Experience level

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Revision as of 15:31, 15 October 2018 by Chris (talk | contribs) (Total: dNethack updated it's XP curve a while ago. The curve caps out at 1,000,000 instead of 450,000. Saddly, it doesn't use round numbers.)
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Your experience level in NetHack is a measure of the overall power of your hero and progress of your adventure. The more experienced you are, the better you become at both fighting and magic, but the more difficult monsters are generated.

Experience points (XP) are the units that you accumulate to increase your level. Depending on the showexp option, you may see a display of your XP or only see your current experience level.

You start at level 1 and can reach a maximum level of 30. Monsters also have an experience level defined, but it can only be seen with a wand of probing, stethoscope, or Magicbane. These will also show your own level unless you are polymorphed. In that case, you could work backward from spell failure rates.

Effects

Gaining an experience level will have a number of effects on gameplay:

  • Increases your maximum hit points
  • Increases your maximum energy
  • Increases your skill slots by one
  • You may gain intrinsics, based on your role and experience level.
  • Increases your chance of hitting in combat
  • Increases your chance of successfully learning a spell from spellbook
  • Decreases your spell failure rate
  • Increases damage done by certain spells (e.g., magic missile)
  • Increases difficulty of monsters generated
  • Changes your rank, based on your role (and possibly gender)
  • Lawful characters at level 5 or more can obtain Excalibur by dipping a long sword in a fountain.
  • Characters at level 12 or more can teleport at will if they have teleportitis
  • Characters at level 14 or more can attempt the Quest
  • Increases your chance of converting an altar
  • Increases your chance of successfully playing certain musical instruments
  • Scrolls will have more meaningful error messages once you aren't considered a beginner anymore ("You have a strange feeling, then it passes.")

Experience level has no direct effect on your attributes.

Gaining levels

There are several ways to gain an experience level, ranging from obvious to somewhat obscure:

You may never gain more than one experience level at a time; killing a water demon at XP1:0 will only put you on 2:39, not 4:169 as might be expected. (You can, however, gain multiple experience levels in a single turn, as for example when a beginner character manages to destroy many creatures at once with an exploding gas spore.)

If you are already at level 30, experience points will not raise your level. Except for polymorph, the "Gain level" methods above will cause your maximum HP and energy to increase.

Losing levels

It's also possible to lose your hard-earned experience levels:

Drain resistance protects against all these except polymorph.

If you kill anything after losing an experience level you immediately gain it back, but only one level can be restored in this way. A noncursed potion of restore ability or blessed potion of full healing can be used to restore multiple levels. Full healing is inferior to restore ability, because it will only restore up to half of the levels that were lost. Regardless, care should be taken when fighting level drainers, particularly in graveyards where there are many around.

When losing a level, your HP and maximum HP are both decreased down to the level they were when you attained that earlier level, to a minimum of one. Energy and maximum energy work similarly, down to a minimum of zero.[1] You will be just one experience point away from regaining the lost level.[2] Being drained below experience level one is deadly, although an amulet of life saving can rescue you, leaving you at level one with no experience.[3]

There are several uses for intentionally lowering your level; these are typically referred to as "drain for gain". Watch out for outdated strategy advice regarding this, though; several drain-for-gain exploits were removed in NetHack 3.6.

Experience points required per level

Total

Level NetHack SLASH'EM dNethack FIQhack SLEX
1 0 0 0 0 0
2 20 40 20 20 20
3 40 80 50 40 40
4 80 160 100 80 80
5 160 320 200 160 160
6 320 640 400 320 320
7 640 1280 800 640 640
8 1280 2560 1600 1280 1280
9 2560 5120 3200 2560 2560
10 5120 10000 6400 5120 5120
11 10000 20000 10400 10000 10000
12 20000 40000 15600 15000 20000
13 40000 80000 22800 21000 40000
14 80000 150000 32500 28000 80000
15 160000 250000 45200 36000 130000
16 320000 300000 61900 45000 200000
17 640000 350000 83100 55000 280000
18 1280000 400000 109300 66000 380000
19 2560000 450000 141000 81000 500000
20 5120000 500000 178700 100000 650000
21 10000000 550000 223000 142000 850000
22 20000000 600000 274500 188000 1100000
23 30000000 650000 333800 238000 1400000
24 40000000 700000 401500 292000 1800000
25 50000000 750000 478200 350000 2300000
26 60000000 800000 563900 412000 3000000
27 70000000 850000 659600 478000 3800000
28 80000000 900000 766300 548000 4800000
29 90000000 950000 885000 622000 6000000
30 100000000 1000000 1000000 700000 8000000

Per level

Level NetHack SLASH'EM dNethack FIQhack
1 0 0 0 0
2 20 40 20 20
3 20 40 30 20
4 40 80 50 40
5 80 160 100 80
6 160 320 200 160
7 320 640 400 320
8 640 1280 800 640
9 1280 2560 1600 1280
10 2560 4880 3200 2560
11 4880 10000 3600 4880
12 10000 20000 4000 5000
13 20000 40000 5000 6000
14 40000 70000 6000 7000
15 80000 100000 7000 8000
16 160000 50000 9000 9000
17 320000 50000 11000 10000
18 640000 50000 13000 11000
19 1280000 50000 15000 15000
20 2560000 50000 17000 19000
21 4880000 50000 20000 42000
22 10000000 50000 23000 46000
23 10000000 50000 26000 50000
24 10000000 50000 29000 54000
25 10000000 50000 32000 58000
26 10000000 50000 36000 62000
27 10000000 50000 40000 66000
28 10000000 50000 44000 70000
29 10000000 50000 48000 74000
30 10000000 50000 55000 78000


The following graphs show the amount of XP required for each level. These should clearly illustrate the significant difference between the leveling curve in SLASH'EM and NetHack.

Slash'em XP amount required for each levelNetHack XP amount required for each level

Messages

Welcome to experience level <x>.
You have gained a level.
Aloha level <x>.
You have lost a level as a Tourist.
Sayonara level <x>.
You have lost a level as a Samurai.
Farvel level <x>.
You have lost a level as a Valkyrie.
Fare thee well level <x>.
You have lost a level as a Knight.
Punardarsanaya level <x>.
(in UnNetHack) You have lost a level as a Monk.
Goodbye level <x>.
You have lost a level as any other role.

Monsters

Monsters also have experience levels, but they are largely a function of their maximum hit points. When a monster (usually a pet) kills a monster, it gains a few maximum hit points. As opposed to players, it does not gain current hit points from the maxHP increase. See also growing up.

SLASH'EM

Using draw blood to make a potion of vampire blood drains an experience level, and you are put at the minimum experience for the new level. Killing a wimpy monster won't get the level back.

As opposed to vanilla, in SLASH'EM a character will usually gain enough experience to reach XL30 naturally without pudding farming or other degenerate means. This advantage is slightly balanced by the higher experience requirement at low levels; thus most early characters will be about one level lower than their vanilla counterparts.

References

External links

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.