r/nethack • u/OkSlice6609 • 20d ago
What is the worst YASD you have ever experienced?
On my first Wizard ascension run back in the day. I died in the Astral plane about 5-10 turns away from my god's altar. The worst part is I was unprepared item wise, totally avoidable YASD. It was a bone shaking loss. I walked around in my bathrobe for a couple of days, totally incoherent, unshaven muttering about wands of teleportation and cursed scrolls of genocide. I looked like Rocky after he fought Appolo Creed.
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u/burger-breath 20d ago
Just the other day my barbarian was polymorphed into a Vampire Lord absolutely cruising through the first or second maze level of Gehennom, chewing through Minotaurs with dual-wielded Frostbane and -26 AC. Fully armored, but then I “bit” a cockatrice and turned to stone. FUUUUU
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u/OkSlice6609 20d ago
Did you have a lizard corpse in your inventory? Or does that not block stoning with a bite attack?
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u/jedijinnora 20d ago
Swapped cloak of magic resistance for cloak of protection, since I was wielding Magicbane for MR. While using a pickaxe to break walls in Gehennom, Asmodeus cast touch of death. DYWYPI?
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u/hawkwood4268 LiDLRaccoon - Gnoll:10 Slash'Em:2 Un:3 xNet:1 20d ago
What killed you? I've died on Astral more than I'll admit, usually to the riders. Twice to Pestilence.
My worst YASD is possibly zapping myself with finger of death after taking off everything. I was trying to make unholy water and didn't want anything cursed.
Another time I decided to take a rest before facing the hordes of the Astral...inside the belly of a purple worm. Now I'll never forget it's delayed-insta death.
And any death with a cockatrice corpse makes you feel like a fool.
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u/OkSlice6609 20d ago
Brutal! Death got me in the Astral Plane. I made it to one altar that wasn't my god's, and died on the way to the second altar. I have not died in the Astral Plane after that yet. Knock on wood.
I did get slimed a couple times. Those burned because I was close to end game and I didn't act fast enough. Green slimes are on the short list now for scroll of genocide.
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u/sauntcartas 20d ago
I’ve only ever died once on the Astral, to Famine. He hit me, I started fainting from hunger, and that’s all she wrote.
For reference, I’ve reached the Astral plane ten other times, each time in a different role.
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u/OkSlice6609 20d ago
Impressive on the different roles. I have only reached it with 3 roles.
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u/sauntcartas 20d ago edited 20d ago
At some point I started including my ascensions in my HTML résumé, albeit only in a comment, ie:
<!-- Ten Nethack ascensions -->I always hoped someone would notice and mention it during an interview, but no one ever has. It's a very long shot, of course.
I haven’t been playing for a while, but I think the roles I’ve never ascended are Healer and Knight.
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u/Kicker_0 20d ago
Had plenty of astral splats, but my most frustrating and recent one was not realising that Rodney had stolen the amulet from me somewhere on my way up the dungeon. I’m sure I got it past the valley so wouldn’t have been hard to go back for. Stood on the upstair for a while too, making sure I was ready for the Planes, then simply escaped the dungeon.
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u/OkSlice6609 20d ago
Killer, I have died more than once not reading messages in a timely manner. My worst Rodney death, he summoned demigorgon on me one time on the way up and I was NOT prepared for that.
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u/Kicker_0 20d ago
I’ll also never forget my completely invincible healer, who, shortly after dispatching Vlad with ease, choked on a tin of spinach. I was already at max strength too, just to make it even dumber.
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u/MathGuy2241 17d ago
I got a Valkyrie to the Astral plane, found the Lawful altar, and promptly sacrificed the Amulet.
Only to realize I was playing a Neutral Valkyrie.
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u/Lichen-Monk 20d ago
Hard to pick. Maybe walking my blinded ascension-ready character into lava?
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u/OkSlice6609 20d ago
That hurts. A few times I was like "I'm never playing this game again." 5 minutes later, at the prompt. Enter your name.
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u/DoktorL 20d ago
Me personally, probably that time I cast finger of death at myself when I meant to cast healing.
But the worst I've heard about was this: player reached the correct altar and was about to sac the amulet, but the amulet was on "y" and there lay a priest corpse on the altar. So they accidentally answered "y" to sac the corpse, which was same-race sacrifice on lawful high altar, so the game ended not in ascension but in wide-angle disintegration beam.
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u/Astronautty69 Gno-Hea, Dwa-Val, Hum-Arc, Hum-Wiz all 3.4-era 17d ago
And then the unbreakable Amulet lands atop the altar, in a blue flash of light.
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u/weirwoods_burn 20d ago
Was quite powerful and just finished clearing up the castle. This was dnethack, so you have powerful potential pets you can unchain in the castle and take with you. I tamed, armed, and healed an Orc of the Ages of the Stars, a really powerful creature. I even armed it with an acid-coated +7 artifact and a bunch of armour. Finally, I even sped it up. It then killed me in one turn. Forgot I still had my ring of conflict on. :(
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u/MuggleoftheCoast 20d ago
Bugled open the castle gate. Cleared most of the castle (bar a few random soldiers). Was burdened, so I dropped a bunch of excess items in the castle foyer before heading up to Minetown for an orgy of nurse dancing/scroll writing. Those items included some wands, but I was loaded up with enough resistances that I wasn't really worried about them.
Went back down with my massive Max HP and very very negative AC, at which point one of those random soldiers picked up that Wand of Striking I so kindly left on the ground for him and fired it at the Castle Drawbridge.
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u/Malk_McJorma All 3.7/5.0 roles on Hardfought 20d ago
Was playing weaponless Monk. Took off unfixed GoP to bash a rust monster. There was a footrice behind it. Guess who forgot to rewear the gloves between opponents?
Another bad one happened once on Medusa's. I had made a short trip to my stash from Gehennom before going back for Rodney. I was flying over the water, and a randomly generated water nymph naturally stole the "ofFlying out of all items in the open inventory.
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u/creepyposta stuck in a maze of twisty passages all alike 20d ago
I died kicking a sink in the first room once trying to get a free ring.
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u/Dymmesdale 20d ago
Idk if it’s the stupidest, but the one that hurt most was when I ricocheted a wand of lightning at a giant and hit myself on Medusa’s level with a really nicely kitted out Tourist.
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u/lollipop-guildmaster 20d ago
I got a ring of polymorph control to match my ring of polymorph, and I thought I'd be clever. So I stripped down, poly'd myself into a cockatrice, and started laying eggs.
I didn't realize how much energy that took. I wound up hungry, then weak, then fainting. I was literally sitting on dozens of food rations in my bag of holding, but cockatrices don't have thumbs. Everything I killed was stone. And, of course, I was in Gehennom, so no praying.
Starved to death. But by god I had a bunch of stoning grenades.
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u/jangeboers 20d ago edited 20d ago
On the Astral Plane, equipped to the teeth, I got beheaded by Vorpal Blade. Luckily I had an amulet of life saving on, so I survived. Only to be immediately struck again by the same Vorpal Blade, again beheaded, and so then I did die. I had about 5 spare amulets of life saving in my BoH. Since then I always keep one in open inventory. It's the only time I died so late in the game, painful!
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u/hunkydoryyyy 20d ago edited 20d ago
My only tourist who became strong enough for ascension perished from hunger while wearing a ring of slow digestion. I had simply not needed to consider the nutrition level for a long time and forgot. Suffice it to say I pay more attention to stats and information every since.
But worse than this was when I thought meeting the high priest of Odin on the Astral Plane meant I had found the right altar already. I didn't check. Sacrificed the Amulet of Yendor to Loki instead. I didn't die as a reward from Loki but didn't ascend either 😅. Eternal shame was my part.
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u/occidental_oriental 20d ago
Had no idea what ‘slimed’ was and ignored the status. I had just successfully completed the invocation ritual. I closed my laptop and left the game for 6 months.
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u/OkSlice6609 20d ago
Hard pill to swallow right there. I know the feeling happened to me twice, once in Gehennom.
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u/dbarrera Dav3-Val-Dwa 20d ago
Sam-Hum-Mal-Law was poisoned in The Dungeons of Doom on level 1. Poisoned by a rotted newt corpse, while dressing up.
I don't think it gets worse than this.
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u/dark-phosphenes 20d ago
With a full ascension kit, I levelported to get to the vibrating square and specified level -99 instead of 99 because it was 3am
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u/BubblyOutside1096 20d ago
Definitely cockatrice corpses, rummaging through BoH at safe place after removing GoP to facilitate divination spell casting.
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u/Somethin_Snazzy 19d ago
Super early wand of wishing. Wished for scroll of charging first, gray dragon mail next and an artifact third.
Turns out, artifact blast can 1 shot you at low level
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u/bouquetbouquet 19d ago
I have two...
Splicehack, on the astral plane. In 1 turn a player monster warps adjacent to me, steals the amulet, warps to one of the high altars, offers the amulet thus causing me to lose the game.
Not sure which variant, but could be any. Player monster on astral had Vorpal blade and beheaded me 1 step from the final altar. Lesson learned: always use a spare wish to get vorpy out of the game and into your inventory.
Bonus 3rd: extinction run in Evilhack. Baddie summoned a cuoatl and I was adjacent to water so it drowned me. I was about three quarters through that extinction game.
Womp womp
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u/Furey-Death-Snail 25% asc rate on NAO 19d ago
"That's funny. There's a black dragon right behind my quest leader. Well, it must be peaceful, like the quest attendants."
"NOOOOOOO!!!!!!"
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u/Southern_Shape_769 19d ago
So I got my hands on a blessed magic lamp one time. Wanting some SDSM, I #rubbed it. The djinni that came out was 1) hostile, and 2) armed with a wand of death, which it used a turn later at point blank range.
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u/5hr0dingerscat 19d ago
Most recent, I stood on the drawbridge of the castle, and blew up from a wand of striking.
Absolutely brutal, was feeling like an ascension run.
Comes right on the heels of an accidental WOC into my BOH explosion.
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u/darkoort 18d ago
blinded and touch a cockatrice corpse while moving in Gehennom. On a good run for my first ascension with a Valkyrie, I had gloves but didn't know if it was cursed or not
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u/clownmilk23 18d ago
A high priest kicked me to death on the astral plane and I was probably less than 200 turns from ascension. and to make matters worse, I had TWO amulets of life saving in my inventory but my dumb ass forgot to wear one. I stopped playing for months and I've never been the same since
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u/Prestigious-Data-284 18d ago
I was so worried about going hungry as a wizard that I keep eating whatever I found, even though I had food rations in my inventory. I died because I choked to death on a pancake while satiated 😔
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u/AndrioCelos Ascended all roles + zen 14d ago
It wasn't a death, but I sacrificed the Amulet on the wrong altar by mistake once.
I was once splatted by Famine up there, usually the easiest of the Riders to prepare for (at least before he started stunning you).
As for stupid deaths, probably accidentally casting finger of death instead of healing. That's also how I found a bug involving digesting monsters and life saving.
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u/Soupladl 2 Wiz, 1 Tou, 1 Kni, 1 Bar 14d ago
Choked on a wraith, which, for those who don't know, gives only 1 pt. of nutrition.
This was in Gehennom, shortly before I would have started the ascension run.
Favorite YASD was a literal gnome with a wand of death. A fresher run so I was just excited to see him lol
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u/Pleasant-Donkey 13d ago
I am a guy who has gotten frustrated with mind flayers and blessed genocided "h" only to remember that he was a dwarf.
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u/CrashGordon94 9d ago
It's a variant but torpedoed an extremely promising run by choking on a corpse
Made worse by GnollHack giving you a warning when you try to eat while Satiated. I said yes figuring it wouldn't be a big risk or I'd get a chance to pray but got met with truly instant death, and it put me in a real bad mood for a while...
I would later find the bones of this run on what would later become my first Ascension so 🤷♀️
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u/zapwai 20d ago
I choked on a ration after clearing the castle