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From: kscott@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Kevin Scott%Kuntz)
Newsgroups: net.games.hack
Subject: Re: Damn xans (*** SPOILER ***)
Message-ID: <508@ucsfcgl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 22-May-85 00:28:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucsfcgl.508
Posted: Wed May 22 00:28:25 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 24-May-85 07:57:54 EDT
References: <138@utflis.UUCP> <1200007@pbear.UUCP> <5160@ukc.UUCP> <1963@ut-sally.UUCP>
Reply-To: kscott@ucsfcgl.UUCP (YOUR NAME HERE)
Organization: UCSF Computer Graphics Lab
Lines: 58

In article <1963@ut-sally.UUCP> barnett@ut-sally.UUCP (Lewis Barnett) writes:
>> 
>> Xans. As in the description they keep on pricking your
>> legs and reducing your strength so that you "collapse under
>> your load" making you drop things to be able to do anything.
>> Has anyone else found this problem and hoe did they deal with it??
>
>Nope, restore strength won't do it.  The only cure to run-ins with
>xans is a potion of speed.  Don't ask me why, but after having your
>legs pricked, a potion of speed gives you the message "Your legs 
>begin to feel better."

Drinking 2 or 3 potions of speed also gives a similar message when you
drink them in rapid succession, even if you have not yet ran in to a
xan.  Does this mean you are allowed to carry more?  (I have not been
able to test out this theory yet)
>> 
>> As a matter of interest what do people genocide as their first,
>> second and third choices assuming you are on level 8 say ??
>> 
>> Brian Winstanley
>
>Well, I go for c's first, which seems to be the prevailing wisdom,
>though I've only been stoned a couple of times when tangling with
>them.  Then D's, and after that... well, xans have earned my eternal
>dislike, too, so I take them out.  k's would probably be a pretty
>good choice, too.
>
>Lewis Barnett,CS Dept, Painter Hall 3.28, Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX 78712
>
I prefer to go for xan's straight off.  
    *****SPOILER*****
After you kill your first killer bee you can eat it and it will give you
poison resistance, allowing you to avoid food burning rings.  Dragons are
also handy, eating them (you must stand on top of them, they are nigh
impossible to lift) imparts fire resistance upon you, after which 
subsequent dragons are relatively easy to kill.  Keep potions of healing
on hand as that when you eat them they are likely to be tainted, and
be prepared to lose a few strength points due to the poison in a bee.

The prevailing attitude here is that cockatrices are not all that common, 
although they seem to come up too often if they come up once.
But they are easy to kill and are invaluable if you have gloves.
Simply keep the cockatrice in your pack and if you run into a treasure 
zoo or graveyard before it decomposes, wield it and go wild!  Whenever it hits, 
it turns the victim into stone, instant death (you still get the normal 
corpses to eat if appropiate to do so).  Stay in one place when doing so, if you
fall into a pit while wielding the cadaver it is instant death for you.
I've had good success with theses stategies, and find that with intelligent
handling of cockatrices (i.e. use up those wand charges & teleport like crazy)
I rarely (one game in the time it has taken me to get the last three wins) 
get turned to stone.
 
  My next favorite thing to genocide is the rust monsters, they are almost
as much of a nuisance to me as xans.  Of course, I usually carry the 
genocide scroll if I have the portage to spare and use the scroll as a
save when something is about to kill me, so I don't always get to pick
what I want to kill.