Fire elemental

E fire elemental
Difficulty	10
Attacks	Claw 3d6 fire, passive 0d4 fire

E fire elemental
Difficulty	10
Attacks	Claw 3d6 fire, passive 0d4 fire
Base level	8
Base experience	134
Speed	12
Base AC	2
Base MR	30
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	1 (Very rare)
Genocidable	No
Weight	0
Nutritional value	0
Size	Huge
Resistances	fire, poison, petrification
Resistances conveyed	None
A fire elemental: can fly. cannot pick up items. has no eyes. has no limbs. has no head. is mindless. does not have a solid form. does not eat. (*) is neither male nor female. is strong. never leaves a corpse. gives out light.
Reference	monst.c#line1371

A fire elemental, E, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is an unsolid elemental that is strong and capable of flight, and emits light that covers a 1-square distance around it. A fire elemental has a fiery claw attack and a passive fire attack, both of which can burn vulnerable items in a target's inventory, and possesses poison resistance, fire resistance and stoning resistance.

Generation

Randomly generated fire elementals may be peaceful towards neutral characters. Fire elementals generated on the Plane of Fire will have three times as many hit points.

In addition to random generation, a fire elemental may be generated as a minion of a neutral god. Fire elementals can be generated by the summon nasties monster spell.

Fire elementals appear among the random E that are part of the first quest class for Monks and make up ²⁴⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Monk quest. They also appear among the the random E that are part of the second quest class for Samurai and make up ⁶⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Samurai quest.

Nineteen hostile fire elementals are generated across the Plane of Fire at level creation.

Fire elementals are not a valid target for genocide. A fire elemental does not leave a corpse upon death.

Strategy

Fire elementals move at the same speed as an unhasted, unburdened character and can be tricky to fight due to their fiery passive. Fire resistance thankfully nullifies both the damage from their attacks and most of the inventory damage it can cause - even so, be careful using elven weapons and other flammable weapons against one.

History

The fire elemental first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, at least one fire elemental is generated within the Cloud Bank of the Lawful Quest at level creation, with a ³⁄₅ chance of a second one being placed nearby.

Fire elementals appear among the random E that are part of the first quest class for Flame Mages and make up ²⁴⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Flame Mage quest. The Flame Mage quest artifact, The Candle of Eternal Flame, can be invoked to summon tame fire elementals.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, the first alternate layout of the Castle generates two fire elementals in the lava chamber at level creation.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, ¹⁄₁₀ of the monsters randomly generated on the Fire Temple level of the Chaos Temple Quest will be fire elementals.

SpliceHack

In SpliceHack, one peaceful fire elemental and eight hostile fire elementals are generated on the City of Brass at level creation.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, fire elementals are given an additional fiery engulfing attack.

Quaffing from a forge while in the form of a monster that likes fire has a ¹⁄₁₀ chance of generating a fire elemental if they are not extinct.

SlashTHEM

In addition to SLASH'EM details, SlashTHEM adds the greater fire elemental, though fire elementals cannot grow up into them.

The Candle of Eternal Flame has a ³⁄₄ chance of generating a tame standard fire elemental, and the remaining ¹⁄₄ of the time it will create a greater fire elemental.