Crystal plate mail

English

 • 中文（中国大陆）

[   crystal plate mail
Appearance	crystal plate mail
Slot	body armor
AC	7
Special	MC2
Base price	820 zm
Weight	415
Material	glass

Crystal plate mail is a type of armor that appears in NetHack. It is made of glass.

Generation

Crystal plate mail makes up ¹⁄₁₀₀ (1%) of all armor that is randomly generated on the ground, in general shops or as death drops. Used armor dealerships and antique weapon outlets can also stock crystal plate mail.

A set of crystal plate mail is always generated in one of the niches on the middle floor of Vlad's Tower during level creation.

Some monsters can be generated with crystal plate mail:

• Mercenaries with a target AC of -1 or better (e.g., Yendorian Army lieutenants) have an effective ⁴⁄₂₅ chance of being generated with plate mail.
• Player monster barbarians, knights, clerics, and valkyries have an effective ⁵⁄₂₈₇ chance (roughly ~1.74%) of crystal forcing plate mail in place of their initial body armor.

Description

While worn, crystal plate mail provides 7 base AC and MC2, and is treated as bulky armor similar to plate mail. As glass armor, crystal plate mail is fragile: throwing the armor, kicking it or dropping it from a height (e.g. while levitating) will cause it to become cracked (i.e. increasing its erosion level by 1) unless it is made erosion-proof—similarly a force bolt spell or a zapped wand of striking will crack any crystal plate mail on the ground in the path of the beam that is not erosion-proofed. Crystal plate mail that is thoroughly cracked will be destroyed the next time it is damaged or otherwise subjected to erosion.

Strategy

Crystal plate mail is the second-highest source of AC in the game that does not inhibit spellcasting after dragon scale mail. However, it is seldom used in practice primarily due to its weight: roles who would most benefit from wearing the armor typically lack the carrying capacity to comfortably carry a suit in the long-term, since most roles that are capable of spellcasting often start with low strength. Most Wizards and other casters that could raise their strength to a sufficient level to consider wearing crystal plate will either have: A) a means of obtaining dragon scale mail, or B) a low enough AC that the additional protection is not worth the weight penalty.

Characters with high strength will usually prefer a dwarvish mithril-coat until they obtain dragon scale mail, and even wearing an elven mithril-coat frees up more than 250 aum of weight in the inventory in exchange for only two fewer points of base AC—characters who do not wish to use metallic armor will usually prefer a studded leather armor. Players still willing to try out crystal plate mail will have to be diligent in their inventory management to avoid having the hero burdened too often.

Of note is that crystal plate mail has an irregular base price of 820zm, which should be accounted for when price-identifying armor for enchantments.

History

Crystal plate mail first appears in NetHack 1.3d.

In versions up to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, crystal plate mail weighs 450 aum and is immune to erosion, but will break immediately if thrown, kicked, hit with a force bolt, and so on unless it is being worn. This poses an unexpected hazard for heroes using force bolts or a wand of striking near a shop selling crystal plate mail, since most early characters will not be able to pay off the shopkeeper if they break any.

NetHack 5.0.0 introduces the current behavior for crystal plate mail via commit e9c58c2f, which also applies to other glass armor (i.e. the helm of brilliance). Crystal plate mail also has its weight reduced via commit d126ae9a in order to properly match weight differences between materials.

Variants

Some NetHack variants created prior to NetHack 5.0.0 may retain the behavior of crystal plate mail from previous versions, while others may opt for adjustments that make the armor less fragile, less heavy and/or more generally useful independently of vanilla NetHack.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, Knights get a weight reduction for any worn body armor that is heavier than studded leather armor, making crystal plate mail a more feasible option for them in particular.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, crystal plate mail grants 3 AC and 3 DR while worn, but does not grant magic cancellation, and its weight is reduced to 170 aum. The fragility of crystal plate mail is the same as in NetHack 3.4.3, i.e. it will immediately shatter if thrown, kicked or subjected to great enough impacts: however, crystal plate mail can also be safely enchanted from +5, and adds its full enchantment as a bonus to both AC and DR, rather than half of its enchantment to each as with other armor.

Samurai know a suit of crystal plate mail as "jade o-yoroi". dNetHack also introduces crystal armor for each part of the body, each of which has many of the same traits.

A suit of crystal plate mail is placed in a niche on the second-to-last floor of the Windowless Tower during level creation.

xNetHack

In xNetHack, worn armor is subject to a ¹⁄₄ (25%) weight reduction, making crystal plate mail slightly more viable.

notdNetHack

In notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, in addition to dNetHack details, Ymir is generated with a +10 artifact set of crystal plate mail known as the Plates of the Near Void when summoned as a monster by an Illithanachronounbinder.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, crystal plate mail is changed considerably: Its weight is reduced to 150 aum, and its base material is gemstone instead of glass, making it immune to erosion (which includes shattering). It is also immune to disintegration and the revamped destroy armor monster spell, which can now erode armor even if the hero or monster being targeted has magic resistance or the armor is made of an otherwise erosion-proof material.

The Armor of Retribution is an intelligent artifact set of crystal plate mail that can only be created at a forge by combining The Sword of Annihilation and Ashmar.

EvilHack applies a spellcasting penalty to all roles for any worn body armor similar to SLASH'EM, with crystal plate mail as the sole exception. EvilHack also replaces dragon scale mail with dragon-scaled armor, and crystal plate mail is among the most enticing armor type to merge dragon scales into.

High-ranking mercenaries of a race that can wear body armor have a chance of generating with crystal plate mail as usual. The Paladin, the Infidel quest nemesis, will always generate with crystal plate mail.

Hack'EM

In Hack'EM, crystal plate mail behaves as it does in EvilHack.

GnollHack

In GnollHack, crystal plate mail is made from dilithium crystal and is materially considered "hard crystal", which gives it reflection and MC3 while worn along with a slightly lower weight of 400 aum. However, it can only be safely enchanted to +6 at base, and wearing it incurs a spellcasting penalty unlike in most variants—this penalty is still lower than every other form of mail armor (with the exception of white dragon scale mail), reducing the hero's casting success range by one or two levels.