I experience several problems for which I find no solution; 1) Items. It seems impossible to be "safe" with finding new unidentified items.. One will never find enough ID-scrolls for weapons, rings, armour etc. So you just have to gamble right?
Weapons, armor, and scrolls are safe most of the time. Only a few scrolls will do anything bad to you, and cursed weapons and armor can be dealt with using a scroll of remove curse instead of a scroll of ID. Most of them aren't cursed anyway. For rings you'll want to ID them because many are powerful, and most cause you to become hungry faster, so you need to know whether it's worth it or not. Potions are a gray area, because there are several that can harm you, but you're not likely to find enough ID scrolls for every type. I think the worst one is a potion of blindness, so if you have a potion of healing to remedy it, feel free to experiment.
Also, the Aquator? And the Rattlesnakes? They will thrash your armour. They will ruin your str.. Nothing can be done about this.
Take off your armor against aquators, they're extremely weak in a fight, so if they're not hurting your armor, they're no threat in any way. If you find more than one set of armor, carry it around in case aquator's trash your first set. Leather armor is supposed to be immune to them as well, so if you find some of that, it may be worth using and blessing at every opportunity.
For rattlesnakes though, there is nothing you can do if they show up at close range. You just have to hope for a potion of restore strength, which will restore it fully. According to the guide Slash posted, there's no difference between a strength of 8 and a strength of 15, so don't worry about it too much until it gets really low.
There are NO tutorials/guides/spoiles for rogue to be found on the net either.. I'm guessing that is because, quite frankly this game IS based upon luck.
In addition to the guide Slash posted, which looks useful, I've found this
http://www.rots.net/rogue/index.htmlwhich is less of a walkthrough, and more of a quick reference to what every type of monster and item is.
Regarding the luck thing, there are right and wrong decisions, and there are good and bad players. Now, for example, I find myself getting much further than I could when I first played the game at the age of 8. With that said, even perfect play can be frustrated by misfortune - bad luck absolutely can (and let's be honest - probably will) kill you.
Some interesting and useful tips from the guide slash posted:
"If you are standing in a doorway and the doorway is blocked by a weak monster you
can shoot other monsters diagonally without taking damage from them."
I never knew you could shoot diagonally through doorways. You can't attack diagonally through them, so that's really useful.
It also says that if you drop a scroll of scare monster, nothing can attack you on that spot (but you can't pick it up again). I always wondered why reading that scroll never seemed to do anything. The message you get from reading it is the one about "maniacal laughter," so if you find any of those, make sure to put them to good use. Note that it says the special attacks of Medusas and Dragons can still affect you.
Edit:
This game is like... pure malice concentrated into ascii form. One run I might find over 10 pieces of food, but be stuck with my original mace and aquator-ruined armor for the whole game, so I get mercilessly crushed by the first troll I meet. Later I'll find several quality suits of armor and a two handed sword, but be defeated by the RNG's refusal to generate any food at all.
Edit 2:
I have a
+4, +4 two handed sword. I can't wait to see what's in store for me now.
Edit 3:
Aaaaaannnd.... that's it. I got pinned between an Ur-Vile and a Yeti. That sword ended up being +6, +4 by the end of it, and of course I found a million other two handed swords throughout the course of the game, because they were of no use to me at that point.
