I'm stumped.

[gglibertine]

Having got my 50th level rogue, Brienne, down to 4200', I'm just plain stuck. I've got a permanent speed of +26, I've got Ringil and Evenstar, and I can handle almost everything I meet there, even dragon pits, but I can't seem to get past the undead. They do me in every time. (Yes, I'm cheating with the savefile. Otherwise I'd still be trying to get a character this far.)

How the heck do you get past a room full of undead when they keep multiplying and coming through the walls?

And while I'm here, is there EVER any value to trying to clear a jelly pit? I've never bothered to try, but I've always wondered if there's anything to gain from the attempt.

[Zikke]

I have a 50 mage and I try to mow everything down with ranged spells before they get to me. Undead pits at that depth are full of things that cast nether lances and cast teleport to, etc. so I just stay clear of them altogether. Jelly pits have no value to you; I generally stand kind of nearby and let the cubes and other moving jellies come out of the pit and pick them off so they drop their loot, but ignore the main pit itself.

The only pits I fight at 50 are dragon pits (if I have the proper resist for that pit) and humanoid pits. Just focus on killing things that drop loot. Liches, etc do drop loot, but if you can't take them down from range, or if you don't have nether and life draining resists, don't bother. There's a solo dragon around a corner somewhere with your dagger's name on his forehead.

[Djabanete]

Undead pits and jelly pits are pretty much never worth bothering with. Jellies are not lethal but there's no reward involved; undead are *extremely* lethal and the compensation just isn't worth it.

You'll get a lot more mileage out of hunting down D's. Also, note that the difference in difficulty between levels 80 and 98 is pretty slight, but the drops at 98 are a lot better. Good luck!

(And break your bad habit!)

edit: 98, not 99. At 99 you run the risk of encountering a certain someone. =)

[aeneas]

I'd say that, absent some extraordinary circumstances, by the time you are able to stand and fight an undead pit you are past the point at which you are strong enough to win. So there's not much point to dealing with them. By the time they appear you should be able to detect them and run away. It would take something like Ringil on the floor in the moat to make me want to deal with one, and even then I'd want to have some means of getting rid of most of the pit without fighting it.

As far as I can tell the only reason to take on a jelly pit is sheer cussedness. I hardly ever take on pits at all, as they are tedious, but I think that is likely a mistake- at some depths some pits are likely to be very remunerative. One of the things I like best about NPP is that it's possible to tease the Wyrms out of a dragon pit without having to kill everything else in it.

[Djabanete]

I'd say that, absent some extraordinary circumstances, by the time you are able to stand and fight an undead pit you are past the point at which you are strong enough to win.

By the time you can take on an undead pit straight up, you're probably strong enough to clean out any other kind of pit by just holding down the left and right arrow keys