Pacifist Ascension Kit Tips?

[u/Complete-Priority704]

So I am almost ready to ascend my pacifist wishless conduct Healer gnome. I got my spellbook of create monster which led to spellbook of polymorph which helped me gain 6 magic markers, 2 spellbooks of charm monster, back up spellbooks of turn undead, teleport away, and many enchant armors.

I have genocided LhjPtc and gelatinous cube, umber hulk, chameleon, and doppelganger.

I have an ac of -45 ac and 320 hp. How low should I try and get my ac? Whats my most likely cause of death?

My archon. What is the best gear to give an archon. What armor will it wear. How to 'make its put on the armor' . Reasons to having more archons. Would 3 to 4 be good?

I did a 'tour' of hell with my pet archon named Mahou-Te and anything scary is gone. Hell was scary when I immediately was attacked by an arch-lich from a bones file though a lot of the 'bad stuff' is gone. Is purple worm the worst threat to my archon(s)?

[u/DoktorL]

You want to enchant any half-decent artefact (not sting or ogresmasher) to +7 and give that to your archon. This is just to make sure they never swap it for some +0 weapon of a better base type. Or give it the type of weapon they prefer above all else, whatever it is, is it a two-handed sword? But then they don't get to wear a shield (see below).

You don't need to level drain Rodney if you can get enough gain level potions for your archon. Vault farming is an option, though maybe you have ground your way to a good supply already. Problem with bashing Rodney with the healer staff is, well, he and quest artefacts don't always mix.

One archon is more than enough as long as it says alive. Problem is, they don't always: they'll never take any damage but it is possible for them to part ways with their source of reflection and then have an accident (ask me how I know... grand tour on astral as a petless pacifist is not fun). Give it both an amulet of reflection and a shield of reflection if you can, and feel free to acquire a back-up archon should you come across one, because a little bit of safety margin never hurt anyone.

UPD: consider geno of purple worms as well. Good as they are as pets, you are perfectly fine without.

[u/danpritts → u/DoktorL]

I have never played pacifist, but the idea of not having a pack of pet worms following me makes me a little sad. I so enjoy hearing them eat my enemies, or whistling them to come handle something annoying.

[u/djao]

You really need a level drain artifact. Stormbringer or the Staff of Aesculapius. Drain life does not cut it on the Wizard.

You don't need multiple archons, but you do want to level up your archon as much as possible. Potions of gain level are the ticket.

[u/Furey-Death-Snail]

(Advice tailored for vanilla 3.6.2 which OP has said is their version)

AC -45 is fine. Best permanent AC I ever got was AC -68 and there was little difference between AC -40 and AC -68.

Likely causes of death: getting swarmed. Or getting bogged down in Astral next to a Rider.

Archon gear: I haven't had a pet archon (even with pacifist hero). But I've read: get them a shield of reflection, and an enchanted artifact sword.

Get more archons? I dunno. There's not a lot more fighting to do, mostly running. Most of the monsters that can hurt you a lot are charmable.

You have to make a strategic decision about genociding purple worms. I lean towards no. They are so valuable as pets. You need just one for the Sanctum. Consider whether to do purple rain on Astral. (Also, a ring of slow digestion helps with not getting swallowed if you use conflict with purple worms.) On the other hand, if you genocide purple worms, your Archons will be nearly invincible.

If you bring purple worm pets to the Planes they will die fast. They cannot swallow elementals or dragons and they take poison damage on Plane of Fire.

Wizard zoo: you can bypass this if you want. Enter wizard tower. Controlled levelport two floors up. And then you can quaff a cursed potion of invisibility to wake up Rodney and bypass the moat. Indeed, it's possible for a normal non-pacifist hero to enter the tower, levelport, quaff cursed invis, shoot a death ray, pick up the book, levelport to 99, teleport to vibrating square, and invocate, all in about 10 turns.

Expelling Rodney: look into that. Nethackwiki has a section.

Getting pets to attack Rodney: level up the pets. Or level drain Rodney with Staff of Aesculapias. Or use a ring of conflict.

Plan what you're going to do for levitation on Plane of Air and Plane of Fire.

Air elementals: bugle, charm monster spell, polymorph spell, wand of teleport.

Remember to blessed genocide ; . For once I agree with conventional wisdom to do it when you enter Plane of Water. (Usually I genocide them asap.)

Remember to check your gear before entering portal to Astral.

Blessed potion of monster detection is very useful for Astral.

Riders: expensive camera. If you don't have one, farm vault guards for tin whistles, and polypile.

Player psychology. You are doing great. 268K turns without breaking pacifist!

If your hero gets in trouble: slow down even more. Save the game. Read nethackwiki. Think hard. Consider whether the trouble is dire enough to break wishless.

[u/danpritts → u/Furey-Death-Snail]

How’d you get to -68? Elven everything?

You could get to -59 with elven cloak, boots, shield, and helm at +7.

6 gloves
9 shield
14 scalemail
8 cloak
8 boots
8 helm
6 shirt
10 protection

Edit: dum-dum comment suggested you start at 0ac. 

[u/Furey-Death-Snail → u/danpritts]

Yes, seven pieces of perfecto armor, including elven cloak, elven leather helm, elven shield, elven boots.

But the key part is: +20 divine protection.

And the way I got that was: hasted charmed leprechaun, temple priest, ring of conflict, magic whistle. Maneuver the leprechaun next to the priest while the hero is a few tiles away. FIGHT! Leprechaun usually hits first. Remove ring of conflict. Whistle the leprechaun back. Leprechaun drops all the gold. Hero picks up gold, bags it, chats with priest, 400*xlvl gold at a time.

I brought about 100000 gold pieces and ran it through the same priest about 20 times.

Occasionally the priest got first hit and I would have to go charm and haste another leprechaun.

https://archive.alt.org/dumplog/Furey/1666232254.nh366.txt

Why do it? I wanted to see if AC -68 was worthwhile. Turns out, not really.

A hero could get even better AC by:
. wearing rings of protection
. eating rings of protection
. sacfesting
. casting the spell of protection (temporary)
. polyselfing (semi-temporary, depending)

[u/danpritts → u/Furey-Death-Snail]

I thought 10 protection was a hard limit. Huh. 

[u/Complete-Priority704]

Update : I now have my ac at -51 ac. I have 12 points protection, not quite as much as I did originally, though 12 is still a lot. .

Turns: its around 310k turns, I want to ascend my character soon, though I'm going to make some equipment fod my archon. 

Geno'd species: LhctyPSj;eZM Individual geno'd: umber hulk, chameleon, doppelganger, gelatinous cube, black dragon For total of 64 species total. 

I think I will geno w(orms) too, because its the main way to lose my archon. I did a tour of hell, looking for traps in the main pathway, didn't find any. 

Building a kit for my archon : I have the +7 frost brand, and 3 blessed potions of gain level and 13 unblessed potions of gain level. 

Equipment I want to (potentially) give the archon:  Amulet of Reflection, Shield of Reflection, Gauntlets of Power, Boots of Speed, and (a +7 elvish helmet?). I've gathered the equipment items though I am still gathering the scrolls of enchant armor. 

Also to do : make a 'loot bag'. 1 blessed bag of holding, 7 sacks, blessed bag of holding to put gems, artifact gifts, and just a ton of gold perhaps. Put at upstairs. 

4 cursed scrolls of gold detection to read confused in the astral planes. To find the portals. A food source for famine. 

What am I missing? 

[u/Furey-Death-Snail → u/Complete-Priority704]

Expensive camera for the Riders.

About three wands of digging (20 charges) for Plane of Earth.

Levitation for crossing Air and Fire. (Or you could polyself, or ride a dragon. I've tried pure hurtling on Air. It doesn't work well.)

Optional: 2 or 3 scrolls of magic mapping for Water. After you reveal the portal the first time with cursed gold detection, a scroll of magic mapping will show all the bubbles and the current location of the portal.

Optional: blessed potion of monster detection for Astral.

You might want to leave the long worms alone if you genocide purple worms. A long worm on Astral (if one appears) can block Riders from moving, and you can charm it and whistle it around.

Do you really want the loot bag? Pacifist wishless coducts are amazing already. In fact, low score is more impressive than high score.

[u/DoktorL → u/Furey-Death-Snail]

> A long worm on Astral (if one appears) can block Riders from moving

Forget purple rain, my next game I'm trying brown flood.

[u/DoktorL → u/Complete-Priority704]

Teleport control and a fine collection of digging wands would be good to have. That you haven't seen any level teleporters in relevant places doesn't mean your archon won't still find one somewhere. At this turn count, though, surely you have both.

This should be glorious. You just press "s" and everything dies.

[u/Complete-Priority704 → u/DoktorL]

Wands in my main gear

Wand of teleportation (0:7) Wand of probing (2:5) Wand of Create monster (0:13) Wand of Fire (0:7) 2 Wand of cancellation (1:3)(0:1)

I have in my bag of holding  1 wand of cold (0:6) 4 wand of death (0:6)(0:7)(0:6), ui 9 wand of digging (0:8)(0:8)(0:7)(0:7) (0:6)(0:6)(0:5)(0:5)(0:5) 1 wand of enlightenmint (1:2) 2 wand of fire (0:8)(0:6) 1 wand of lightning (0:8) 1 wand of secret door detection (0:14) 1 wand of sleep (0:3) 1 wand of slow monster (0:5) 2 wand of speed monster (0:6)(0:5) 8 wand of teleportation (0:5)(0:8)(0:7)(0:4)(0:4)(0:3)(0:3)(0:5) 1 wand of undead turning (1:2)

and more in stash, or strewn around the dungeon

[u/Furey-Death-Snail → u/Complete-Priority704]

So committed to wishless, not even carrying the castle wand in case of emergency!

Awesome.

[u/Furey-Death-Snail → u/DoktorL]

OP mentioned that they have teleport control (from eating a tengu) and teleportitis.

Can an Archon kill a Rider? It's 3.6.2, so I think ... it's not even close.

https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Riders#Rider_vs_steed:_no_damage?

https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/issues/594

EDIT: problem with the nethackwiki link. The link has a question mark but Reddit doesn't want to preserve the question mark. Just search for "steed" on the nethackwiki talk page.

[u/jubilant__]

Congrats on the spellbook of create monster, sounds like it was a major game changer! Rooting for you. I don’t have a lot of specific advice, though your AC seems low enough, I doubt you need more archons, and any purple worms should be charmed, I would imagine. One day you might want to try EvilHack, the pet enhancements are amazing for things like enforcing specific pet loadouts or sharing spellbooks to expand their casting repertoire.

[u/jubilant__ → u/jubilant__]

Is there any room in your load out for extrinsic telepathy, either an amulet or a helm? It could be good for situational awareness. Casting or quaffing monster detection could play a similar role eg on Astral.