Archeologist

English

 • русский

Archeologists are one of the harder roles, but can become powerful in the late game. They are often called Arcs for short and start the game with speed and stealth. According to the guidebook:

Archeologists understand dungeons pretty well; this
enables them to move quickly and sneak up on the local nasties.
They start equipped with the tools for a proper scientific expedition.

The Archeologist role, especially its starting equipment, is influenced by 1954's Secret of the Incas where Harry Steele (Charlton Heston) is a dashing explorer of ancient ruins with leather jacket and fedora. Raiders of the Lost Ark's Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) was inspired by Secret of the Incas and added—in 1981—the army bag (sack) and bullwhip that this role carries to the iconic archeologist image.

Archeologists can be lawful (human or dwarf) or neutral (human or gnome).

Starting equipment

• +2 bullwhip,
• +0 leather jacket,
• +0 fedora,
• 3 to 6 uncursed food rations,
• +0 pick-axe,
• uncursed tinning kit (30 to 99 charges),
• uncursed touchstone,
• uncursed sack.
• Following chances of one of:,
  • 10% uncursed tin opener,
  • 22.5% uncursed oil lamp,
  • 6.75% uncursed magic marker (30 to 99 charges).

Intrinsics

Archeologists gain the following abilities upon reaching the specified experience level:

• XL 1: Stealth
• XL 1: Speed
• XL 10: Searching

Skills

Archeologist skills
Max	Skills
Basic	Weapons: dagger, knife, short sword, dart Combat: two weapon combat, riding Spells: attack, healing, matter
Skilled	Weapons: scimitar, club, quarterstaff, sling, unicorn horn
Expert	Weapons: pick-axe, saber, boomerang, whip Combat: bare hands Spells: divination

Archeologists start with Basic skill in the categories Whip and Pick-axe.

Special rules

Archeologists can use uncursed touchstones as if they were blessed, formally identifying the type of any gem.

Archeologists suffer a -1 alignment penalty for breaking a historic statue.

Lawful archeologists suffer a -3 alignment penalty for digging up a headstone. However, chaotic archeologists get a +3 alignment bonus.

Strategy

Early game

Objectives

The early game must be played cautiously, like the Tourist and Healer. Archeologist is considered one of the most difficult roles, if not outright the most difficult. It is statistically one of the least ascended roles on NAO. Its starting resources don't contribute as much to survival as many other roles. Archaeologists start out with poor weapons, terrible armor, no spells and little food. In addition it is not unusual for a starting Archaeologist to have poor physical stats at ten or below. Some, who may start with low Constitution could be killed by a monster in a single hit.

Weapon Strategy

Archaeologists shouldn't ever use their bullwhip if they can avoid it, other than to disarm opponents of weapons (such as disarming a dwarf of it's heavy mattock). If an altar cannot be found and the one in minetown is cross aligned, it's best to enchant up a heavy mattock. A heavy mattock at +7 with decent strength will almost do as much damage as an artifact weapon, sometimes more. Failing that the Archaeologist can two-weapon with his pickaxe and a silver saber disarmed from a mintown captain (or a killed one), or an enchanted pickaxe and enchanted dagger.

Since many early archaeologists can be killed in 1-3 hits, missile weapons are necessity. Arcs can use their pickaxe to break the first boulder they see and get a few rocks. Even throwing 5 rocks at a monster and hitting with only two will do an average of 4 damage before you have to engage in melee, which could save your life. Obtaining darts or daggers (which arcs can gain skill in) is a priority. Worthless glass (which they can identify with their touchstone) does the same damage as rocks but weighs 1/4 less. Thus a dart trap, a sling, and daggers and even that worthless glass are all valuable finds that can keep you alive.

Obtaining an Artifact Weapon

One of the first goals of an Archaeologist should be to obtain an artifact weapon by any means possible and as early as possible. The bonuses to hit and extra damage done by these weapons compensate greatly for the Arc's terrible physical stats, making them able to defeat common and dangerous monsters such as ants, killer bees and centaurs. Lawful Arcs have a chance at getting Greyswandir, which is also a weapon class they can get high skill in. Neutrals can get mojo or magicbane (useful for engraving which arcs will have to do a lot of!) Chaotics can name sting as it gives them a dagger with a +1d5 to hit bonus. Because of how two weapon functions using Sting with it's +1d5 bonus and a pickaxe in the off hand will result in much more damage (if first weapon hits, second weapon hits). Chaotic Arcs can also possibly get either brands (fire or frost), and Stormbringer.

The archaeologist's equipment can really complement altar camping. As a food conservation strategy, an arc might choose not to feed it's pet or leave it on another level, and instead of eating pray for hunger relief when weak, all the while tinning corpses with it's starting tinning kit along the way to find an altar. Once a suitable altar is found, the player should stay there and sacrifice until they get an artifact weapon, even risking close brushes with death to do so.

Prudent Strategies

Identifying gems with the touchstone allows early identification of precious gems which can be sold to get gold for the protection racket. They also can be used as semi-permanent Elbereth engravers, which will likely be needed. Engraving two copies of Elbereth on stairs each level may be a prudent measure.

Becoming a spellcaster is a very real possibility if the player finds a spellbook shop or many spellbooks as treasure. Because of the archaeologist's high intelligence they usually are able to read even unblessed spellbooks successfully. With basic attack spells like sleep, magic missile or force bolt, the Arc has a new way to deal damage, which they sorely need. Other spells, such as diviniation are also helpful. An archaeologist who gets a robe can cast almost anything.

Arcs cannot afford to be burdened, as they need to run away all the time. They start with stealth and speed, and since they cannot melee very well, magic items which enhance these abilities, such as displacement, invisibility, jumping, and so forth are an absolute boon for them, as do gauntlets of power and dexterity which also compensate for their poor physical stats.

Another strategy for the role is pets, and multiple pets as well. The arc should try and convert every possible animal (dogs cats and horses) to tame or peaceful monsters. The fragile arc can carefully and slowly hide behind their pet at every encounter. As not killing monsters yourself keeps you at low xp the monsters in the dungeon will be kept at a low level as well. All the while your pet rather than you will level up, and you can get more and more resources. Trying to get your pet to jump in a polymorph trap, or using a wand of polymorph on them can make your pet even more powerful.

Arcs can dig holes and pits to create a trap to prevent monsters from chasing them. This can be enhanced with Jumping from boots or the spell. Holes next to stairs can be jumped in. While monsters can follow the player downstairs, they cannot jump into a hole if the Arc does it first. Preparing escape holes/pits before entering a dangerous area can be a viable means of escape. The archaeologist may also want to leave one pit unfilled on the first level of Sokobon to have a safe space to run back to.

Your route: Minetown, Sokoban, Mine's End

The basic strategy for an Arc's adventure route is as follows, first 4 levels of the regular dungeon (which are safest), then proceed to the Gnomish mines to get some armor and a few levels from easy to kill gnomes, then to minetown to see if there's a co-aligned altar, to get tools and possibly spellbooks, then back up to the main dungeon to sokobon, and then finally back to the mines and to mine's end.

Your starting touchstone can make the first few floors of the mines very profitable. Your starting pick-axe can also be used to dig out gold, gems, and vaults in the early levels, and dig down through floors. Thus, you can accumulate a lot of wealth in just the first few floors of the dungeon and mines. This makes buying protection from Minetown doable, even if you gain a few levels on the way. If you do make it to Minetown at level 1, you should be able to buy protection several times.

The advantages of the Mines (particularly the possibility of a co-aligned altar for sacrificing/obtaining an artifact weapon) mean that it should be pursued before Sokoban. After reaching Minetown and evaluating it, the player should likely turn back and do Sokobon before continuing to Mines' End Strategically, the player can kill a few gnomes and gnome lords and a dwarf or two, put on some armor, and then dig down with their pickaxe to get to the minetown level.

Sokoban can be a good choice afterward, because you can use your starting pickaxe to break boulders if need be, and your sack can store the food and items that are plentiful there. It's also good for exercising your low starting strength.

Luck is very important early in the game, so save at least one cheap gem to throw to a co-aligned unicorn. Because throwing an identified precious gem gives a +5 boost to Luck, consider doing it even before you find a luckstone.

Since you start with intrinsic speed, invisibility is a highly desirable quality for avoiding monsters. A fast, invisible, opponent is hard to chase down. Stealth is also helpful for clearing out treasure zoos and throne rooms, as it leaves enemies sleeping.

Weapons

The best early weapon is the pick-axe. In general, you want to seek out a dwarvish mattock (look for dwarves mining around in the Gnomish Mines), because they use pick-axe skill and do more damage than any other non-artifact weapon. Thus, it's best to use the pickaxe and enhance it when available, preparing for using a dwarvish mattock. However, if you start out with physical stats that assign penalties (i.e. 9 or lower Strength or Dexterity) you may need to use the whip at first for its +2 bonus.

The whip is decent at first because of the +2 bonus, but after a few levels it becomes less effective, and it doesn't train pick-axe skill. Don't forget that you can apply it towards a monster even while not wielding it, which will disarm the monster if your dexterity is 6 or higher. This can be a lifesaver when fighting some monsters, given your poor starting AC. It can also be a good way to deprive a dwarf of its mattock.

Archeologists suffer from a lack of good ranged weapon options. Boomerangs do 1d9 damage and can be advanced to expert, but they are quite rare and their flight pattern is unusual. Slings can be advanced to skilled, but they are weak and rocks are very heavy. However, with your starting touchstone you will identify numerous pieces of worthless glass which do the same damage as a rock but at 1/10 the weight. Darts and daggers are your other two plentiful options in the early game, both of which can be advanced to basic. Daggers are good because they will never break, but a large stack of darts with +2 or better enchantment is also worthwhile.

Starting in 3.6.1, the aklys is a ranged weapon and Archaeologists can achieve skilled with clubs, the category of the aklys. Many of the gnomes in the mines are likely to be generated with aklys, identified initially as thonged clubs. The aklys will return to hand 99% of the time like Mjollnir when thrown, so it makes a particularly effective early ranged weapon. It does 1d6/1d3 damage which beats darts and daggers, since Archaeologists can't multishot. Watch out for rusting as they are made of iron.

Mid game

The Quest

Getting to level 14 to enter the quest is very difficult for a player that constantly needs to avoid fighting. The Arc may have to employ potions of gain level to meet the requirement so keep that in mind when doing alchemy. Cleaning out zoos, beehives and soldier barracks (employing your speed and stealth) can help with that.

Archeologists should have poison resistance before doing the quest, because the quest is full of poisonous snakes. Familiarize yourself with safe-to-eat monsters that give poison resistance, since Archeologists tend to have low constitution and HP. Your starting tinning kit is very helpful, allowing you to safely eat poisonous corpses for the chance of intrinsics. For this reason killing and eating a unicorn and getting a unicorn horn are also very helpful.

The quest contains one guaranteed coaligned altar; this may be a good place to wait and sacrifice monsters if you haven't found an artifact weapon yet.

The quest itself is very easy, there are no drawbridges and only a little bit of water, no lava, no obstacles most part. The monsters are all snakes and mummies, which are not particularly dangerous and easily fall to a fully enchanted and skilled pickaxe. There is a good bit of treasure even on the first level too. Weaker archaeologists should loot all the levels except the last one. The last level shouldn't be attempted until after the Castle, or after the player has both magic resistance and reflection.

This is because the Quest Nemesis, while not difficult to hit, and while not dealing out tons of damage, has the ability to summon monsters. The final level also may have demons, and since the Nemesis is a demon, can summon other demons. The Minion can also summon terrifying monsters such as black dragons (which will disintegrate you if you don't have reflection) or even greater demons such as Jubilex (these can also be summoned by other demons on the last level). For this reason, the Nemesis shouldn't be fought until the player has used wishes on appropriate offense/defense tactics. Permanent Elbereth, scrolls of scare monster and highly enchanted silver sabers are advisable to dispatch the Minion quickly before he does too much summoning.

You should not rely on The Orb of Detection as a source of magic resistance; the Wizard of Yendor can easily steal it. Unless you wish for another quest artifact or use Magicbane, that essentially requires you to wear either gray dragon scale mail or a cloak of magic resistance.

Weapons

Because you start with low physical stats and melee penalties, acquiring an artifact weapon is a central concern. It's not a bad idea to camp on an altar you find and sacrifice for a gift. Archeologists have good artifact weapon possibilities, such as Grayswandir, Mjollnir, Vorpal Blade, and Magicbane. Lawful players can also dip for Excalibur if they find a long sword (though it will not be unrestricted unless you have had another long sword gifted to you).

Dwarvish mattocks and silver sabers are good non-artifact weapons, and one or the other should be trained to Expert. If you are planning to get Grayswandir or at least two-weapon with a silver saber, you should begin training saber skill as soon as you find one. The watch captain in Minetown often carries one, so consider getting a pet to kill him for it. If you disarm him with your whip, it will anger him but not the other guards.

Spellcasting

As you progress through the game and level up, spellcasting becomes more of an option. Your high starting intelligence makes you good at reading spellbooks without needing to bless them. You can become proficient in several spell schools, meaning that you can become competent at casting many low-level spells. However, armor usually remains more important than spells through the early and mid game. Don't ditch good metal armor in favor of spellcasting until you're confident you can survive without it.

Late game

Weapons

For Archeologists, the best strategy is to find a good artifact weapon, enchant it up, and stick with it through the rest of the game. Two-weaponing is reliable because your experience level and Luck at this point completely cancel out the the -7 to-hit penalty.

The best artifact weapon for you is Grayswandir, which does double damage and silver damage. It is one of the few artifact weapons you can advance to Expert. The neutral artifact weapons for Archeologists are quite good as well, but Grayswandir is so excellent that you might want to consider wishing for it even if you're neutral.

Spellcasting

In the mid-game and beyond, you may want to advance divination spells to Skilled for casting magic mapping, which is your special spell and can be greatly useful in Gehennom. Detect treasure and detect unseen are also nice to have, and identify is always useful. Don't advance them to Expert unless you really need your failure rates to be lower.

Since most of your useful spells are utility spells, it isn't necessary to avoid metal armor

Rank titles

The status line shows you to be one of the following ranks when you reach the specified experience level:

• XL 1-2: Digger
• XL 3-5: Field Worker
• XL 6-9: Investigator
• XL 10-13: Exhumer
• XL 14-17: Excavator
• XL 18-21: Spelunker
• XL 22-25: Speleologist
• XL 26-29: Collector
• XL 30: Curator

Quest

The archeologist quest artifact is The Orb of Detection, a crystal ball. When carried, it confers magic resistance, telepathy and half damage when attacked by spells. When #invoked, it toggles invisibility on/off.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, Archeologists may be doppelgangers, elves, or hobbits in addition to the vanilla roles. They can use the research technique at level 1. The starting equipment has also changed.

They begin with a spellbook, one of detect food, detect monsters, light, knock, or wizard lock, 2 random scrolls, a 25% chance of a blindfold, a 25% chance of a towel if they did not get a blindfold, 25% chance of a leash, a 25% chance of a tin opener or a 25% chance of either an oil lamp or a torch if they did not get the tin opener, and a 12.5% chance of a magic marker. The starting fedora has also changed in SLASH'EM and gives +1 charisma and acts as a luckstone when worn.

UnNetHack

UnNetHack replaces the Orb of Detection with the Itlachiayaque, an artifact shield of reflection, that confers ESP, half spell damage and fire resistance. When invoked, it produces player targettable stinking cloud.

Encyclopedia entry

Archeology is the search for fact, not truth. [...]
So forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel,
and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried
treasure, and X never, ever, marks the spot.

[ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ]

This page is based on a spoiler by Dylan O'Donnell. The original license is:

Redistribution, copying, and editing of these spoilers, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. The original contributors to any spoiler must continue to be credited.
2. Any modifications to the spoiler must be acknowledged and credited.

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.