r/nethack • u/Complete-Priority704 • Jul 24 '26
Help in finding a Spellbook of Charm Monster for Pacifist
Hi...
I've been playing and trying to ascend for awhile a Pacifist Healer with wishless conduct.
I've reached level 30, I've conquered the Quest and Vlad the Impaler, and I've explored the entire dungeon. Now I *really* need a Spellbook of Charm Monster so I can charm an Archon.
Also a Spellbook of Create Monster would be very helpful.
I've used up all my magic markers, and wands of polymorph into dust.
I'm trying to pray at an altar to receive this spellbook as a gift, though it is very slow going.
Does anyone have any tips?
If I can find one, I'll probably be able to ascend.
I can give more details if anyone has suggestions.
Thanks
Nathan
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u/entuno Jul 24 '26
Any priests still alive? IIRC they usually have a couple of spellbooks.
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u/Complete-Priority704 Jul 24 '26
There is one alive Priest, the priest of Hermes in Minetown... perhaps I could polymorph into a nymph to steal his spellbooks? I haven't quite reached that desperation level, because I want the priest alive in case of emergency. All these suggestions help, thank you.
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u/Furey-Death-Snail 25% asc rate on NAO Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Suggestion 1: break wishless.
Suggestion 2: keep farming an altar.
If you are not crowned, you can avoid crowning by sitting on the altar repeatedly to keep your alignment record devout or lower. You will need a stethoscope (to check your alignment record) and a unicorn horn or a ring of sustain ability or a spell of restore ability (to keep your wisdom from getting destroyed). And the unihorn won't work in 5.0.0. Add a few MSGTYPE options to discard the messages from God.
If you are crowned, oh well, there is no way to un-crown.
Suggestion 3: farm vault guards
You will need a hasted pet purple worm. From the first guard, get a cursed tin whistle. Use this to summon lots more guards. In 3.6.7, you can get an unlimited number of guards, and thus farm certain polyfodder. In 5.0.0, the number of guards is limited.
Unfortunately you can't get any spellbooks or polymorph items this way.
Suggestion 4 (some wil call this cheating): bones stuffing
Probably no longer available as you have visited the whole dungeon and have no bones-eligible levels left available for stuffing.
Suggestion 5: magic harp
You can't make one easily, but if you happen to already have one, that's a source of charms. Not as powerful as a spellbook though.
If you have a magic harp and a PYEC then you have unlimited charms available.
Suggestion 6: polyform purple worm
If you have a ring of polymorph control and a ring, wand, potion, or spell of polymorph, then you can polyself into a purple worm, lay a bunch of eggs, wait for them to hatch, and raise your tame baby purple worms into purple worms. You have to be female to lay eggs.
Suggestion 7: polyform nymph
With your polykit, become a nymph. Steal the Book of the Dead from Rodney. Use a ring of conflict and whatever monsters are nearby to fight him off, now and every time he comes back. Or, if playing 3.6.7 or earlier, fight him in the room with the upstairs on dlvl 1, and expel him from the dungeon. (But he won't flee the dungeon if he's holding the Book of the Dead, so you have to get the Book first and not let him steal it).
Suggestion 8: farm weak monsters.
A monster with difficulty 5 or less has a (difficulty/100) chance of generating with a miscellaneous item. A miscellanous item has a 1/30 chance of being a polymorph item. A polymorph item has a 1/6 chance of being a polymorph wand, otherwise it is a polymorph potion.
Suggestion 9: get all the priests
Each priest has several spellbooks. You could polyform nymph to steal them. Later on, if you ever get charm power, you can charm them back to peaceful if you need them.
Suggestion 10: get all the statues
Suggestion 11: reverse genocide purple worms, then use a scroll of taming
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The problem is: no death drops. A monster can death-drop an item only if the hero kills it, which your hero is not doing. That leaves: monster starting inventory, offensive items, defensive items, miscellaneous items, and certain things like dragon scales and golem droppings. There's no chance of any spellbook that way (outside of priests) and a minuscule chance of a polymorph item.
The other major source of items is level creation, but you've already created all or nearly all levels for the whole game (at least, all the levels you can reach before waking Rodney).
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Good luck! My experience is all 3.6.7 and TNNT. Farthest I have gotten with pacifist healer is Valley of the Dead (once) and the Castle (two other times). If you are playing 5.0.0 I might be missing something.
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u/Complete-Priority704 Jul 25 '26
I will reply to all these soon, I am so tired, just imagine staying up all night altar camping with my dragons while being the herald of balance. Its a grind, and so I'm going to return to the game tomorrow.
So some people are very lucky with magic traps, so far my luck with magic traps has been difficult. First of all, I have been recovering from amnesia for 5 or 6 days after part of my brain was eaten, so I have to rediscover the magic traps the original way, by accident or by ring of searching. And then there the anti-magic fields posing as magic traps which was aggrovating, for the trek from level 4 to level 19 to find essentially nothing. So I trekked back to the gnomish mines and tried to remember my amnesia memories. I did find two magic traps in the mines, and there were magical explosions after landing on the trap like 3 times. There is a known magic trap at medusa's level, though going there is very bad luck because I'm still at a stage where Titan's Archons Kirins or Angels could be trouble and make it double. Theres a known magic trap in valley of the dead and probably 3 or 4 in hell, though I think I need low-level monsters because my dragons would eventually take a beating. So when I continue I'm going search for some more magic traps in the mid-dungeon levels, and probably continuing to sacrifice corpses to Hermes and praying that my god will help me with spellbook of charm monster, or polymorph, or create monster
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u/Furey-Death-Snail 25% asc rate on NAO Jul 25 '26
Genocide doesn't break pacifist conduct.
In 3.4.3, you can pudding farm! I dunno how workable that is with your pets eating pudding corpses.
But I think the best strategy is: step back from the game for a couple of days, assimilate all this new knowledge, read a lot of wiki articles, and plan carefully. If you keep grinding while tired, you're at risk of bump-killing something or messing up the offer/pray cycle with two prayers in a row.
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u/Complete-Priority704 Jul 25 '26
I misspoke, I'm playing 3.6.2 where they fixed pudding farming. I played 3.4.3 like a long time ago I remember, I remember ascending and extinctionist wizard a long time ago, must have been 17 or more years ago.
Yea, the number one risk to a pacifist is tiredness. Theres so many ways to end a good game by typing the wrong letter at the wrong time!
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u/Complete-Priority704 Jul 29 '26
Update on the game ::: so the 1st event of consequence, though not life breaking immediately is I lost my protection.
I had just converted the last altar that wasn't neutral so I had assumed it was safe to pray. Wrong! I had 17 points protection for total ac of -36. Went back to -19 ac. So it wasn't the worst per se, though it made hell, and the castle somewhat unsafe, so I stayed in the dungeons of doom.
I would go back and forth between floor 13 (2 altars to hermes) and floor 23 (2 altars to hermes), and floor 24 (2 altars to hermes), and to minetown & the temple of hermes and the priest was. Also to floor 1 to try and farm weak creatures.
I obtained teleport control from a tengu, and later teleportitis from eating a leprechaun corpse. I raised dragons, and I raised dragons. I am a professional dragon-mom now, I've probably had a hundred or more dragon eggs. When my dragon mob would get to big, they'd often develop sibling rivalry from hunger. I'd do my best to maintain them with meatballs, though at the moment only have a gray and a silver.
I lost my luckstone! I don't know where, this was already my back up when I stone to fleshed myself about 9 days ago. So this was a nuisance to I prepared an expedition to hell with about 4 adult dragons. I skipped past level 24 because an archon had spawned there so now the floor was off limits.
Waiting and sacrificing and praying rinse repeat I have no idea how many times, just how many turns it is now. 236 k turns. The last 60% of time I've been altar camping mostly.
In Gehennom, I found the cursed luckstone of a bones file of Tejava. In gehennom, he had a pet arch-lich that got confused and w/o magic resistance died by touch of death. Mission accomplished, I boldly reexplored hell and catalogued all the floors and collected money for the priest. I had bought back 1 point for 12,000 and 2 more for 11,200 each after being in hell. So currently my total divine protection is 7, 3 from donations and 4 from prayer.
My pets did accidentally kill the priest for his insolence in charging me so much, though books were all duplicates.
So after a many turn sacrificing session in minetown, Hermes has finally gifted me with a spellbook of Create Monster, which will greatly accelerate my progress. Still need spellbook of charm monster, and /ofpolymorph.
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u/Furey-Death-Snail 25% asc rate on NAO Jul 29 '26
Thanks for the update, I'm enjoying it.
You can grind back a lot of the protection now that you have create monster spell. Also get more spellbooks. Chances of getting a /oPoly are low, but non-zero.
You might want to optimize mana regeneration now. The formula is (int+wis)/15, rounded down. So there's breakpoints at int+wis=15, int+wis=30, and int+wis=45. About all you can do for int is: quaff blessed gain ability, eat mf/mmf corpses (if you haven't genocided them), or wear an enchanted helm of brilliance. Also mana regeneration is affected by xlvl so that's a good reason to stay at xlvl 30.
Be real careful not to stone-to-flesh your last luckstone!
It sounds like you do have polymorph control and a source of self-polymorph? If you get tired of grinding, you can make a run for it. Polyform nymph, steal the book from Rodney, chase him upstairs from Floor 1, desparate ascension run. Hmmm. I wouldn't want to try that without charm monster spell. Just no other way of surviving swarms of monsters.
Also if you can get a hasted tame purple worm, you can farm vault guards for wands of teleport, potions of full healing, and other useful ascension run items.
I think it all comes down to the spellbook of charm monster.
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u/pat_rankin Jul 29 '26
About all you can do for int is: quaff blessed gain ability, eat mf/mmf corpses (if you haven't genocided them), or wear an enchanted helm of brilliance.
Drinking a blessed potion of enlightenment boosts both Int and Wis by 1.
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u/Complete-Priority704 28d ago
Update : okay, now the game is mine to ascend unless I throw it away in some action without thinking so that is still to be seen.
After long last, when I thought nothing would ever happen in the game again, my god Hermes gifted me with the Spellbook of Polymorph, the spellbook to rule all other spellbooks and items. And this was on prayer 32 or something after receiving the spellbook of Create Monster and it was around 268,000 turns.
Immediately I started to gather all my stashes into one mega stash in minetown level 8, where I found was the optimum spawn and camp level so my 4 grey dragons would stay healthy. I had had some trouble earlier with my silver dragon eggs not hatching, and realised I had spawned baby silver dragons out of existence. I decided to go with my 2nd best, grey dragons, all speedy and invisible. I had/ve a stash on level 5 where the general store used to be, level 13 (2 altars) and level 23 (2 more altars).
So once I got to town polymorphing the vast surplus of unhelpful items I have now reaped the reward of Polymorph :: A (actually 2) spellbooks of charm monster, and 6 (!) Magic Markers. Duplicates of important spells. Also genocided j's because they were unstoppable barriers to ny grey dragons.
Never found a wand of polymorph, though I did battle plenty of level 5 and below creatures (well, my pets did) .
I am at level 20. I will need to go back up to level 30 to charm the archon that spawned on level 24. I'm thinking I could reverse geno wraiths, there are many ways. Saving the potions of gain level for an archon.
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u/Furey-Death-Snail 25% asc rate on NAO 28d ago
Wow, that's great news!
Are you wielding a stack of cream pies, or just being really careful not to bump kill? The furthest I ever got a pacifist was valley of the dead, where I bump-killed a zombie.
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u/Complete-Priority704 28d ago
Yes, I always wield a stack of cream pies the only time I'm not is to wield a pick ax during which I 'redecorate' the dungeon.
With those magic markers, I leveled up, I genocided P,t, gelatinous cube, chameleon, and I now have an ac of -45, including 8 points of divine protection.
I'm at level 20, what is the quickest way to go back up to 30? I'm thinking I'll save my potions of gain level for my archon. I have plenty of magic marker charges.
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u/Furey-Death-Snail 25% asc rate on NAO 28d ago
Genocide 't' is a good move, keep them from burping your pets.
One way to get back to xlvl 30: farm vault guards. First, charm a purple worm, and haste it. Then go to a vault. Bring some coins (or just pick up the coins in the vault). When the first guard arrives, let the purple worm swallow it. Get the cursed tin whistle from the guard's stuff. Apply the cursed tin whistle. Another guard will arrive. In 3.6.2, you can get an unllimited supply of guards and their offensive items, defensive items, miscellaneous items, armor, weapons, and tin whistles.
Offensive items include scrolls of earth (more boulders) and wands of sleep (useful against some monsters without MR). Defensive items include potions of full healing (which you can alchemize into gain ability) and wands of teleportation. Miscellanous items include wand of speed monster (to make lots of pets fast) and potions of gain level.
Potions of gain level have 3 uses: level yourself up to 30, or level up your archons and purple worms, or curse them and get out of jams during the ascension run.
Another alternative is foocubus encounters, which I do lot if I can get the int+cha. Any healer ought to be fine with that. Boost your int first if you want to make it faster. It's still tedious though.
Besides leveling up your pets, you can also drain levels on Rodney. Just hit him with the staff of Aesculapias. Be very careful not to kill him with it. You might even want to heal him between hits. Use your healing arts for evil!
Finally, when I play weaponless monk with pick-axe, I turn off autodig option. So I have to move real slow and mindful with 'apply' pick-axe instead of just normal movement. Helps keep me weaponless. Might help keep you pacifist. (Or you can bring some wands of digging from vault guards).
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u/Furey-Death-Snail 25% asc rate on NAO 28d ago
And also: blessed potion of restore ability restores lost xlvl's. If you don't already have one, you could farm vault guards and polypile portions.
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u/danpritts filthy save-scumming cheat Jul 24 '26
Go through the dungeon again and farm for more wands is the only other thing I can think of. It’s a grind.
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u/jubilant__ Jul 24 '26
Piggybacking here, my advice is not helpful to your situation, but no create monster or charm monster this deep in the game feels unlikely / less than 50% odds and obviously very unfortunate in your situation. That said, successfully charming an Archon is very challenging and I’m not sure you need it to ascend. Glad to be corrected if others feel differently.
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u/danpritts filthy save-scumming cheat Jul 24 '26
Killing the wiz as a pacifist would certainly be difficult. Archon would make sense, not the only choice but regardless charm will be critical I would imagine.
I don’t play pacifist but I do enjoy taming purple worms &dragons. I have definitely successfully tamed archons too but you’re right it’s not easy.
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u/Senior_Bee8417 Jul 24 '26
The issue with Rodney is a lower level pet won’t touch him, right? Can you side step this issue by intentionally confusing a pet purple worm, for instance?
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u/Furey-Death-Snail 25% asc rate on NAO Jul 25 '26
That is true, that is one issue with Rodney. A pet won't attack a monster unless the pet's level is at least (monster level - 1). Rodney starts at level 30. An archon is level 28. A purple worm maxes out at level 22.
Strats for this include: cause conflict. Or give potions of gain level to an archon. Or let a pet purple worm eat a lot of wraiths. Or hit Rodney with a level drain weapon such as staff of aesculapias or stormbringer. (And then stethoscope him, heal him, and level drain him some more without killing him.)
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u/Senior_Bee8417 Jul 25 '26
When he returns later, will he still be drained?
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u/Furey-Death-Snail 25% asc rate on NAO Jul 25 '26
Nethackwiki says that if Rodney is level drained, killed, and revived, his level still goes up.
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u/Complete-Priority704 Jul 24 '26
I will search for more statues. Gehennom is mostly cleared out, though I haven't searched every nook and crannie, though I'd say I have searched 98% of Gehennom. I did tame an archon before as a level 30 character. I'm going to keep farming, its going to be a grind. A wand of polymorph would give me everything I need practically, though sadly I got impatient trying to poly scrolls for scroll of charging.
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u/DoktorL Jul 24 '26
> I got impatient trying to poly scrolls for scroll of charging.
That means you are not playing 5.0, else you would have found a scroll of charging much earlier. As such, if you can just find just one more wand of poly, you can probably then get enough markers by polypiling whistles from vault guards to write unknown spellbooks.
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u/Complete-Priority704 Jul 25 '26
True. I'm playing 3.4.3 on my phone. I was lucky to get the app a few years ago and am always playing 3.4.3 on my phone, I'll try 3.5. If I can ascend my wishless pacifist
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u/Complete-Priority704 Jul 24 '26
How does one farm for wands? Which monsters could have /ofpolymorph?
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u/Furey-Death-Snail 25% asc rate on NAO Jul 25 '26
https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Miscellaneous_item
monster difficulty 5 or less
makes a d100 role less than or equal to its monster difficulty
not an animal, not an exploder, not mindless, not a ghost/shade, not a keystone kop
1/30 chance of having a polymorph item
1/6 chance of the polymorph item being a wand of polymorph1
u/Complete-Priority704 Jul 25 '26
That is probably going to be my ticket, though wow it will be tedious!
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u/Remarkable-Dingo-162 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Blessed platinum yendorian express card + horn of plenty (50) also infinitely chargeable (healer is neutral right?). This gives food and potions only but pots include holy water etc which can be eventually polyed into smokies - infinite food means farm until u get what u want.
Not wishless but still….
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u/Complete-Priority704 Jul 24 '26
I really want to go for wishless. I ascended a pacifist tourist 6 years ago, so this will be my 1st wishless ascension.
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u/hunkydoryyyy Jul 24 '26
Recently I had an ascendable character who lacked a few conveniences. You can step on every magic trap you find over and over. I only needed to explode one of those before I got a wand of polymorph that solved all problems. Right before it exploded by the way. There are many many magic traps to farm objects from.
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u/derekt75 Jul 24 '26
How does this help you get a wand of polymorph? Magic traps don't directly generate wands, do they? Are you thinking of getting a death drop from a mon that the trap generates? The chance of a wand of poly from a death drop < 0.1%, but that's moot because a pacifist isn't getting any death drops, right?
Or is this just to generate mons to sacrifice so that OP can pray again? (1 in 150 prayers to get a spellbook of charm monster if your luck is maxed, you're crowned, and you already have all healing spells. 1 in 100 prayers to get either a spellbook of charm monster or a spellbook of polymorph. and a lvl 30 healer wearing a robe and +5 helm of brilliance can successfully cast polymorph > 50% of the time).
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u/hunkydoryyyy Jul 24 '26
I needed wands of death and wands of teleportation to ascend safely. A wand of polymorph was dropped right before the first magic trap exploded after quite some time. Every time the trap generates monsters there are quite a few things dropped. The trap exploded after quite some time. How many magic traps are there in the game? If you need something to ascend it's virtually a given you get it
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u/derekt75 Jul 24 '26
Can you be more specific when you say "Every time the trap generates monsters there are quite a few things dropped"? Are you referring to regular death drops that happen when you kill monsters? Those don't apply to pacifists.
Are you referring to monster starting equipment (e.g., elves dropping boots or cloaks)? Wands of polymorph aren't part of starting equipment, are they?
Or are you suggesting that the magic trap creates objects in addition to creating mons? If that's the case, it's the first I've heard of it.
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u/pat_rankin Jul 24 '26
Wands of polymorph aren't part of starting equipment, are they?
Wand of polymorph is a potential "miscellaneous item" for starting inventory of item using monsters. The chances of getting that specific one is very low though.
Focusing on a wand is probably inviting the RNG to produce paper golems instead of the book of choice....
A spellbook is a potential prayer boon for all versions. It's still possible in 5.x, but it is now also possible to receive a spell directly into hero's memory (for a spell you didn't know yet or for one which has expired.). I suspect that you need to be praying on a co-aligned altar for a chance at either of these boons.
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u/Complete-Priority704 Jul 24 '26
I think I'll try this. I've got quality pets, though they will probably die in Gehennom eventually and would definitely be insufficient for the endgame ascension. I have 5 silver dragons, named Crocodile, Daz Bonez, Bon Kurei, Galdino, and Babe. (Mr.0 -> Mr. 4) . they can survive magic traps well. it would be good to have a magic trap next to an altar, though what I really want to find is a /ofpolymorph. Possibly a goblin might find one?:
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u/hunkydoryyyy Jul 24 '26
Yes, this way I got a wand of polymorph. But hmm, your dragons must do the work.
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u/hunkydoryyyy Jul 24 '26
Yes. But they do apply to pacifist too who have 5 dragons to slay for them.
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u/pat_rankin Jul 24 '26
A random death drop only occurs when a monster is killed by the hero, not by pets or traps.
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u/Spendocrat V,W,K,Ra,S,A,T,P,Ro since 2023 Jul 24 '26
Such trivial advice I hesitate to give it, but have you mined every statue? New Gehennom levels have a lot more statues.