If finding stuff was as easy as asking, everyone would just ask.

Fact is, you have to form a solid basis before people are going to share much out, not just ask. That takes as much effort as exploring.

Beyond that, I all my best stuff I find by exploring on my own. People don't tell you of their best preps. Lots of people don't know about the stuff. There are at least two pieces of gear that I know other people must have yet I've never seen anyone besides me wear, and no way am I going to tell someone where to get them.

I can't think of many (any?) preps that require you to take a risk of walking into a deathtrap. And my preps include a lot of things:

- haste, slow, fly, spiderhands, stoneskin, barrier, shield, aura, stoneskin, major ward, sanc, tenacity, rage, clarity, endurance, cures for deafen, plague, poison, blindness, pills of refresh, heal, detect invis, enlarge, faerie fog, potions of enlarge, reduce, resist elements, resist mental, remove curse, pass door, recall, gear of resist almost anything apart from holy etc. I'm sure if I thought about it more there are other preps I've had.

All that I got without once walking into a deathtrap except in cases where I wasn't using the look, exa/read, scan and tell commands properly.

Your claim that you can't explore without deathtrap problems is pretty baseless from the evidence presented. To lose 30 hp you must have walked into 9 deathtraps, or some of that con loss was accrued by other deaths. Agreed, reduced hp leads to further deaths in pk (although in most cases it should lead more to fewer wins rather than more losses if you are pk'ing well). However, when this character dies you will still retain the benefits of exploring, without the drawbacks of the con loss.