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A Nethack beginner's guideThis is meant to be relatively low on spoilers and will give you most of the information you need to get a playthrough up and running. This will not cover roguelike fundamentals and instead focuses on information pertinent to Nethack specifically. Food and corpsesYour character needs to eat to survive, and procuring food can be a serious concern in the early game. You might find a few fruits and pancakes here and there, but for the most part you will be surviving on monster corpses. First things first, don't eat old corpses. A corpse that died more than ~50 turns ago is unfit for consumption, eating it will make you sick. If you find a corpse lying around and you don't know when it died, don't eat it. If you kill an undead monster, its corpse has been dead for a lot more than 50 turns, don't eat it. Wraiths are the exception to that rule, fresh wraith corpses are safe. Beyond that, experiment. Some corpses are beneficial, some are harmful, and the only way to know is through testing. Or just read the article on which corpses are good on the wiki, that's what I did. You can get away with eating a lot of dubious things so long as you've got a unicorn horn on hand. Bear in mind that, like many things in Nethack, the effects from eating corpses is somewhat random. Eating a killer bee for example, could potentially grant you permanent resistance to poison, but it can also poison you. A character who eats the corpse of their own race will be severely penalized, don't do it. Orcs and cavemen are exceptions who suffer no penalties from eating their own kind. Eating other intelligent races is fine, dwarves eating humans and humans eating elves is allowed, and indeed, encouraged. Most enemies represented by an @ are human unless explicitly stated otherwise. Eating while already satiated has a chance of choking and killing you. If you're eating something and the game asks if you want to stop, you should stop. Nethack features a wide variety of strange and powerful items, and understanding them is the key to success. Per roguelike standards, your character doesn't understand most of the items in the game, and it's up to you to identify them. First and foremost, make sure you don't equip anything cursed. Cursed items generally cannot be removed without breaking the curse, and many are harmful. You start the game with a pet, a cat or a dog for most classes, and they are very helpful for finding cursed items because they dislike stepping on tiles with a cursed item. Drop a piece of equipment between yourself and your pet in a hallway and see if they're willing to move past it. If they refuse, or if they step carefully around the item, you know it's cursed and shouldn't wear it. Blessed and uncursed equipment is fairly safe to test out by wearing them. Blessed and uncursed potions and scrolls can still harm you, but testing them is safer than doing so with cursed potions and scrolls. If you figure out what an item is, but your character still hasn't, make sure to name that type of item with shift + c so you'll recognize other items of that type going forward.
Any item you drop on an altar will reveal whether it is blessed or cursed. This is a lot more convenient and efficient than relying on your pet. It doesn't matter whether it's an altar to your god, or a rival god, or to Moloch, the overarching antagonist of Nethack, it will always work. It won't tell you what the item is, but knowing which items are cursed is half the battle.
If you're burdened, drop items off somewhere. Being burdened lowers your speed, which is crippling in this game. Monsters will mess with items you leave on the ground, but they'll never touch anything you put inside a chest.
If you have holy water, you can dip items in it to bless it by pressing alt + d. You can curse items with unholy water through the same method, which is useful in a few exceptional cases.
You don't always need to identify items to know which have magic abilities, just looking at its unidentified name is often enough. If a helmet's name is "helmet" then it's just a helmet. It might be strong and it might be weak but it won't have the special abilities that you'll want for the late game. If it's a plumed helmet or a visored helmet or something like that, that bears experimentation.
Different classes specialize in different weapons and spells. They'll start out with little to no training, but you can improve your abilities from the enhance menu, accessed by pressing alt + e. Every time you level up you gain a skill point which you can invest in types of weapons or spells. You need to train with a weapon in-game by using it to fight enemies before improving that skill. Going to untrained to basic costs one point, basic to skilled costs one, skilled to expert costs two, and expert to master costs three. Each class has different upper limits for how high they can train each weapon skill. Monks and samurai have access to the martial arts skill for unarmed combat, and monks can train it all the way up to grand master level.
A pick is an important item to have around for anyone who can't reliably cast dig. Digging your own shortcuts can save time and potentially can save your life.
A ranged attack is important. Many enemies have dangerous special abilities they use up close and you don't want to give them a chance to use them. Even against more conventional enemies, any ranged damage you can do before the real fight begins improves your odds of winning. Wands are very powerful and you should always have some on hand, but they aren't renewable. I recommend carrying a stack of throwing knives to deal with problems bigger than a speed bump but not big enough to warrant busting out your wand of death. Elven daggers are nice because they're common, a bit stronger than regular daggers, and since they're made of wood they'll never rust. Train up your daggers skill and you can throw more than one per turn, potentially this can make them very powerful.
Engraving with wands is a useful and reasonably safe way to test them out. Write something in the dust with your finger by pressing shift + e, and then write something over it using a wand. Fire or lightning will burn a new word into the ground. If the original engraving disappears, it may have been a wand of invisibility, cancellation, or teleportation. If the original engraving shows up somewhere else later, you'll know it was teleportation. Whatever happens to the engraving, it should help to intuit what type of wand you're using.
There are tons of instant kills and other brutal special attacks in the game and the best way to protect yourself is to be equipped with a full set of resistances. You'll want a resistance to every type of attack, if possible. Some resistances can be gained intrinsically by your character through various means, which is good for freeing up equipment slots for other things, and won't be lost if, say, some of your equipment is stolen or destroyed.
Most metal equipment interferes with spellcasting. Metal weapons and metal jewelery do hot hamper your magic, but shields, helmets, boots, and body armor do. It is worth noting that dragon scale mail, the best body armor in the game, is not metal. Wearing a robe in your cloak slot improves your spellcasting chances.
If you find a gray stone, it is one of four types of items. One possibility is a loadstone, a terrible cursed item that you won't easily be rid of once you pick it up. The other three range from benign to extremely useful. If you find a gray stone, try kicking it. If you can't get it to move, it's a loadstone. Otherwise take it with you and identify it when convenient. It could potentially be a luckstone, a useful item that increases your luck just by carrying it. Multiple luckstones won't usefully stack and cursed luckstones should be uncursed or abandoned asap. Intrinsics are special properties your character has, like extra speed or fire resistance. Extrinsics are similar, but they come from you equipment and other external sources.
There are quite a few ways to acquire intrinsics and gathering the useful ones is an important part of preparing your character for the late game. Elemental resistances tend to be immunities, or close to immunities. Stacking two sources of the same resistance won't confer any extra protection, and there's no difference between an intrinsic and an extrinsic resistance. In some cases, the intrinsic and extrinsic versions of the same effect behave differently. For example, extrinsic speed, which you might get from a potion or magic boots, is more powerful than intrinsic speed which you might get from your character class or by eating a particular corpse. If you have both the higher extrinsic speed overrides the slower intrinsic speed.
In general, you can gain intrinsic resistances by eating monsters associated with that element. Fire giant meat can give you fire resistance, for example. When you start a game, your character is assigned a god based on their alignment and class. A neutral valkyrie gets Odin, and a lawful samurai gets Amaterasu. It is possible to change your god and your alignment over the course of the game, but I really really do not recommend doing that. You can pray to your god for assistance by pressing alt+p. This is your first and one of your best emergency options. A successful prayer can remove cursed items, cure diseases, restore health, and prevent starvation, among other things. There aren't many crises it can't solve. When you pray you're put on a cooldown called prayer timeout. Praying while under timeout annoys your god, they may punish you, and the punishments can be severe. The problem is that the duration is somewhat random and the game doesn't tell you how long it is. You start the game under 300 turns of prayer timeout and can safely pray for the first time on turn 301.
In general, waiting about 1500 turns between prayers is safe. Special events that occur later in the game, like being crowned as a champion of your alignment, performing a late game ritual called the invocation, and killing a particular late game boss can increase the length of your prayer timeout. With one of those things you should wait about 4,000 turns between prayers. If you're both crowned and have performed the ritual, you should give it around 8,000 turns.
Praying while standing on an altar of your god may get better results for your prayer, and perhaps more importantly, any potions of water on the altar will be changed into holy water. Praying on an altar of a different god isn't a good idea. Lastly, do not pray at all while in Gehennom. No matter how bad things get, don't do it.
You can offer fresh corpses as sacrifices to your god by standing on their altar and pressing alt + o. Doing this reduces your prayer timeout and can net you some valuable rewards, including luck boosts, intrinsics, and artifact weapons. Once you think you've made enough offerings, pray and with any luck you'll get something nice. Wands of create monster seem like bad items, but using one to spawn sacrifices near an altar can help a lot. Don't offer sacrifices on a rival god's altar.
Depending on your god's alignment, there are certain things they do and don't want you to do. Staying in their good graces is important. Lawful gods don't want you to rob shops. None of the gods like it when you abuse your pets and murder friendly NPCs. Chaotic gods like it when you sacrifice corpses of your race, lawful and neutral gods do not. It's mostly intuitive, if something seems like a big mistake it probably is. It's pretty easy to stay in at least reasonably good standing because all gods like it when you kill hostile monsters, and that is what you will spend 90% of the game doing. One thing to be aware of is unicorns. Attacking a unicorn of your alignment is a crime in the eye of your god, and killing it will inflict a nasty curse on you. White unicorns are lawful, gray unicorns are neutral, black unicorns are chaotic. Messing with unicorns of other alignments is no problem, which is nice because unicorn meat is good for you and unicorn horns are one of the most useful tools in the game. They're both an infinitely reusable method of curing most status ailments and a decent backup weapon to use should you somehow find yourself disarmed. Also keep in mind that you will never be held responsible for anything your pet does, no matter what. Feel free to send your cat to rob shops and your dog to kill unicorns as much as you like.
Sometimes you'll encounter a priest in a temple. By chatting with them using alt + c you can make a donation in exchange for a blessing. This works fine even if the priest does not worship your god. The most valuable use of this feature is to improve your character's natural armor level. To get that, you need to donate at least 400 times your level in gold, and less than 600 times your level. The donation may also need to be at least one third of your gold, but you can always temporarily drop some on the ground if it's going to be a problem. The first time you do this you will receive a hefty boost of 2 to 4 to your armor class. Afterwards you'll gain one point at a time, up to a certain point where it becomes unreliable. Past the early game you don't have much need for money, this is what you should spend most of it on.
Around midgame you'll receive a message from an NPC who needs your help. This quest is mandatory for finishing the game, and being in good standing with the god you were worshipping at the start of the game is mandatory for finishing the quest. A magic portal will be hidden somewhere on the floor where you received the message. Just run across every tile and you'll find it eventually.
There is one other other goddess whom any player character can call on, namely Elbereth of the Valar. The great majority of enemies respect Elbereth and won't attack you while you stand on an engraving of her name. No enemy represented by an @ will respect Elbereth, nearly anything else will. However, writing in the dust is easily disturbed and best not relied on. You can try writing it as a last resort against an enemy you stand no chance of defeating. Don't attack while standing on an Elbereth engraving. How durable the engraving is depends on what tool you used to write it. Writing with your finger in the dust is quick but not reliable. You can still write Elbereth in one turn that way, so in an emergency it might just save your life. You could also try writing Elbereth 20 or 30 times in the same spot in hopes that at least one of them will stay intact. Carving with a weapon creates a slower but sturdier engraving at the cost of damaging the weapon. There are special daggers called athames that both carve quickly and are not damaged by doing so. The best engravings are those burned into the ground with a wand of fire or lightning. - A bit more of a spoiler than the rest of the guide There are a few ways to obtain wishes in Nethack, the big one is by zapping a wand of wishing. After being used up, a wand of wishing can be recharged exactly once. A blessed scroll of recharging will give it three more wishes, otherwise it will gain one. No matter what, don't settle for only one wish, even if you have to use your first wish on a blessed scroll of charging, or a blessed magic marker with which to write your own blessed scroll of charging. A magic marker is extremely useful in general. After the wand is used up, zap it repeatedly and you'll eventually get one final wish, at the cost of breaking the wand. All wands can generate one last shot like that. One wand of wishing is guaranteed to appear in a chest in the castle, deep inside the dungeon.
The other items which can grant wishes are smoky potions and magic lamps. Quaffing the potion and rubbing the lamp can produce a djinni, who might decide to give you one wish. The odds are better if the item is blessed, but smoky potions are unreliable enough that I wouldn't bother. A blessed magic lamp has an 80% chance of giving you a wish, which is very good, but you might prefer to keep the lamp instead, since a magic lamp can provide light forever without needing fuel.
Wishing for more wishes won't pay off.
Generally when wishing for an item, wish for "blessed fixed greased [item]". Blessed items are nearly always better than uncursed and cursed ones. Adding fixed grants your item protection to its weakness eg rustproof for metal items. Greased items are resistant to water damage and wearing greased equipment can save you from grappling monsters. Don't grease a weapon you intend to throw.
The artifact dagger Sting can be created by renaming an elven dagger to Sting. Likewise Orcrist can be created by renaming an elven broadsword. Both are bottom tier artifacts, but they might give you the edge you need to survive the early game.
A lawful character of at least level 5 can create Excalibur by dipping a longsword into a fountain. Might take a few tries. Unlike the two weapons above, Excalibur is an outstanding, endgame-worthy weapon.
Wishing for artifacts often fails unless no more than one artifact has spawned in the game so far. Some artifacts can only be wished for by characters of the proper alignment, and some can't be wished for at all. Best not to risk it unless you know what you're doing.
Here are some endgame-worthy items you'll want to shoot for. Some are worth a wish if you can't find them:
Silver dragon scale mail - Dragon scale mail is the best armor in the game, and the silver version provides the reflection extrinsic, which can save you from all kinds of nasty things. Having reflection is basically non-negotiable. Other sources include amulets of reflection and shields of reflection.
Gray dragon scale mail - The other top tier DSM. This gives magic resistance which stops all kinds of curses and even a few instant death attacks. A cloak of magic resistance is another potential source, as are a few artifacts.
Boots of speed - The only long lasting source of extrinsic speed. Speed is often the most important stat in roguelikes and Nethack is no exception. Extremely useful even if you have intrinsic speed.
Shield of reflection - A great way to gain reflection, especially since there aren't any other important types of shields. Smashing the statue of Perseus in Medusa's level has a chance of giving you one.
Ring of levitation - Important for avoiding many hazards. Not something you'll want to wear full time, but an important item to switch in. Boots of levitation have the same effect, but are not as good because that means taking off your boots of speed. Boots of levitation are potentially available by smashing the statue of Perseus and if you get them there, you probably shouldn't waste a wish on the ring.
Jumping boots - They let you jump over multiple tiles in one action, filling a similar role to both boots of speed and levitation. Press j to jump. There's a spell that allows you to jump as well.
Ring of conflict - Causes infighting among monsters within line of sight. Very powerful against large armies and summoners. Be careful with it around pets and other friendlies as it will cause them to infight against you as well.
Ring of free action - Prevents you from being paralyzed. A good ring to wear when you don't need anything else at the moment.
Gauntlets of power - Increases your strength to 25, well above the normal maximum. Valuable for combat and for improving your weight capacity.
Amulet of life saving - Prevents your death once.
Magic marker - Allows you to write new scrolls onto blank scrolls. Dip scrolls in water to blank them. This can be recharged once. Blessed markers improve the quality of their scrolls. Creating multiple blessed genocide scrolls out of one item is no joke.
Bag of holding - A magic bag that lets you carry more items and reduces the weight of items inside. Don't put a wand of cancellation, a bag of tricks, or another bag of holding inside. Bless it for even more weight reduction.
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