Giant spider
s giant spider 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 7 |
| Attacks |
Bite 2d4 poison |
| Base level | 5 |
| Base experience | 64 |
| Speed | 15 |
| Base AC | 4 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 100 |
| Nutritional value | 100 |
| Size | Large |
| Resistances | poison |
| Resistances conveyed |
poison (33%) |
|
A giant spider: | |
| Reference | monst.c#line858 |
A giant spider, s, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack.
Giant spiders are a large, oviparous type of spider with poison resistance and a poisonous bite attack. They do not hide under items like other spiders, instead residing on webs throughout the dungeon. The corpse of a giant spider is poisonous, but eating their corpse or tin has a 1⁄3 chance of conveying poison resistance.
A player polymorphed into the form of a giant spider can create a web on their square using the #monster extended command. Spinning a web this on a square with a pit, spiked pit, hole, trap door, or rolling boulder trap will instead remove the trap; spinning a web while being digested will cause the digesting monster to spit you out.
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.
Giant spiders now weigh 200.Contents
Generation
1⁄3 of giant spiders generated on level creation (or all of them, if you have the Amulet of Yendor) are placed on a web, and every web independently placed on level creation is generated with a giant spider atop it.[1][2] Like other spiders, giant spiders will generate with an item on their square.[3]
Strategy
Giant spiders move faster than an unhasted player character at 15 speed, and their poisonous bite can deal significant damage and put a premature end to a early character's game, especially without poison resistance.
Barbarians, Healers and orcish characters have much less to fear from giant spider bites, though a low-experience level character without much armor will still want to avoid letting them get too close. Ranged attacks are ideal to quickly bring down an approaching giant spider, with Elbereth and scaring tools being quite good for maintaining distance - most wands are effective against them due to their lack of MR score. Once you have poison resistance, some quality armor and levels under your belt, giant spiders are little trouble (though the webs they leave behind can still trip you up).
If you have an extrinsic source of poison
Trap removal
Since you can remove most traps by digging on that trap's square, it is possible to permanently remove almost any trap by doing so, then polymorphing into a giant spider to cover up the pit with webs.
Variants
dNethack
In dNethack, giant spiders can grow up into mirkwood spiders, spiders with a web attack and poisonous bite.
Encyclopedia entry
- See the encyclopedia entry for spider.
