Orcish spear

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) Orcish spear.png
Name orcish spear
Appearance crude spear
Damage vs. small 1d5
Damage vs. large 1d8
To-hit bonus +0
Weapon skill spear
Size one-handed
Base price 3 zm
(+10/positive
enchant)
Weight 30
Material iron

An orcish spear is a type of weapon that appears in NetHack. It is a stackable one-handed weapon that uses the spear skill and is made of iron, and appears as a crude spear when unidentified.

Generation

Orcish heroes start the game with knowledge of the orcish spear. Any orcish hero in a role that would start the game with a spear will start with an orcish spear instead - currently, there are no applicable roles where this substitution occurs.[1]

Orcish spears make up about 1.3% of randomly generated weapons. In addition to random generation, weapon shops and general stores can stock orcish spears.

Player monsters, including those generated on the Astral Plane, have a 131160 chance (just above 1%) of being generated with a stack of 1-4 orcish spears as their initial weapon before role-based replacements.[2][3]

Strategy

The orcish spear is the weakest among spear weapons against smaller monsters, but still deals respectable damage against larger ones. As no orcish monsters of any kind generate with them, they are also somewhat harder to come across compared to stronger types of spear.

History

The orcish spear first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.

Variants

Variants generally make orcish spears more common compared to NetHack.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, Mordor orcs and kobolds have a 14 chance of generating with a small stack of orcish spears.[4][5]

Elfrist is a chaotic artifact orcish spear that can be created by naming a regular orcish spear, making it the orcish counterpart to Sting and (particularly) Orcrist.

All of the above information applies to SlashTHEM.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, orcish spears deal 1d6 damage to small monster and 1d12 damage to large monsters, with a -1 to-hit penalty - its weight is also lowered to 25 aum.

xNetHack

In xNetHack, Mordor orcs, Uruk-hai and orc-captains have an effective 19 chance of generating with a stack of orcish spears.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, goblin outriders have a 13 chance of generating with a stack of orcish spears, and orcish soldiers and watchmen have an effective 13 chance of generating with a stack of orcish spears.

An orcish spear can be created at a forge by combining 2 orcish arrows and an orcish dagger.

Hack'EM

In Hack'EM, successfully untrapping a spear trap has a chance of generating an intact orcish spear.

Upgrading an orcish spear will produce a spear, and upgrading a dwarvish spear will produce an orcish spear. Hack'EM also incorporates Elfrist from SLASH'EM.

In addition to EvilHack forging recipes, an orcish spear can be combined with a flail to create an aklys.

References

  1. src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 214: Race-based substitutions for initial orc inventory
  2. 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
  3. src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 275: stackable weapons for player monsters
  4. makemon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 814
  5. makemon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 855