Who has taken all the blindfolds and towels out of my current game?

I have a lawful dwarwish valkyrie going, have solved the Sokoban and
raided the mines, explored the dungeons of doom to the Medusa level and
seen two levels below that and part of the third (but not the castle
yet).
I have several times gone through all the dungeons through 1 to
Medusa+2, the Mines and Sokoban, but not seen a single blindfold or
towel. (And no wands of polymorph to try to make one.)
Explevel 13, so I haven't done the quest yet.
I didn't dare try to cross the Medusa level when I found it, because I
had no other means of levitation but a potion that I wouldn't trust for
that job, and only one wand of cold. So I went back to re-check every
level above, and finally identified a pair of levitation boots.
BUT NO BLINDFOLD OR TOWEL!

So I crossed the Medusa level (version 4, the newest variation in 3.6.x,
with entrance from above on the right side and Medusa herself on left)
wearing those boots and decided to take a risk and quaffed the potion
of blindness before opening the door to Medusa's room.
Didn't encounter Medusa in a fight, found the stairs down and descended,
not seeing her there either. Climbed up and realized there was a statue
of Medusa, so apparently my Amulet of Reflection (from Sokoban) had
taken care of her.

I have mapped out two maze levels below Medusa, one of them bigroom-like
with just a few walls in a mostly open level.
And taken some tours back and forth the Dungeons, Mines and Sokoban,
WITHOUT EVER FINDING ONE SINGLE BLINDFOLD OR TOWEL.

I know there is a master mind flayer somewhere on the third level below
Medusa, and I am a bit worried to explore the level without a blindfold
or towel to check whether the master mind flayer is just behind the
next corner I'm about to cross. I have Mjollnir and gauntlets of power,
so I wouldn't be afraid if I only knew I could fight the mmf from a
distance, but it's not tempting to see it suddenly on the next square
ready to suck my brains.

I also have no magic resistance yet. No gray dragons seen, no cloak of
magic resistance (took unusually long to get even an elven cloak).
I have a blessed lamp that is probably magic, trying to decide whether
to #rub it for a blindfold or gray dragon scale mail..

Otherwise I am doing well, bought 9 points of intrinsic Ac and with my
current gear I have Ac -13, Hp 144, Mjollnir and Excalibur. Only magic resistance and blindfold/towel missing from the equipment I'd prefer to
have before attacking the castle.

--
Jukka Lahtinen

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On Fri, 16 Apr 2021 18:08:23 +0300, Jukka Lahtinen wrote:

Who has taken all the blindfolds and towels out of my current game?

Had the same problem a week ago. No blindfold/towel till after the castle. Eventually found a couple of each. But my take on this matter is, somebody
on astral plane reworked towels and blindfolds into Corona masks and sold
them to the real life plane. Maybe it is a joint venture between Death and Pestilence to make some zorkmids to buy a couple of additional mercenaries against us. (Famine is too stinted for such an enterprise.) - So, beware Astral! ;-)

BeAr
--
===========================================================================
= What do you mean with: "Perfection is always an illusion"? = ===============================================================--(Oops!)===

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"B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson" <use.replyto@this.is.invalid> writes:

On Fri, 16 Apr 2021 18:08:23 +0300, Jukka Lahtinen wrote:

Who has taken all the blindfolds and towels out of my current game?

Had the same problem a week ago. No blindfold/towel till after the castle. Eventually found a couple of each. But my take on this matter is, somebody
on astral plane reworked towels and blindfolds into Corona masks and sold them to the real life plane. Maybe it is a joint venture between Death and

Of course, that must be it! :-)

--
Jukka Lahtinen

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On 16.04.2021 17:08, Jukka Lahtinen wrote:

Who has taken all the blindfolds and towels out of my current game?

Yeah, the RNGod has moods. (Reminds me a missing portable container
for my items until th VS level in one of my past Vanilla games.)

I also have no magic resistance yet. No gray dragons seen, no cloak of
magic resistance (took unusually long to get even an elven cloak).
I have a blessed lamp that is probably magic, trying to decide whether
to #rub it for a blindfold or gray dragon scale mail..

I had learned it the hard way to NOT enter the Castle level without
MR (unless having genocided L). A blindfold, OTOH, isn't mandatory.
I'd therefore consider the decision a no-brainer and go for the GDSM.

Good luck for the 80% chance of a wish!

Janis

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Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou@hotmail.com> writes:

On 16.04.2021 17:08, Jukka Lahtinen wrote:

Who has taken all the blindfolds and towels out of my current game?

Yeah, the RNGod has moods. (Reminds me a missing portable container
for my items until th VS level in one of my past Vanilla games.)

Another RNG quirk in this game was that I still didn't have sleep
resistance after eating several elves of various kinds.
But finally got it from a woodland-elf on the Medusa+3 level.

I also have no magic resistance yet. No gray dragons seen, no cloak of
magic resistance (took unusually long to get even an elven cloak).
I have a blessed lamp that is probably magic, trying to decide whether
to #rub it for a blindfold or gray dragon scale mail..

I had learned it the hard way to NOT enter the Castle level without
MR (unless having genocided L). A blindfold, OTOH, isn't mandatory.

I still haven't #rubbed the lamp.
But I went on the Medusa+3 level extra carefully, luckily being several
squares away from the master mind flayer when I saw it.
I threw Mjollnir maybe two or three times, before it zapped its wand of
digging again and escaped me.
Mapped out the level, stepped down the stairs and saw a corner of the
moat a chess knight's move away from me (two East, one South), so I
recognized it as the castle level.
Saw a scroll beside me.. and stepping on it, recognized it as genocide!
(I had one in my bag of holding, but it being blessed and I being a
dwarf, hadn't used it.)
Read it, goodbye master mind flayers!
Of course, I should have first checked its buc status, but fortunately
it was uncursed.

I'd therefore consider the decision a no-brainer and go for the GDSM.

I was a little bit hesitant too, but went to the drawbridge anyway after clearing the West part of the level, used a blessed scroll of earth to
fill the moat at the square before the drawbridge and the ones next to
it, and started playing mastermind with a bugle. GBAEC.
I used the drawbridge guillotine until something zapped a wand to break
it.
Now I have cleared the parts of the castle that are accessible before
going to the corridor with holes to the Valley.
There were maybe two or three liches (no arch ones, but demi- and
regular), didn't have much trouble with them. Hmm, maybe I use the
blessed genocide for L. I haven't done it fore ages, but I already broke
the genoless conduct for master mind flayers, and my latest ascension
was in July 2017 with version 3.6.0 so now I would like to just ascend
without caring about conducts.
Found the wand of wishing, zapped to wish for two scrolls of
charging.. and got ones that I thought were remove curse! What? Does the
wand sometimes give random scrolls if you wish ones you haven't yet
identified? Haven't zapped it more yet, but I probably go with GDSM as
none of the dragons I saw when I had been blinded by a magic trap were
gray.

So, we still don't know how exactly I will fuck up THIS game..

--
Jukka Lahtinen

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On 16.04.2021 23:55, Jukka Lahtinen wrote:

Saw a scroll beside me.. and stepping on it, recognized it as genocide!
(I had one in my bag of holding, but it being blessed and I being a
dwarf, hadn't used it.)
Read it, goodbye master mind flayers!
Of course, I should have first checked its buc status, but fortunately
it was uncursed.

If lacking MR I'd probably have chosen another option; retreat with
that scroll into Sokoban, curse the scroll, and reverse genocide
gray dragons to obtain scales.

There were maybe two or three liches (no arch ones, but demi- and
regular), didn't have much trouble with them. Hmm, maybe I use the
blessed genocide for L.

Cartainly worth a scroll.

Found the wand of wishing, zapped to wish for two scrolls of
charging.. and got ones that I thought were remove curse! What? Does the
wand sometimes give random scrolls if you wish ones you haven't yet identified?

The wish should grant the item you wish for (unless that has changed
recently). Only writing [unknown] scrolls might or will fail.

So, we still don't know how exactly I will fuck up THIS game..

Stay cool - should be easy for a ice-proven Valkyrie! - when you
continue and go ascend that dwarf! :-)

Janis

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[ The original post isn't visible on google groups. I'm
replying to quoted context.... ]

On Friday, April 16, 2021 at 5:31:37 PM UTC-7, Janis wrote:

On 16.04.2021 23:55, Jukka Lahtinen wrote:

Found the wand of wishing, zapped to wish for two scrolls of
charging.. and got ones that I thought were remove curse! What? Does the
wand sometimes give random scrolls if you wish ones you haven't yet
identified?

If you make a typo that doesn't match any type of scroll but
the word "scroll" is present, you will get a random scroll.

If you have assigned the name "charging" to remove curse,
wishing for charging could yield either actual charging or
mis-named remove curse. The selection is weighted by the
generation probabilities of the choices so not necessarily a
50:50 chance when there are two matches.

If you have assigned the name "remove curse" to charging,
that wouldn't make any difference when wishing for charging.

The first circumstance seems the most likely, but the second
one can happen if the wrong name gets assigned or even if
the right name is assigned but to the wrong item (which can
only happen when you explicitly name something and then
pick the wrong inventory letter, not when the game prompts
you to call something you've just used).

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Pat Rankin <r.pat.rankin@gmail.com> writes:

On Friday, April 16, 2021 at 5:31:37 PM UTC-7, Janis wrote:

On 16.04.2021 23:55, Jukka Lahtinen wrote:

Found the wand of wishing, zapped to wish for two scrolls of
charging.. and got ones that I thought were remove curse! What? Does the >>> wand sometimes give random scrolls if you wish ones you haven't yet
identified?

If you make a typo that doesn't match any type of scroll but
the word "scroll" is present, you will get a random scroll.

Well, probably it was a typo then.
Note to self: *always* re-check typing before pressing enter when making
a wish.
Scrolls of remove curse are useful, of course, but they won't get more
wishes from a wand.. (and besides, I already had some of them).

If you have assigned the name "charging" to remove curse,
wishing for charging could yield either actual charging or
mis-named remove curse. The selection is weighted by the

I had named them "remcurse".

The first circumstance seems the most likely, but the second
one can happen if the wrong name gets assigned or even if
the right name is assigned but to the wrong item (which can
only happen when you explicitly name something and then
pick the wrong inventory letter, not when the game prompts

Yes, that has happened to me, I have occasionally picked a wrong
inventory letter for the #name command, probably mostly capital instead
of lowercase or vice versa. Including this game, I had my bag of holding individually named instead of some wand.. But this wasn't one of those cases.
I haven't seen a scroll of charging in this game and nothing is #named
that way yet.
A midnight typo when I can't resist playing just a little bit more
before going to sleep is the most likely explanation.

--
Jukka Lahtinen

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On 17.04.2021 12:32, Jukka Lahtinen wrote:

Pat Rankin <r.pat.rankin@gmail.com> writes:

If you make a typo that doesn't match any type of scroll but
the word "scroll" is present, you will get a random scroll.

Well, probably it was a typo then.
Note to self: *always* re-check typing before pressing enter when making
a wish.

I consider the interface not well designed; if you wish for "gduzed"
you get the "Nothing fitting that description exists in the game."
message, but if you wish for a "scroll of genowide" it is accepted
and produces random items?!

Janis

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On Saturday, April 17, 2021 at 9:04:14 AM UTC-7, Janis wrote:

I consider the interface not well designed; if you wish for "gduzed"
you get the "Nothing fitting that description exists in the game."
message, but if you wish for a "scroll of genowide" it is accepted
and produces random items?!

Yes, that is exactly how it works. (In your example, a random
scroll, not a completely random item.)

Having real item names and player-assigned item names be
eligible for multiple matches at the same time is new with 3.6.0
(it used to check all the real names, then only look at the assigned
ones if there were no matches), but recognizing the item class
and producing a random member of that class has been the way
wishing works forever, probably since the initial implementation
of wishing, whenever that was.

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Jukka Lahtinen <jtfjdehf@hotmail.com.invalid> writes:

Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou@hotmail.com> writes:

I still haven't #rubbed the lamp.

..

Saw a scroll beside me.. and stepping on it, recognized it as genocide!
(I had one in my bag of holding, but it being blessed and I being a
dwarf, hadn't used it.)
Read it, goodbye master mind flayers!

I'd therefore consider the decision a no-brainer and go for the GDSM.

I was a little bit hesitant too, but went to the drawbridge anyway after clearing the West part of the level, used a blessed scroll of earth to
fill the moat at the square before the drawbridge and the ones next to
it, and started playing mastermind with a bugle. GBAEC.
I used the drawbridge guillotine until something zapped a wand to break
it. Now I have cleared the parts of the castle that are accessible
before going to the corridor with holes to the Valley.

Cleared the rest of the Castle.
Got scales from one of the silver dragon and enchanted them, so now I am wearing a silver dragon scale mail, and used a wish for blessed fixed +2
cloak of magic resistance.
When I was clearing the Valley, I saw some lich (don't remember which
kind) and not wanting to get its curses, used the blessed scroll of
genocide for L.
Finished clearing the valley, used a potion of gain level to reach
explevel 14 and did the quest.
In the middle section of the quest locate level..
..finally..
A BLINDFOLD!
Finally! The first one I have seen in the entire game!

I didn't need to go all the way to the middle section of the quest
bottom level to reach Lord Surtur, he came to me.
Finished the quest for the first time since the release of 3.6.1.
Now I just need to do some inventory / bag management to get myself
unburdened again before continuing further down from the Valley.

So, we still don't know how exactly I will fuck up THIS game..

And that still remains to be seen.

--
Jukka Lahtinen

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Jukka Lahtinen <jtfjdehf@hotmail.com.invalid> writes:

Jukka Lahtinen <jtfjdehf@hotmail.com.invalid> writes:

So, we still don't know how exactly I will fuck up THIS game..

And that still remains to be seen.

In case anyone is interested, it ended up this way on Monday evening:

No Points Name Hp [max]
1 1589104 jukka-Val-Dwa-Fem-Law died on the Astral Plane.
Killed by Death (with the Amulet), while praying
{73423}. - [127]

--
Jukka Lahtinen

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On 30.04.2021 16:23, Jukka Lahtinen wrote:

1 1589104 jukka-Val-Dwa-Fem-Law died on the Astral Plane.
Killed by Death (with the Amulet), while praying

Too bad after all the effort. :-/

How did that happen that your prayer timeout wasn't yet reached?
Prayed too often? Angered your god? Or something else?

Janis

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On Fri, 30 Apr 2021 17:23:52 +0300, Jukka Lahtinen wrote:

Jukka Lahtinen <jtfjdehf@hotmail.com.invalid> writes:

Jukka Lahtinen <jtfjdehf@hotmail.com.invalid> writes:

So, we still don't know how exactly I will fuck up THIS game..

And that still remains to be seen.

In case anyone is interested, it ended up this way on Monday evening:

No Points Name Hp [max]
1 1589104 jukka-Val-Dwa-Fem-Law died on the Astral Plane.
Killed by Death (with the Amulet), while praying
{73423}. - [127]

Hm. Citing myself:
| So, beware Astral!

I'm really sorry to hear my concerns confirmed! But the next game surely
will be a full success. ;-)

Good luck and happy hacking!

BeAr
--
===========================================================================
= What do you mean with: "Perfection is always an illusion"? = ===============================================================--(Oops!)===

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Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou@hotmail.com> writes:

On 30.04.2021 16:23, Jukka Lahtinen wrote:

1 1589104 jukka-Val-Dwa-Fem-Law died on the Astral Plane.
Killed by Death (with the Amulet), while praying

It was a Motorhead moment :-)

Too bad after all the effort. :-/

Well, anyway I saw many places I hadn't seen since version 3.6.0,
including all the Gehennom and even endgame levels..

How did that happen that your prayer timeout wasn't yet reached?
Prayed too often? Angered your god? Or something else?

I had prayed earlier in the engame, I think it was on the air level.
I was low on Hp after Death had been pounding me and also reduced
the max and suddenly realized I probably had only one move to try
something, my potions of healing were in the bag of holding,
thought the timeout had expired so tried praying.. maybe breaking a wand
of teleport would have been a better idea.

--
Jukka Lahtinen

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On 16.04.2021 17:08, Jukka Lahtinen wrote:

Who has taken all the blindfolds and towels out of my current game?

In my current Slashem game I haven't found any wands of polymorph.

Here, to polypile, one needs a lot of potions of restore ability
in addition to the unicorn horns (or other magic tools) to obtain
(e.g.) magic markers. In this game I have 30+ unused unicorn horns
and eight potions of restore ability (to preserved the polypiled
object form). Usually I have a few wands of polymorph and none of
these potions. So now I have to leave them behind, stashed unused
in my base camp to continue unstressed for the Planes...

Janis

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