👉 Welcome to the Intermediate Guide. This guide builds upon the basics from the Starting Guide for Beginners to help you survive the deeper dungeon. You will learn about early-game routing, the economy, advanced item identification, pet management, and how to survive the most dangerous monsters.
🗺️ Dungeon Progression & Branches
The dungeon in GnollHack is not just a single straight line down; it features several branching paths. Knowing where to go and when to avoid certain areas is crucial for survival.
| Branch / Area | Description & Strategy |
|---|---|
| Dungeons of Doom | The main dungeon branch. You start on level 1 and must descend to find the Amulet of Yendor. Stick to this path initially. The deeper you go, the harder the monsters become. |
| The Gnomish Mines | A branch typically found between dungeon levels 2 and 4. |
| Minetown | A guaranteed town level within the Gnomish Mines, featuring multiple shops and a temple with a priest. It is an excellent place to identify items and buy gear. |
| The Quest | A unique branch tailored to your character's class. The entrance is a magic portal located between dungeon levels 11 and 16. You must be at least experience level 14 to enter it. |
| Gehennom | The late-game hellish branch of the dungeon. Unlike NetHack, GnollHack has removed the tedious mazes from Gehennom, making it much more enjoyable and fast-paced to explore. |
🏪 Shops and Economy
GnollHack features a robust economy. Unlike traditional NetHack, pets can no longer steal from shops. However, gold is more plentiful, and you are expected to buy and sell items properly.
Managing Your Wealth
Gold has significant weight in GnollHack. Carrying thousands of gold pieces will quickly leave you Burdened or Stressed, which can be fatal in combat. You should store your gold in a stash or find a bag of treasure hauling, which reduces the weight of gold to a fraction of its normal amount. (Rogues start with one!)
NPC Appraisers
You will encounter various specialized NPCs who can identify items or buy your unwanted gear.
| NPC Type | Services Offered |
|---|---|
| General Storekeeper | Buys and sells a wide variety of items. Can identify any item for a fee. |
| Specialized Shopkeeper | E.g., bookstores. They can only identify the types of items they sell. |
| Artificer | A specialized NPC who will gladly buy your expensive (but perhaps useless to your class) spellbooks. |
| Geologist | A specialized NPC who buys gems. Sell them your identified valuable gems for a massive profit. |
| Oracle | Can identify items for a fee, and provides game hints. |
| Priest | Found in temples. They can bless and curse items for a fee, and they sell protection (extrinsic AC) if you donate large sums of money. |
| Smith | Provides many useful services and can identify weapons and armor for a fee. |
Hiring Mercenaries
You can interact with peaceful monsters (using the C Chat command) and hire them as mercenaries. You must pay them gold, but having heavily armed soldiers fighting alongside you makes the early and mid-game significantly easier.
⚠️ Dangerous Early-Game Monsters
Many monsters in the early game have special attacks that will instantly end your run if you are not prepared.
| Monster | Danger | Survival Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Cockatrice | Instant death (petrification) upon physical contact. | Never touch them bare-handed. Wear leather gloves or gauntlets before hitting them in melee. Do not eat their corpses. If you fall into a pit while carrying a cockatrice corpse, you will turn to stone and die. |
| Floating eye | Passive paralysis. If you hit them in melee, you will be paralyzed for many turns while other monsters kill you. | Use ranged combat. Shoot them with arrows, darts, or spells. Alternatively, apply a blindfold or towel before hitting them (you cannot be paralyzed if you cannot see them). |
| /Monsters/Nymph & Leprechaun | Item and gold theft. | They will steal your items/gold and teleport away. Kill them with ranged attacks before they get close. If you eat a Leprechaun corpse, you may get teleportitis! |
| Soldier ant & Killer bee | Extreme speed, swarming, and deadly poison. | These insects move much faster than you and attack in groups. Funnel them into a hallway so you only fight one at a time. Engrave Elbereth on the floor to scare them away. |
| Leucrotta | Very fast and hits extremely hard early on. | Do not try to outrun them. Stand your ground on an Elbereth engraving or use wands (like sleep or magic missile) to deal with them quickly. |