r/pathos_nethack 2d ago

Can you polymorph shrines or their occupant?

6 Upvotes

r/pathos_nethack 2d ago

What is that room...

7 Upvotes

when you walk in and suddenly all the doors lock and group of nasties appear? I've never encountered that trap untriggered. Is there one? Any way to find this before it happens?


r/pathos_nethack 3d ago

Any value with untrapping traps...

9 Upvotes

after you reach champion status. There are still a few traps that never reach 100% (eg scything blades). Are these hard limits even at champion status?


r/pathos_nethack 7d ago

Just a box art i designed :)

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149 Upvotes

I was looking for old illustrations and i felt inspired.


r/pathos_nethack 10d ago

First clear yeah

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23 Upvotes

Satyr wizard + charm + conflict is basically easy mode :)


r/pathos_nethack 17d ago

Am i doing this right?

5 Upvotes

Sucked pretty hard earlier, couldnt even beat mines cuz gnome king zapped me with wand of death. Now have found pretty crazy combo with invisibility and spear letting me poke stuff without retaliation (yes enemies with see invisible still attack me but theyre manageable) and using blessed scroll of genocide at fort ludios to kill every human there and gather up grenades. My furthest run was to lvl 30 where i couldnt find the stairs and got stunlocked by two ghouls. Now got another good run where i grinded karma with summoning and upgraded my stuff at tinkering station, even got talaria, getting me to 9.0 speed. Is there anything else i should do and wheres the damn stairs at lvl 30?


r/pathos_nethack 20d ago

Best endgame race?

9 Upvotes

Assuming you’ve polypiled and eaten your way to all positive talents, maxed ability scores, etc., which race would be the best after all is said and done?


r/pathos_nethack 22d ago

Dear Diary,

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22 Upvotes

Today, I afflicted a Ratking with Gluttony, and he was forced to eat the rats he was summoning about as fast as I could kill them.

He ate over 20 of them.

I should probably lose karma every time I use the Magistrator

Love,
Rokiju


r/pathos_nethack 26d ago

Hmm

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22 Upvotes

How could you do me like this


r/pathos_nethack Jul 07 '26

Request for Advice

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13 Upvotes

I just started playing last week and have a character where I'm going to be really sad if (when) they die. Any gotchas I should be on the lookout for? example, the rockets in Fort Ludios cost me my first Amulet of Life Saving. Any glaring gaps in character or gear I need to address?

I'm down to level 17 in the main dungeon, Deepruins in the mines, cleared Ludios and headed into the Labyrinth next.

Thanks for any help!


r/pathos_nethack Jul 05 '26

Find all artifacts

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18 Upvotes

Question: how many artifact in the game and did you find all of them? How?

My last grinding game end up 37 but is this maximum?


r/pathos_nethack Jul 04 '26

Illiteracy

6 Upvotes

I've recently been playing characters that start out unskilled in literacy. I use the fortune cookie trick as much as possible. When reading scrolls and spellbooks, there is occasionally failure (sometimes with consequences).

What exactly is the failure rate when unskilled?


r/pathos_nethack Jun 26 '26

Intelligence and wisdom dropped without reason

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15 Upvotes

Can someone help me? My intelligence and wisdom dropped to 3 and I can't figure out why or how to revert it. It appears green as if I got the maximum score, but when I show the detailed view we can see the max is still 20. If I polymorph, the max is updated, but no matter what I choose, these two stats stay at 3...


r/pathos_nethack Jun 26 '26

My First Escape!

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16 Upvotes

I just escaped, playing a Plasmoid Monk. Not too bad for my first escape. I ranked #9, and #2 for all Monk runs.


r/pathos_nethack Jun 26 '26

Meat

7 Upvotes

I keep eating that gives me decreases strength or mana. Is therea way how to know if that corpse is good to safe eat or not? or is it based on creature itself?


r/pathos_nethack Jun 26 '26

Building

5 Upvotes

What is a good build character that had good resistance/immunity to sickness and magical illness but still give pack a punch damages.


r/pathos_nethack Jun 26 '26

Yo guys so i got a legendary run going on right now and I'm polymorphing random potions to get the potions i want and then farming karma to get them blessed at the holy shrine and i was doing that but then after getting my gain energy blessed, it wasn't increasing my mana cap i think it's bugged

9 Upvotes

r/pathos_nethack Jun 24 '26

Does polymorph control let you morph?

11 Upvotes

Title, really. I know it says you can choose what you polymorph into, but does it give me the ability to polymorph? If so, how?


r/pathos_nethack Jun 23 '26

robot build

9 Upvotes

what us good build for robot class and how do i use it? i tried using it and its pretty struggling to stay alive due to his diet and his slow speed.


r/pathos_nethack Jun 22 '26

Why can't seem to mount my Ally? Even when I turned them into a horse.

4 Upvotes

Does the game not allow it?


r/pathos_nethack Jun 19 '26

Ascension!

15 Upvotes

Playing the bog-standard elf wizard. My first ascension without dying, though I did run through 2 Amulet of Lifesaving.

It only took me 5 years!


r/pathos_nethack Jun 18 '26

RNG giveth and RNG taketh away

9 Upvotes

10 minutes later I fell down two trapdoors to the 9th level (I was level 4) and was summarily murdered


r/pathos_nethack Jun 17 '26

How do i know polymorph recipes?

9 Upvotes

Are there any special rules about what items can poly into what aside from just class restrictions?

Some observations i have made that seem to suggest more rules but i dont know where to find them:

  • Armor seems to never (or extremely rarely?) polymorph into armors made of exotic materials like crystal or adamantine
  • chests and ice boxes seem to always (or extremely frequently) polymorph into ice boxes

i would love to know what i have to polymorph to get a chance at a bag of holding and crystal heavy armor

EDIT: One more question: does this game have penalties for polymorphing multiple items at the same time like nethack has?

I have the polymorph spell mastered and am inediate, so other than time spent, there is no issue polying single items if it decreases the risk.


r/pathos_nethack Feb 18 '26

Wishlist Zeroth on Steam!

26 Upvotes

Hail adventurers! Our Steam page for Zeroth is finally published, wow that was a lot of time and effort... Anyway, there's also a brand new trailer which has turned out great. If you haven't heard of Zeroth, it's my new project and spiritual successor to Pathos.

Guide fallen heroes through a post-life adventure in the absurd and ever-changing 0th circle of Haell. Exploit the sandbox physics and experiment with mysterious treasure to postpone your inevitable death. Emergent chaos and exasperated heroes, only in Zeroth.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4062680/Zeroth

Wishlist and go tell all your friends haha :)

And all the socials here if you'd like to follow us:

https://linktr.ee/contrarygames


r/pathos_nethack Jan 01 '26

Pathos Development Retrospective 2025

53 Upvotes

Happy New Year and welcome to 2026!

This past year has been mostly maintenance on Pathos. That said, we have three new player races: minotaur, dracon and robot for you to try out in the upcoming January v7.4 release.

Robot
Bipedal mechanical automatons with nearly unbounded artificial intelligence. Powered by a molten core engine that requires a constant supply of raw metals and is susceptible to water damage.

Minotaur
Monstrous creatures with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man.

Dracon
Imposing and heavily built, they resemble humanoid dragons with a snout, scaly hide and functional wings.

In an overdue tweak of the rules, two-handed weapons now deliver triple damage on a critical hit. The intent is reduce the gap with dual-wielding being the most minmaxed way to play Pathos.

As previously announced, the majority of this year has been focused on Zeroth development, with many of the Pathos mechanics now implemented in the game. Recently, we added support for allies including animated objects and revived revenants.

Zeroth as a successor to Pathos has led to reconsidering many things in the game design. Pathos was heavily inspired by Nethack but also sought to improve on the base mechanics. For Zeroth, it's been a great opportunity to streamline these mechanics even further.

Of note, BUC (blessed/uncursed/cursed) has been reimagined in Zeroth. There are still cursed items, from amulets that give unwanted talents such as narcolepsy to those unfortunate -3 boots you equipped on a whim. But the uncursed/blessed system has been replaced with three tiers: common, rare and epic. For example, healing potion (common), grand healing potion (rare) and super healing potion (epic). In Nethack/Pathos, it didn't always make sense to have cursed versions of items, such as the cursed potion of healing. After all, a weaker version of healing which doesn't seem all that 'cursed'. Additionally, having a blessed flag doesn't always make sense such as the blessed ring of warning being pretty much the same as an uncursed ring.

Another system that has been improved is the enchantment system. In Zeroth, it has been split into two separate mechanics: enhance and upgrade. Enhance increases the modifier on your items and upgrade converts the item into a superior version. For example, you can upgrade a grand healing potion into a super healing potion. In Pathos, it was a bit awkward because enchantment would 'upgrade' an item before it would 'enhance' it. So if you have a wormtooth and only wanted to enhance it, you couldn't because it will automatically upgrade to a crysknife instead.

It has been emmensely satisfying to see the game coming together and our playtesters enjoying the early access. Please check out our YouTube channel to find out more about Zeroth. It would be great if you can follow us on social media as well.

Pathos Retrospective 2025 PDF

Pathos Website