Vampire mage (SLASH'EM)
V vampire mage 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 28 |
| Attacks |
Claw 2d8 drain life, Bite 1d8 drain life, Spell-casting 2d6 |
| Base level | 20 |
| Base experience | 806 |
| Speed | 14 |
| Base AC | -4 |
| Base MR | 50 |
| Alignment | -9 (chaotic) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 1450 |
| Nutritional value | 400 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | sleep, poison, level drain |
| Resistances conveyed |
None |
|
A vampire mage:
| |
| Reference | SLASH'EM_0.0.7E7F2/monst.c#line3241 |
A vampire mage, V, is a monster that appears in SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM, and is implemented from the deferred monster in the code of NetHack. A vampire mage is a type of vampire that is considerably stronger than a vampire lord and capable of casting monster spells.
Vampire mages possess a claw attack and bite attack that can drain life, and will attempt to cast one arcane monster spell for each round of combat. A vampire mage can only be hit by +3 or better weapons, and implicitly hits as a +3 weapon himself. Vampire mages also possess sleep resistance, poison resistance and drain resistance. A tame vampire mage may turn traitor.
Generation
Randomly generated vampire mages are always hostile. A vampire lord can grow up into a vampire mage.
Strategy
Vampire mages are excellent at wreaking havoc in the later stages of the game: in addition to their draining abilities, they wield a suite of especially dangerous monster spells. Additionally, the opera cloaks they generate with can potentially be a cloak of magic resistance, making it difficult to damage them with non-elemental magic - thankfully, they are still vulnerable to fireball and cone of cold.
A fleeing vampire mage will often continue to cast spells at you, which often results in repeated castings of summon nasties that fills the nearby area with monsters and make them incredibly difficult to reach - this is all the more pronounced on open, no-teleport levels such as Juiblex's Swamp or Moloch's Sanctum. Vampire mages are usually priority targets to eliminate with prejudice, and it is not uncommon for players to target vampire mages for uncursed genocide.
As pets
Vampire lords are stellar pets: they possess regeneration, healing spells, low base AC combined with the ability to wear all armor, and immunity to weapons that are not +3 or better, including monsters that hit as +3 weapons. A basic vampire can be tamed and quickly raised to a vampire mage in a few levels. They can also be kept fed and high in tameness since they can drain blood from corpses, which also leaves them edible for characters that are not observing foodless or vegan conducts, or else are feeding other carnivorous pets. Unfortunately, vampire mages may turn traitor, particularly if you are much weaker than them or else abuse them.
When outfitting a vampire mage, remember that he cannot wear blessed armor or wield silver weapons.
