[Gllug] Downright fun

[David Damerell]

On , 13 Mar 2003, Nix wrote:
>On Wed, 5 Mar 2003, David Damerell uttered the following:
>>                                and "foodless" players spurn all food
>> (yes, it _is_ possible)
>Boggle.
>*How*?

The fundamental insight is that if you don't use prayer for anything
else _and_ are below XP level 15 _and_ haven't been crowned (which can
only really happen when praying on an altar) _and_ pray when you are
not just Weak with hunger but one move away from Fainting, you will
essentially never anger your god by praying when hungry.

[This is an important fact about NH - prayer is there to save you from
sticky situations. If you use it too often your god will spurn you,
but always use it when you have nothing to lose.]

Now there are two difficulties with this approach. First of all, you
don't get resistances from eating corpses, which makes you vulnerable
to fire/cold/energy based attacks, means you lack telepathy unless you
wear a helm of ESP, leaves you vulnerable to poison - some or all of
these deficiencies can be fixed by equipment or resistances your class
begins with or earns naturally (monks are particularly good here since
they earn essentially all resistances without needing to eat
anything).

Secondly, you cannot (usefully) pray in Gehennom, the bottom 1/3 of
the dungeon. This can be got around by playing extremely quickly -
someone has done a sub-10,000 move ascension, so clearly Gehennom can
be got through pretty quickly - and noting that Vlad's Tower, a
dungeon branch midway down Gehennom, does permit prayer and can be
visited on the way down and the way up.

Finding a ring of slow digestion cuts food consumption enormously - so
much so that, if one finds (or wishes for) one before Gehennom, it
becomes entirely practical to contemplate going in, praying once at
Vlad's on the way down, and again on the way up.

High-Int wizards don't consume food from spellcasting - of course one
can not use spells, but that works against the desire to get through
Gehennom quickly (having access to magic mapping _really_ speeds
things up) - making wizards a Top Tip.

If you polymorph into a new member of your own race, your hunger
status is reset - once you have polymorph control this is easily used.

In extremis, if you die from starvation with an amulet of life saving
on, your stomach is filled.

The combination of prayer and polyself means that actually the main
challenge with foodless is not starvation, but the lack of goodies
from corpses. However, some people feel this is inadequately
difficult, and play foodless polyless [1] - praying, and going for the
banzai charge through Gehennom - or atheist foodless - starting
wizards in the hope they have rings of slow digestion and can get the
wherewithal to polyself - and one or two people have done foodless
atheist polyless, playing quickly and hoping to find lifesaving.

[1] This is not the same as the polymorphing conduct the game tracks,
which is not violated by becoming a new member of your own race.

-- 
David Damerell <damerell at chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!

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