[GnollHack] YAFAP - I did it on a variant on the lowest difficulty, but I did it!

[u/CrashGordon94]

So I chose GnollHack on Steam for my entrypoint to NetHack stuff and been thoroughly enjoying it so far!

It might not be a very prestigious first Ascension, since I was playing o an easier-than-normal difficulty (GnollHack has 7, I'm playing on the lowest while the one that's meant to be vanilla-equivalent is the third highest ._. ) and lucked out finding my own bones twice (once in Minetown when I was playing Valk and the priest killed me after converting the Altar, then another from a YASD near the bottom of the Dungeons of Doom where I literally choked on an extremely good run from trying to eat a corpse). Even still had help from the GnollHack Discord at points.

Can say that as slow as I was playing for most of it, I cranked out the journey from the Amulet to the Astral Plane pretty fast. My Altar was the last one I found there but I didn't get too much grief there.

Full dump if you wanna see: https://pastebin.com/HrpmH3gj

Now with that done, I'll be trying higher difficulties and maybe even other game versions (I feel like I should give vanilla a proper go at some point for one)!

EDIT: Found the website so HTML dumplog for anyone interested

[u/Ok_One_7818]

Every Ascension is prestigious.

Congratulations!! You never forget your first ascension :) Shenzi the Conqueress will be with you always!

BTW I’ve never ascended Gnollhack, any tips? :D

[u/hawkwood4268 → u/Ok_One_7818]

Gnollhack is great. It's probably my favorite variant.

More monsters strangle/grab you so you'll need an oilskin cloak or magical breathing. There's mummy rot which can be cured with figs or various spells/ointment. Also more monsters paralyze you.

To help, there are far more weapons/armor with magical properties. They can confer resistances, increases stats, grant free action, etc. Once identified, all items have descriptions so just read what things do.

Also, there are misc items that give you 5 additional equipable slots for things like cerebral protection which prevents brain eating, belts of strength, glasses of x-ray vision, wings of flying, etc.

Spellcasting is completely overhauled. No more faded spell memory. You collect spell ingredients (called reagents) to gain more castings. And there are 100s of new spells, many of which are absurdly powerful.

[u/Ok_One_7818 → u/hawkwood4268]

This does indeed sound exciting. I only ever played GnollHack twice, long ago, and don’t think I made it very far. Looks like it’s time to give it a go again!

[u/CrashGordon94 → u/Ok_One_7818]

Thank you very much!

As far as tips... Beyond "turn down the difficulty" I'm not too sure what I can offer, have you Ascended in normal NetHack?

[u/Ok_One_7818 → u/CrashGordon94]

I have ascended vanilla NetHack, but I’m interested in hearing about peculiar interactions that you may have faced in GnollHack. I have played GnollHack only a couple of times.

[u/CrashGordon94 → u/Ok_One_7818]

The wiki does have some pages that might be relevant/helpful:

https://wiki.gnollhack.com/How%20GnollHack%20differs%20from%20NetHack.md

https://wiki.gnollhack.com/Starting%20Guide%20for%20NetHack%20Veterans.md

As for what I think are particularly important and impactful things:

• You level up a lot faster and the max level is 50

• Skills are compressed down (e.g. there's just a Sword skill rather than Short Sword, Long Sword, Saber, etc.) a you can generally advance them more (the ones that are meant to be core to a class tend to go to Master or Grand Master).

• Spellcasting is revamped a lot.

• There are new Resistances that cover things that used to be covered by others (such as Death Resistance and Magic Missile Resistance).

• Contrasting the above, there's more items and equipment slots plus new systems for item qualities, materials and most of all Mythic/Legendary (having either 1 or 2 special properties). These are good to know for potentially getting important Extrinsics in less competitive slots, to the point of being common Wish targets.

• Magic Cancellation works differently with all Armor contributing or at least having the ability to, but you need (and can get) more points.

• Shopkeepers offer more services but are harder to steal from. You get and spend more Gold.

• Some monsters are renamed, particularly ones taken from D&D (Mind Flayer -> Tentacled One, Beholder -> Gazer, Yeenoghu -> Yeenaghu and a few more, I can't name them all).

• Some Roles are tweaked. I think biggest is Monk, whose unarmed shtick works FAR better now.

• You can dual-wield Artifacts, of note is that among the new Artifacts is a "sister sword" for Stormbringer and you get bonuses for wielding both.

• Last but not least is the titular race. Gnomes have been moved to class g (sharing with Gremlins and Gargoyles) so that Gnolls can take over class G and the playable slot Gnomes once held.

Not a proper difference note but more of a strategy thing: with all the shifting, I think Chaotic Gnoll Barbarian might be the pick for "noob class" over Lawful Dwarf Valkyrie, the food-related benefits help in the earlygame and you get access to a funny metastrategy: If you're a Chaotic Gnoll then the first time you meet Yeenaghu you can Chat to him for a single free wish. If you're feeling ballsy then you can force this with same-race sacrifice, as I did in this run!

[u/Malk_McJorma]

Congrats on your FA.

[u/CrashGordon94 → u/Malk_McJorma]

Thank you!

[u/hawkwood4268]

Congrats!!!

Difficulty only reduces damage dealt to you and maybe increases your damage iirc. You still have the same risk of being strangled to death by all the new monsters, paralyzed, stoned, digested, slimed, and so on. So it's very impressive!

Maul of the Titans is a beast. I remember your poll, you seem to have gotten much further than mines or sokoban! I dont know how long it would have taken me to ascend if I'd started with GnollHack. Years, still, I'd guess. How long since you started playing?

U - 42 potions of holy water

You weren't running out of HW anytime soon! haha

1600 HP that was one tough barbarian. You killed the tarrasque 2x, Yacc, and modron prime. Deserving of the title "Conqueress."

As for vanilla, the early game is a gauntlet. If you can make it past that, you have the knowledge already to ascend. Just use Elbereth often and run away when you're >half health and you'll be ok.

[u/CrashGordon94 → u/hawkwood4268]

Thank you very much!

Difficulty only reduces damage dealt to you and maybe increases your damage iirc.

According to the wiki compared to Expert in addition to the damage multipliers (You deal 350% and take 35%) you also get 3 more scrolls of identify, a scroll of remove curse and Lindisse is more likely to show up.

So not quite but you're mostly right since the other stuff isn't very impactful beyond some more life-lines earlygame (getting to identify ~6 more things at the start and a way out if you get stuck with cursed equipment).

You still have the same risk of being strangled to death by all the new monsters, paralyzed, stoned, digested, slimed, and so on.

That is true. Funnily enough I had an Amulet Versus Petrification that I wore for most of the game to the point where I kinda forgot about Cockatrices... Not long after I swapped it for an Amulet of Life-saving I popped it against a Gargantuan Cockatrice 😅(tried to stop stoning with a unicorn horn that was secretly empty), glad I had that because I wouldn't have wanted to lose a SECOND promising Shenzi...

Maul of the Titans is a beast.

Absolutely! To think I was almost going to sell it when I first found it as a second Sacrifice gift on the run that choked because the damage calculator was lying to me. Thank goodness the Discord talked me out of it! I loved the thing enough that I felt the need to get it back by chucking my fellow Gnolls onto Altars until Yeenaghu showed up and it's gonna be a priority early wish for any time I play a class with Bludgeoning and Two-handed skills (and I'll be looking at the Mattock of the Titans for those that have the Digging/Two-Handed combo).

I remember your poll, you seem to have gotten much further than mines or sokoban! I remember your poll, you seem to have gotten much further than mines or sokoban!

Yep, and if you're wondering I'm still on the "Clear Sokoban and the go back to the Mines" strat. Maybe that will change in a few playthroughs. I think trying to raw-dog the Sokoban Treasure Zoo before visiting Minetown might be one of those cases where the damage multipliers really change things.

How long since you started playing?

According to Steam I first played Gnollhack on the 16th of June. I (very) briefly touched vanilla Nethack years before, more on that later.

You weren't running out of HW anytime soon! haha

Would you believe this was after thirty-something of them got exploded by cold? Basically I eventually dropped and Cancelled all my unwanted Potions, then either prayed or dipped them in a Holy Water (Can't remember which). At my peak I had 79 Holy Waters and 8 Unholy Waters!

As for vanilla, the early game is a gauntlet.

I definitely heard about the idea of GnollHack trying to make it less "front-loaded" than vanilla. From my limited experience I can believe it.

In University I briefly tried NetHack 3.6.6 and never got far enough to see the Mines, I got maybe like 3 Levels deep in the Dungeon over the handful of playthroughs I ever did. Then again I was playing very careless and not really caring that much, I just tried it on a whim.

Nowadays I figure I might do better, though I'm thinking Vanilla might wait until I've Ascended on Expert in GnollHack.

What scares me more than anything difficulty-related is the UI and loss of QoL. And I definitely don't have it in me to play without tiles yet, and I don't know if I ever will. 😓

Elbereth

Funnily enough, I just use that for testing Wands. Knowing of the nerfs that originated inn 3.6.0 and carried to GnollHack, I just figured it wouldn't be worthwhile.

[u/hawkwood4268 → u/CrashGordon94]

That's seriously impressive for the amount of time you've been playing. Did you rely very much on the normal NetHack wiki?

Expert difficulty will be a good way to prepare you for vanilla NetHack, but you're right about the loss in QoL. No more "move from bag to container on floor" or in-game item descriptions and so on.

However, you can still play with tiles! I'm an avid tile player, if you download the binary from the main website you'll get two applications, one is called "NetHackW" which has tiles.

Elbereth

Almost all early game monsters still respect Elbereth. You engrave it with your finger while not blind and it has a 3/4 chance to scare a monster away. I didn't use it for years. I used to wait till I had a wand of lightning/fire/digging. And even then, I'd wait till 10% health.

It's very strong, but you can ascend without it.

Thoroughly enjoyed your summary, I hope more players try GnollHack.

[u/CrashGordon94 → u/hawkwood4268]

That's seriously impressive for the amount of time you've been playing. Did you rely very much on the normal NetHack wiki?

Than you! And yeah, I was actually into reading the wiki before I was into playing the game. :P

However, you can still play with tiles! I'm an avid tile player, if you download the binary from the main website you'll get two applications, one is called "NetHackW" which has tiles.

Funnily enough, that's exactly what I did for that brief vanilla experience I spoke of. It's more a concern for public servers and other Variants. :x

Almost all early game monsters still respect Elbereth. You engrave it with your finger while not blind and it has a 3/4 chance to scare a monster away. I didn't use it for years. I used to wait till I had a wand of lightning/fire/digging. And even then, I'd wait till 10% health.

My concern is the 3.6-onwards "if you attack you're penalised and it disappears" thing that makes it seem... kinda pointless for anything but an emergency tool. That said, I should definitely keep that emergency tool in mind as I crank up difficulty and check out other versions.

Thoroughly enjoyed your summary, I hope more players try GnollHack.

Thank you! Don't know how many more of these I'll do for future Gnollhack ascensions but I'll consider it, current playthrough is a Weaponless Vegan Neutral MMonk on the next difficulty up and it's wearing me down at points since it's not going totally as planned.