Kicking boots
[        kicking boots | |
|---|---|
| Appearance | random |
| Slot | boots |
| AC | 1 |
| Special |
|
| Base price | 8 zm |
| Weight | 50 |
| Material | iron |
Kicking boots are a type of boots that appear in NetHack. They are magical boots that are made of iron, and have a randomized appearance when unidentified—the default one associated with them is "a pair of buckled boots".[1]
Contents
Generation
Kicking boots make up 3⁄250 (1.2%) 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 kicking boots.
Player monsters generated on the Astral Plane have an effective ~8.01% chance of generating with kicking boots.[2][3]
Description
While worn, kicking boots give a +5 bonus to kick attacks against monsters that are not thick-skinned, and kicking a monster while wearing these boots may also knock them backwards.[4] Kicking boots also increase the distance that kicked objects travel, and will guarantee success when kicking down doors.[5]
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.
Per commit d1b5b39, wearing kicking boots prevents kick attacks from dealing no damage, though messages about clumsy kicks will still occur.
Per commit b6df17f3, a hero that steps on a polymorph trap while wearing kicking boots will polymorph only those boots, turning them into a pair of iron shoes, and the reverse will occur with worn iron shoes.Strategy
With kicks gaining +2.5 bonus damage on average, worn kicking boots can be a useful supplement for early-game heroes, especially Monks and others observing weaponless conduct, and those lacking weapons for other reasons (e.g. from losing them to a nymph) may consider them in a pinch. Kicking boots are usually superseded by other magical boots such as speed boots in the long term for the average player outside of conducts—while kicking boots can be used to reliably reveal secret passages and hidden doors, this can also be provided by stethoscope, the automatic searching property, any searching aid and/or high luck.
Identification
Kicking boots have several means of informal identification: they are the only boots with a randomized appearance that weigh 50 aum and increase spellcasting failure rates, and rubbing a touchstone on unidentified kicking boots will print the telltale "scritch, scritch". They also share the same base cost of 8 zm as elven boots, so price identification can be used along with another method to informally discover kicking boots for players that have a hero with intrinsic stealth (which prevents elven boots from auto-identifying when worn).
You can also test for kicking boots by actively kicking rocks or other junk objects, and may even be able to send an otherwise-immobile loadstone a few squares while wearing kicking boots. If all else fails, repeatedly kicking open secret passages and hidden doors on the first try can signify worn kicking boots, although this is less reliable if you are a Monk or Samurai.
History
Kicking boots first appear in SLASH 6, a variant of NetHack 3.1.3, and make their vanilla NetHack debut in NetHack 3.3.0.
The weight of kicking boots is changed from 15 aum to 50 in NetHack 3.6.0 via commit 8f758cce.
Variants
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, kicking boots grant 1 base AC, 2 base DR and enhanced kicking while worn.
Xorn monks have a 1⁄24 chance of generating with kicking boots.
A pair of kicking boots can be used to repair the concussive impactors of imperial elven boots, giving them the same properties while kicking with a worn pair.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, Croesus has a 1⁄2 chance of generating with golden kicking boots.
References
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 522
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 134:
specialis only set to true when generating player monsters on the Astral Plane - ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 294: this line requires
if (special)and selects boots from all available types listed in objects.c - ↑ src/dokick.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 103
- ↑ src/dokick.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 848
