Playing Healers in NetHack

Healers are my favorite class in NetHack. This document summarises my strategies for playing them. It is likely to be completely meaningless to someone unfamiliar with the game.

Play a Gnomish Female Healer. Gnomes have fast magical regeneration, and are neutrally aligned. Their infravision reduces the need for a lamp in the mines. Neutrality means access to the maximum number of useful artifacts. Also the mines will be friendlier, as they are full of Gnomes, and dwarves will generally be peaceful. Females can lay eggs when polymorphed; this is their only real advantage over playing a male character.

Initial stats. You don’t need high strength or dexterity to start with; they’ll catch up. Better that Co, In and Wi are good. A good set of starting attributes might be:

Kalessin the Rhizotomist    St:8 Dx:8 Co:16 In:12 Wi:13 Ch:18
Dlvl:1  $:2037 HP:12(12) Pw:7(7) AC:8  Xp:1/0 T:5

Prefer daggers as initial weapons. Play healers as if they were thieves. They can #enhance their dagger skills to [Skilled], so they should collect daggers for use as ranged weapons. Accordingly, replace the scalpel ASAP (dwarves and hobbits carry plenty of daggers). A +4 dagger is a good enough primary weapon to get you through the mines, by which time you will have #enhanced to ‘Skilled’, and can be throwing backup daggers with abandon (they don’t break like arrows do). If you find a wand of polymorph, sweep the dungeon for every countable weapon type (arrows, darts, etc) you can find; separate them into low numbers of different material types on the ground, and start manufacturing silver and elven daggers. (Once you’re handling soldier ants comfortably, the chance of producing a wood golem is enough to make sure you stack all the wooden objects you can find on one of those squares.) Likewise, when reading unknown (but uncursed) scrolls, wield multiple daggers in case you discover ‘enchant weapon’. If a wood golem is found and killed, switch to quarterstaves and get some skills: The Staff of Aesculapius (from the quest) is the best long term weapon choice. Unicorn horns are an excellent interim option though, as you can #enhance them to ‘Expert’ and they do as much damage as a long sword (while having other helpful #applications; also, you’re much more likely to find a unicorn before Sokoban than a wood golem). Silver sabers (the captain in the minetown often has one) can be #enhanced to ‘Basic’ -- and silver weapons are always handy to have for Vampires, Demons, etc. Certainly Grayswandir is always worth a wish later on, as you’re preparing for Gehennom, post-Castle. You may get Fire Brand or Frost Brand by sacrificing; if so this will also let you #enhance long swords to ‘Basic’ as well. By the quest you should at least aim for:

Weapon Skills
        # dagger           [Skilled]
          quarterstaff     [Unskilled] (or higher)
          unicorn horn     [Expert]

Obviously, let your pet kill everything. It should be a housecat or (normal) dog by the time you get to the mines, and a large cat or large dog by the mine town. The monsters generated by the game are determined more by your own XP level than by the current dungeon level — So your 72 HP large dog will still be fighting fairly small fry all the way through the mines. If it gets past level 1 without any mishaps, and if you check it with the stethoscope and heal it periodically (this will help your alignment), it will have no difficulty killing everything you may meet, except for the captain of the mine town guards. Keep your pet away from the captain until you have completed the Protection Racket (below), and can afford to gain some levels. Once you have more than 40 mana you will be able to keep your pet in good enough shape to take out the captain if you wish. He or she may be carrying a silver saber.

Boost your hitpoints. (1) Use fountains to turn your 3 or 4 potions of healing into water (#dip twice in the main dungeon NOT in the minetown – this will anger the town guards; also note that you’ll sometimes get demons or snakes – I see this as a worthwhile risk; keep a path to the stairs handy, and try to be surrounded by your own pets when dipping; you will periodically get killed doing this, so do it early on — my most memorable death of this sort involved a water demon appearing and immediately summoning Yeenoghu against a level 1 character). (2) Then turn the water potions into holy water (#pray after dropping them onto a co-aligned altar: there’s a 1/3 chance of finding one of these in the minetown; otherwise convert the first unattended altar you find in the main dungeon; alternately try buying some expensive bottled water, and dip the others into this). (3) Finally, dip your extra healing potions into one of the potions of water, and quaff the lot, for +5 maximum HP each. After boosting your HP with blessed extra healing potions, you should have e.g.

Kalessin the Rhizotomist    St:9 Dx:12 Co:15 In:10 Wi:14 Ch:16
Dlvl:1  $:1843 HP:37(37) Pw:6(6) AC:8  Xp:1/0 T:979

Boost your mana. If you don’t have at least Pw:5 ensure that you get first bite of any newts your pet may kill (1/3 chance of a ‘mild buzz’ -- you gain 1-3 maximum mana.) Mana of 5 will enable you to heal yourself and, more significantly, your pet, making it more dangerous. High intelligence (eat mind flayers later on), and a ring of slow digestion will minimize the hunger effects of spell casting, but go easy. Travel light. Don’t carry junk, being burdened will give monsters extra attacks against you, prevent you out-running them, and interfere with healing spells (forget shields, iron, and anything but leather or dragon scale armor – unless your Mana is less than 5 and you can’t cast anyway.) Maneuverability is more important.

Play the protection racket: The ‘racket’ is a gambit, with a high payoff if you can manage it. (1) Using your pet and a tripe ration, cycle your spellbooks through shops until you have at least 3600 gold. (2) Then get to the mine-town without having gained more than the 20 HP required for XP level 2 (‘O’ for options, and set #showexp). Aim to kill nothing at all — you may find yourself surrounded in the mines, and this early buffer will be needed. Wielding nothing (‘-’) will prevent accidental point gains. (3) When you get there, give (via #chat) the priest in the temple successive sets of 400 gold pieces (= 400 x your current XP level) until you have the maximum divine protection (‘Thy selfless generosity is deeply appreciated’ ~ the maximum is 9pts, so your naked AC will be 1 unless you get any special treatment for excess donations, as in: “Thou art indeed a pious individual, I bestow upon thee a special blessing”). The alignment of the priest is irrelevant. The following stats are from a recent game. Note that I’m still level 1 (and wearing no armor).

Kalessin the Rhizotomist    St:12 Dx:8 Co:15 In:11 Wi:15 Ch:17
Dlvl:5  $:0  HP:35(42) Pw:11(11) AC:-1 Xp:1/10 T:3554

If you get a wish: If through a magic lamp (approx. 1/3 chance of finding one in the mine-town shops: make sure it’s blessed before you #rub it for an 80% chance of a wish), then save it until you have 50 HP, and can withstand an artifact blast (see ‘boost your hitpoints, above). Then wish for The Eye of the Aethiopica (EoA, Wizard quest artifact). It gives you magic resistance and hungerless magical regeneration, and when #invoked can teleport you out of danger. Magical regeneration with healing spells gives you faster recovery times than mere physical regeneration (though you will get that from the Staff on the quest). If for whatever reason you must take a wish with less than 50 HP, get silver dragon scale mail (“blessed +2 silver dragon scale mail”, SDSM), for reflection. This means you won’t lose your body armor if polymorphed (that being the primary risk of not having magic resistance) and it will last you the game whether you add a cloak of magic resistance (MR) later or not. You should be aiming to own at least 3 artifacts (like Magicbane or the Eye) that give MR, so that theft won’t be an issue and so that you can use an oilskin cloak to prevent being drowned by eels later on. After SDSM and the EoA, the next best wishes may be: (1) Magicbane if you have no decent weaponry, (2) a blessed magic marker, for enchant armor and enchant weapon scrolls, (3) half physical damage, e.g. from the Orb of Fate (add that to your existing resilience!), or a good offensive spellbook like Magic Missile or Create Monster which will give you a few extra options (and later on, get Identify).

Anticipate trouble: You will loose a number of healers trying to get the hang of this, but that’s just NetHack. The payoff is having a character that through low AC, and self-healing is invulnerable to many common dangers. For example with -15 AC, you can indefinitely resist a pack of soldier ants. With -35AC, a fairly reasonable goal, your main concern will be having some decent weapons for dealing with the Wizard.

Pacifist strategies:

• Throw food at monsters to make them at least peaceful if not tame. Keep fortune cookies as an inexpensive way of taming domesticable carnivores (dogs, cats — save tripe rations for rewarding your existing pets when they make off with items from shops) and lichen corpses or fruit (apples) for domesticable herbivores (ponies, horses).
• Orbit your pet while it is eating, keeping an opponent on the other side.
• Keep checking your pets health with your stethoscope, and heal it as necessary, esp. when fighting dwarves and guards.
• Keep doors closed unless you need to use them. Freezing floating eyes (#apply a looking glass to them) or putting monsters to sleep can help block doorways and corridors. In corridors displace your pets to put them between you and incoming monsters.
• Go down stairwells (and return) as soon as you find them, so that if you fall through a 1-level trapdoor, you will know where the up stairs (to your pet) are.
• When entering a mine level, either remain around the stairwell, or keep moving, seeking a a dead-end with a single-space entrance to wear down or resist any initial collection of monsters. If you are able to keep moving, then your pet(s) will normally finish the monsters off safely, but in there is always the possibility that you will have to stop and fight at some stage. If in trouble, simply call off the ‘protection racket’, and gain levels as you naturally would.
• A magic whistle can keep your pet handy at all times. Use any whistle you find immediately: #name it ‘normal’ if it isn’t magic so that magic whistles will also be recognizable on sight in the future. (This is also a good practice for whenever you reliably identify a normal oil lamp — say by price, or by it going out — as distinct from a magic lamp.)
• If your pet falls through a trapdoor, follow it. Or, step onto a trapdoor that your pet is adjacent to, to move the both of you down a level (or two).
• A wand of digging (once in the mines) should be zapped straight down (‘>’) repeatedly, with your pet next to you.
• Write ‘Elbereth’ with your fingers, or a wand whenever in trouble.
• Monsters in lines can be zapped with your wand of sleep, letting your pet deal with them. It is an offensive, not a defensive weapon.
• The only viable strategy if badly surrounded (say, by water moccasins at a fountain — if you have no means of teleportation — or by monsters including a were-creature that will not respect ‘Elbereth’) is to break (#apply) your wand of sleep (you’ll need at least St: 10), and hope your pet gets all of the surrounding monsters before they wake up. This is a long shot, but #praying probably won’t give your pet time to finish them all, and they will attack first when you’re done.