traumatic event, I realised that I should have wielded my blessed +5 Snickersnee instead, since samurai can be expert in long sword but not saber.

Nethack Insta-death - Drowned by giant eel

Here I was, a fully kitted up Peregrinator with lots of intrinsics, water-walking boots, AC -11, wielding Grayswandir, lots of gear and a blindfold, ready to tackle Medusa's Isle. Then an eel grabbed me and I drowned.