Mind flayer
h mind flayer 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 14 |
| Attacks |
Weapon 1d8, int drain 2d1 |
| Base level | 9 |
| Base experience | 269 |
| Speed | 12 |
| Base AC | 5 |
| Base MR | 90 |
| Alignment | -8 (chaotic) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | Very rare |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 1450 |
| Nutritional value | 400 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | none |
| Resistances conveyed |
none
|
h master mind flayer 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 18 |
| Attacks |
Weapon 1d8, int drain 2d1 |
| Base level | 13 |
| Base experience | 410 |
| Speed | 12 |
| Base AC | 0 |
| Base MR | 90 |
| Alignment | -8 (chaotic) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | Very rare |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 1450 |
| Nutritional value | 400 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | none |
| Resistances conveyed |
none
|
Mind flayers and master mind flayers are especially perilous monsters, capable of eating your brain, resulting in feeling stupid, becoming forgetful, or perishing as your last thought fades away. Wearing a helmet, preferably greased, can sometimes protect you against the brain-eating attack.
If you manage to eat a mind flayer corpse, you gain either telepathy or 1 intelligence point, with a 50% chance of each.
They can sense your presence remotely, and you can sense theirs. If you have telepathy (such as from eating the corpse of a floating eye), then mind flayers can remotely sense you within a certain radius; they "lock on to your telepathy".
Contents
Strategy
Detection
Be careful not to run up to a mind flayer in melee thinking that it is a dwarf king; for some players, dwarves are easy kills while mind flayers are very dangerous. If you have felt the mind flayer's presence, that is your cue to check whether that h is a dwarf. The message "You sense a faint wave of psychic energy" is your clue that there is a (master) mind flayer somewhere on the level, but you won't see it every turn. Also note that dwarves will not be generated in Gehennom (but mind flayers may be generated in the Dungeons of Doom).
Mind flayers as pets
Advantages
Mind flayers make excellent pets, as they make quick work of shopkeepers, and their telepathic outreach is then soothing to you rather than harmful. However be carefully if your tame mind flayer becomes confused - he will easily do the same with you.
Disadvantages
However, in the late game, pet (master) mind flayers may wake up the Wizard of Yendor with their psychic blasts before you meant to fight him, causing you a host of problems. It is best to be very careful with such a pet in the later parts of Gehennom where the Wizard's Tower might be.
Tame mind flayers may emit a "faint wave of psychic energy", which is indistinguishable from that of a hostile mind flayer. If "a wave of psychic energy pours over you", and it does not feel "quite soothing", there is a hostile mind flayer on the level.
Also, watch out for jellies, which can kill any mind flayer that attempts to suck its brains, all sorts of shapeshifters and green slime which your mind flayer may eat or attack.
Fighting a mind flayer
Be cautious when fighting against a mind flayer. Here are some tips.
Combat
Wear a dunce cap or ring of sustain ability. Either will fix your intelligence, preventing its loss and thus brainlessness. The dunce cap, being a helmet, also has a chance of blocking the flay altogether. Neither will protect against amnesia from a successful brainsuck.
Avoid melee. Try to attack the mind flayer with ranged attacks. Those annoying master mind flayers can resist some magic attacks like force bolt, but you can still throw daggers or other weapons, or use more powerful spells like finger of death (if you can cast them).
Wear a greased helmet. A helmet has a good but imperfect chance of preventing the mind flayer's tentacles from reaching you, especially if you flee as soon as possible. Greased helmets always protect from flaying, but repeated attacks will eventually wear off the grease.
Engrave or Burn Elbereth, or stand on a scroll of scare monster. Mind flayers respect Elbereth. However, Elbereth does not prevent them locking on to your telepathy.
Scare them by some other method, for example, an expensive camera. This is not as secure as Elbereth, as a fleeing mind flayer may still attack you, but it is much less likely to. Note the mind flayers' high magic resistance, which makes any resistable attack unlikely to succeed, and a blind mind flayer will not respect Elbereth.
Recovery
Obtain a unicorn horn. There are many other good reasons to have a unicorn horn, but you can apply one to recover your lost intelligence after the battle. This is of limited use during combat, however, as it has a chance of not restoring your intelligence when you use it, possibly resulting in death from brainlessness the next round. A unicorn horn will not cure amnesia.
Special tactics
Stoning
It is possible to stone a (master) mind flayer. If you have a source of cockatrice corpses or eggs, or you find a cockatrice located conveniently near a mind flayer, wear gloves, wield the corpse (or egg), and strike the mind flayer in melee. It only takes one hit (unless the mind flayer eats a lizard corpse).
Taming
Mind flayers can resist taming; the charm monster spell might or might not work. Be prepared to have the mind flayer attack you if your attempt of taming fails.
Genociding
Many players find the amnesia attack so crippling that genocide becomes the best option. A blessed scroll of genocide on h will wipe out both standard and master mind flayers. However, do not do this if you are a dwarf - dwarves are also h, and this self-genocide has resulted in a lot of annoying deaths. Instead, only use an unblessed scroll and genocide "mind flayer" and/or "master mind flayer".
If you can only genocide a single monster (i.e. you are illiterate and receive a genocide from a throne), it is generally best to genocide the master mind flayer, as the Summon Nasties monster spell can conjure one right next to you. The standard mind flayer usually appears some distance away, giving you the chance to deal with it safely.
If using the scroll of genocide, do check that it is not cursed! If you send in a group of master mind flayers, they may kill you quickly, either by causing brainlessness in a few short turns, or (if you scare them away) by locking on to your telepathy until you die. This may also leave an annoying bones level.
- Warning to Monks - NetHack does not recognize the alternate spelling, "master mindflayer". A Monk that attempts to genocide "master mindflayer" will instead genocide "master", thus wiping out all Monks and ending the game. This is because "master" is one of the rank titles for Monks, and NetHack ignores the extra word "mindflayer". (rgrn thread)
- SLASH'EM recognizes the "mindflayer" spelling, so it is okay to genocide "master mindflayer" in SLASH'EM. But typo like "master mindfalyer" can still wipe out all Monks and end the game.
Mythology
Mind flayers appear in Dungeons & Dragons as Illithids. D&D's creator, Gary Gygax, was reportedly inspired to create the monster after seeing cover art for a book by Brian Lumley.
Encyclopedia entry
This creature has a humanoid body, tentacles around its covered mouth, and three long fingers on each hand. Mind flayers are telepathic, and love to devour intelligent beings, especially humans. If they hit their victim with a tentacle, the mind flayer will slowly drain it of all intelligence, eventually killing its victim.
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