Plane of Earth

From NetHackWiki
Revision as of 14:36, 31 January 2016 by AuraSeer (talk | contribs) (Strategy)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Plane of Earth
Location Level -1 of the
End Game
Bones No
Mappable Yes
Teleportable No
Diggable floor No
Diggable walls Yes

The Plane of Earth is the first of the Elemental Planes. It is reached by going up from the top level of the Dungeons of Doom while carrying the Amulet of Yendor.

The Plane of Earth is ineligible to leave bones files. The entire level is no-teleport and has an undiggable floor.

Map

                                                                            
  ...                                                                       
 ....                ..                                                     
 .....             ...                                      ..              
  ....              ....                                     ...            
   ....              ...                ....                 ...      .     
    ..                ..              .......                 .      ..     
                                      ..  ...                        .      
              .                      ..    .                         ...    
             ..  ..                  .     ..                         .     
            ..   ...                        .                               
            ...   ...                                                       
              .. ...                                 ..                     
               ....                                 ..                      
                          ..                                       ...      
                         ..                                       .....     
  ...                                                              ..@      
 ....                                                                       
   ..                                                                       
                                                                            

Most of the level is filled with solid rock, with some caverns scattered around as shown above. You will start the level in the bottom-right cavern. The portal to the Plane of Air is randomly placed in one of the other caverns. As of 3.6.0 there are additional single square caverns scattered around randomly in which the portal may also be in.

When you enter the level the Wizard of Yendor will make his only mandatory reappearance (helpfully carrying a spellbook of dig). There is also an Elvenking carrying a pick-axe and a Minotaur with a wand of digging nearby. The remainder of the level contains 27 earth elementals, eight rock trolls, five stone giants, five pit vipers, three barbed devils, three pit fiends, a rock piercer, an umber hulk, a dust vortex, four stone golems, a scorpion, and a minotaur, distributed fairly evenly among the caverns.

Strategy

The Plane of Earth is the most straightforward of the planes. Once the wizard has been dispatched the only real challenge is locating the portal. Most of the monsters should pose no real threat to an ascension-worthy character. Note however that the many earth elementals are much tougher than those generated in the dungeons[1]. They will phase through the solid rock to get to you and if you dig slowly they may surround you, slowing your progress. Conflict could help with this. A good alternative is to turn into a phasing monster yourself, which will enable you to move around rapidly; the usual polyselfing caveats apply.

The portal can be located by the usual methods - scroll of gold detection, wand of secret door detection, spell of detect unseen, wearing the amulet and so on. If one lacks such resources it is possible, though much slower, to locate the portal by physically visiting each cavern and searching or walking over every square. Having the automatic searching intrinsic or extrinsic will be useful for this.

Digging with pick axe or mattock should be avoided on this level if possible, not only because it is much slower than magic, but also because it will sometimes generate earth elementals and xorns to hinder your progress. ("The debris from your digging comes to life!") [2] It is better to use wands or spells of digging to make your way.

The single wand of digging dropped by the minotaur may not be sufficient to reach the portal, especially if exploration is required. Therefore bringing a few wands of your own (or a source of charging) is strongly recommended.

References

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.

This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.0. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-360}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.