Big Room

Big Room
Location	Level 10–12 of the Dungeons of Doom
Probability	40%
Bones	Yes
Mappable	Yes
Teleportable	Yes
Diggable floor	Yes
Diggable walls	sometimes

The Big Room is a special level which consists solely of one big room. It is filled with monsters and random items scattered throughout. Because of its size, it is easy for a player to inadvertently find themself surrounded by monsters; therefore, caution should be exercised, especially for weaker players.

The Big Room will not be generated in every game. It has a 40% chance of appearing in the dungeon. If it does appear, it will be on dungeon level 10, 11 or 12.

It is possible for the Big Room to contain the upstair to Sokoban or the entrance portal to your quest.

Strategy

Upon your arrival, hostile monsters will spot you from much or all of the room, and will immediately move toward you. It is easy to find yourself surrounded. Conflict is extremely effective, because of the large crowd of monsters that will be near you and each other. Elbereth will of course be very useful as well.

Initially do not move off the stairs, so that you can leave the level quickly and heal if necessary -- be cautious of those monsters which can follow you up or down. If you fell into the level through a hole or trap door and are nowhere near the stairs, it may be wise to dig through the floor and return from the down stairs. (This usually requires a wand - a pick-axe is too slow without a means of limiting attacks against you.)

Another useful idea can be to use a scroll of earth to create a boulder fort around the upward stairs. Fire through the boulders with ranged attacks, or create a one-square gap in the fort so that only one square is free for the monsters to approach.

In desperate situations, breaking wands can be an effective but dangerous last resort. A wand of lightning or wand of fire can be broken to deal massive damage to multiple monsters. However, these wands will also hurt a player lacking resistances, possibly resulting in death - so this is only recommended for prepared players. In addition, wands of lightning can destroy your wands and rings when broken, and wands of fire can burn scrolls and boil potions.

Beyond these pointers, the usual tactics for dealing with multiple foes apply.

Maps

These are the Big Rooms for NetHack 3.6.1.

Each Big Room contains 15 random objects, six random traps, and 28 random monsters. Except as noted, all walls and terrain features are un-diggable, although the floor is not.

The NetHack General Public License applies to screenshots, source code and other content from NetHack.

This content was modified from the original NetHack source code distribution (by splitting up NetHack content between wiki pages, and possibly further editing). See the page history for a list of who changed it, and on what dates.

Big Room #1

This is the simplest Big Room, a large, fully-lit rectangular room.

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There's a 50% chance of this room having a terrain feature in the center, in one of the following patterns:

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The terrain will be a single type - one of walls, iron bars, lava, trees, or clouds - chosen randomly.

Big Room #2

This is identical to Big Room #1 (without the terrain feature), except that portions of it are unlit. One of three patterns will be used:

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Big Room #3

This Big Room has niches in the outermost walls and two large columns within it. The initial monsters appear in positions marked M, rather than scattered through the level.

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|M|.|.|.|.|.|M|.|.|.|.|.|M|.|.|.|.|.|M|.|.|.|.|.|M|.|.|.|.|.|M|.|.|.|.|.|M|
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|.....|--------   --------|...................|----------   --------|.....|
|.....|M|.|.|M|---|.|.|.|M|..........M........|.|M|.|.|.|---|M|.|.|M|.....|
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Big Room #4

This one has a "butterfly" shape and four non-magic fountains.

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|.....{...|-----------|                             |-----------|....{....|
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Big Room #5

                            ------------------
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              -------................................-------
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      ----......................................................----
    ---............................................................---
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  ---................................................................---
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      ----......................................................----
         ------............................................------
              -------................................-------
                    ---------................---------
                            ------------------

Big Room #6

     ---------         ---------         ---------         ---------     
   ---.......---     ---.......---     ---.......---     ---.......---   
  --...........--   --...........--   --...........--   --...........--  
 --.............-- --.............-- --.............-- --.............-- 
 -...............- -...............- -...............- -...............- 
|-...............---...............---...............---...............--
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|........#.................#.................#.................#........|
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|.................-.................-.................-.................|
--...............---...............---...............---...............--
 -...............- -...............- -...............- -...............- 
 --.............-- --.............-- --.............-- --.............-- 
  --...........--   --...........--   --...........--   --...........--  
   ---.......---     ---.......---     ---.......---     ---.......---   
     ---------         ---------         ---------         ---------     

Big Room #7

                                                        -----              
                                                ---------...---            
                                        ---------.........?...---          
                                ---------.......................---        
                        ---------.................................---      
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|--------...............................................................--|
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|--...............................................................--------|
  ---.....................................................---------        
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      ---.................................---------                        
        ---.......................---------                                
          ---...?.........---------                                        
            ---...---------                                                
              -----                                                        

The marked spaces will all be a single terrain type, one of lava, trees, fountains, or ordinary floor.

Big Room #8

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 ---......................................##.....---                       
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                   ---...........##................................----    
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                       ---.....##......................................--- 
                         ---.............................................--
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The iron bars have a 40% chance of being replaced by a single terrain type, one of lava, moat, trees, clouds, walls, or ordinary floor.

Big Room #9

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The blank space is unlit floor.

Big Room #10

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...#.#.....#.....#.......#.....#...#...#...#...........#.......#...#...
...#.###.#.###.#.#.#####.###.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#######.#.#.###.#.###...
...#.#...#.....#.#...#.#.#...#...#.#.#...#...#.#...#...#.#.#...#...#...
...#.#.#########.###.#.#.#.#######.#.#########.#.#.#.#####.#.#####.#...
...#...#.......#...#.#.#.#.#.#...#.#.#...#...#...#.#.......#.....#.#...
...#####.#####.###.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.###.###.#####.#############.#.#...
...#...#.....#...#...#...#.#...#...#...#.......#...#...#.......#.#.#...
...#.#######.###.#####.###.#.###################.###.#.#.#.#####.#.#...
...#.#.....#.#.#.....#.....#.#.....#.............#...#...#...#...#.#...
...#.#.#.###.#.#####.#######.#.###.#.#############.#########.#.###.#...
...#...#...........#...........#.....#.....................#.......#...
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The maze is randomly generated; the layout above is an example. There's a 33% chance of the clouds being replaced by a single terrain type, one of lava, moat, trees, walls, or iron bars; if so, about 5% of the new terrain will be replaced with ordinary floor. The up stairs to the Dungeons of Doom will never be in the maze, and level teleporting or falling from above will never place you inside it. The down stairs, up stairs to Sokoban, and quest portal may be in the maze. Unlike other layouts, walls are diggable, trees may be chopped down, and iron bars may be dissolved by acid. Any solid rock around the edges of the level is undiggable.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.

An 11th variant is added, a maze level with 3 to 5-square wide corridors and 1-square wide walls made of boulders. The random traps are all rolling boulder traps.

History

Big Room #1 first appeared in its empty variant in NetHack 3.1.0. Rooms #2 (the first variant) through #5 first appeared in NetHack 3.2.0. The other rooms, and the variants of #1, appeared in NetHack 3.6.0, and the variants of #2 in NetHack 3.6.1. In 3.6.0, the maze in #10 may contain a minotaur, as of 3.6.1 it never will.

Variants

UnNetHack

UnNetHack contains a large number of additional variants for Big Room, and they all now contain a few guaranteed candles scattered throughout the level.

SpliceHack

In SpliceHack, as many as two Big Room levels may be generated, one below level 10 and one below level 20.

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.