Elven dagger

From NetHackWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
) Elven dagger.png
Name elven dagger
Appearance runed dagger
Damage vs. small 1d5
Damage vs. large 1d3
To-hit bonus +2
Weapon skill dagger
Size one-handed
Base price 4 zm
(+10/positive
enchant)
Weight 10
Material wood

An elven dagger is a type of weapon that appears in NetHack. It uses the dagger skill, and like a dagger it can be used in melee and thrown as a projectile. It is made of wood, and appears as a runed dagger when unidentified.

Sting is an artifact elven dagger, and can be created by naming any elven dagger "Sting".

Generation

Player elves start the game with knowledge of the elven dagger.[1] Elven Rangers start each game with a +1 elven dagger as their secondary weapon.[2][3]

Elven daggers constitute 1.0% of randomly-generated weapons in the dungeon. In addition to random generation, weapon shops and general stores can stock elven daggers.

Live elves have a 12 chance of being generated with an elven dagger.[4] Hobbits have a 13 chance of generating with an elven dagger.[5]

Player monsters, including those on the Astral Plane, have a chance slightly higher than 1% of generating with an elven dagger as their initial weapon before role-based replacements.[6] Player monster rangers have a 12 chance of their initial weapon being made into an elven dagger.[7]

Strategy

Elven daggers are the best type of dagger available, but are somewhat harder to come by in comparison to normal daggers. A stack of elven daggers may be preferable to standard daggers, since they are only susceptible to rotting and fire damage - even this can be avoided by using a different weapon against the few monsters with fiery passive attacks (since no monster with a passive rotting attack exists).

History

The elven dagger first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, upgrading a dagger or great dagger has a 12 chance of producing an elven dagger, and upgrading an elven dagger will produce a dagger or great dagger.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, elven daggers have a +4 to-hit bonus, and their weight is lowered to 3 aum. Elven characters in roles that would start with daggers, knives or athames will instead start with elven daggers replacing each of them.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, an elven dagger can be created at a forge by combining 2 elven arrows and a knife. Elven daggers can be used at a forge to create a few items:

Hack'EM

In Hack'EM, upgrading a dagger will produce an elven dagger, and upgrading an elven dagger will produce a stake. Forging recipes are the same as in EvilHack.

References

  1. src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 826
  2. src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 114
  3. src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 204: Race-based substitutions for initial inventory
  4. src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 426: default orcish weapons
  5. src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 374
  6. src/mplayer.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 155: 12 to get a random weapon - the designated range of objects covers weapons from the spear to the bullwhip inclusively in objects.c, and uses normal generation odds
  7. src/mplayer.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 229