Angel
A Angel 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 19 |
| Attacks |
Weapon 1d6, weapon 1d6, claw 1d4, magic missile 2d6 |
| Base level | 14 |
| Base experience | 485 |
| Speed | 10 |
| Base AC | -4 |
| Base MR | 55 |
| Alignment | 12 (lawful) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 1450 |
| Nutritional value | 400 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | Cold, shock, sleep, poison |
| Resistances conveyed |
None |
|
An Angel:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line1087 |
The Angel, A, is the most prominent of the angelic beings.
Angels' melee-range magic missile attack ignores both reflection and half spell damage, but deals no damage if you have magic resistance. The missiles they fire at range, however, are ordinary magic missiles. In the message "The Angel zaps you with a magic missile!", it says "zap", but the Angel doesn't use a wand of magic missile.
Like other monsters with magic missile attacks, angels have magic resistance.
Generation
They almost exclusively appear in the service of one of the deities, and appear in large numbers on the Astral Plane; you can also obtain a guardian Angel as a minion when you arrive on the Astral Plane if your alignment is sufficiently high and you are not wearing a ring of conflict.
If you are lawful, randomly generated Angels will be generated peaceful. In 3.6.0, one third of randomly appearing Angels will be minions of a random god from your pantheon[1]; usually they will be peaceful to co-aligned players, but some will be made "renegade", peaceful to cross-aligned players instead.
Angels are generated with an non-cursed erodeproof large shields with a 1/4 chance of the shield becoming a shield of reflection and blessed erodeproof long swords with a 1/20 chance of the sword becoming either Demonbane or Sunsword (If they don't exist yet). The tame guardian angel you get when entering the Astral Plane gets slightly better gear: his weapon is blessed and its enchantment raised by 1-4 points (if it's under +4), and if he didn't get a shield of reflection he will get an amulet of reflection.
Strategy
Angels are magic resistant, so don't bother zapping them with a wand of death. They have a good chance of having a shield of reflection, so other attack wands are not a good way to damage them either.
They are cold resistant but still vulnerable to fire, so casting the spell of fireball at Skilled or Expert might do significant damage. However, you may have trouble mustering the necessary power to cast spells repeatedly while carrying the Amulet of Yendor.
If you are fighting angels in melee, Firebrand and Stormbringer are both good weapon choices. A rubber chicken is another good option, if you have one handy.
However, a better way to deal with Angels and most other monsters on the Astral Plane is to zap them with a wand of teleportation without getting bogged down in fighting.
The guardian angel provided by your deity will probably not be able to keep up with you on the Astral Plane. To avoid generating a bunch of hostile angels when you arrive on Astral, wait a few turns after you arrive before putting on your ring of conflict.
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack Angels will attack any demons they see, (and vice versa) as part of Nephi's grudge patch.
Encyclopedia entry
He answered and said unto them, he that soweth the good seed
is the Son of man; the field is the world, and the good seed
are the children of the kingdom; but the weeds are the
children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the
devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers
are the angels. As therefore the weeds are gathered and
burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
[...] So shall it be at the end of the world; the angels
shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,
and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be
wailing and gnashing of teeth.
[ The Gospel According to Matthew, 13:37-42, 49-50 ]
References
This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.
It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.1. Information on this page may be out of date.
Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-361}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.
