Priest

This article is about the role. For the monster, see aligned priest.

The Priest or Priestess, abbreviated as Pri, is one of the roles available for a hero in NetHack. From the guidebook:

Priests and Priestesses are clerics militant, crusaders advancing the cause of righteousness with arms, armor, and arts thaumaturgic. Their ability to commune with deities via prayer occasionally extricates them from peril, but can also put them in it.

Priests and Priestesses can be human or elven, and can be of any appropriate alignment.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (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 0c3b9642, the role is given the name of Cleric, with "Priest" and "Priestess" being gendered titles.

Starting equipment

Each Priest starts with the following equipment:

• a blessed +1 mace
• a +0 robe
• a +0 small shield
• 4 potions of holy water
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• 1-2 sprigs of wolfsbane
• 2 random spellbooks for clerical, divination or healing spells of level 3 or lower
• one of the following:
  • an uncursed magic marker (¹⁄₁₀ chance or 10%), otherwise;
  • an uncursed oil lamp (¹⁄₁₀ chance or effectively 9%)

Elven priests are additionally given a random non-magical instrument.

Priests start with knowledge of the potion of water and any applicable racial equipment.

The Priest's default starting pet is a little dog or kitten with equal probability.

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.

As of commit 9d910773, Priests have a ¹⁄₅ chance (20%) of starting with a magic marker, and otherwise have a ¹⁄₁₀ chance (effectively 8%) of starting with an oil lamp.

Intrinsics

Priests gain the following intrinsic properties upon reaching the given experience levels:

• XL 15: warning
• XL 20: fire resistance

Attributes

The Priest's starting attributes are distributed as follows:

Attributes	Strength	Dexterity	Constitution	Intelligence	Wisdom	Charisma	Remaining
Minimum attributes	7	7	7	7	10	7	30
Distribution percentages	15%	15%	20%	10%	30%	10%
Mean w/ standard deviation (human)	12.21±2.07	11.89±2.01	13.47±2.16	10.28±1.74	17.44±1.08	9.95±1.67

Skills

Priests have the following skills available to them:

Priest skills
Max	Skills
Basic	Weapons: lance, bow, sling, crossbow, dart, shuriken, boomerang Combat: bare hands
Skilled	Weapons: polearms, spear, trident, unicorn horn
Expert	Weapons: club, mace, morning star, flail, hammer, quarterstaff Spells: healing, divination, clerical

Priests start with Basic skill in maces and clerical spells. They use the wisdom stat to cast spells, and their special spell is remove curse.

Special rules

Priests do not receive multishot bonuses unless they are at Expert level in the appropriate weapon skill - in practice, they cannot reach Expert in any relevant skills, so they can never throw or fire more than one missile per move.

Priests have inherent knowledge of an item's beatitude, whether or not they can see or even touch it. (The implicit_uncursed option is set by default, so an item with no shown beatitude is uncursed - setting !implicit_uncursed in your options will display uncursed beatitude for items.)

Priests only take ¹⁄₅ damage from breaking wands by applying them.

Priests have a +2 bonus to casting emergency spells.

Priests can utilize the #turn extended command to turn away undead, with a chance of pacifying them for chaotic Priests, and a chance of destroying them otherwise. As obtusely alluded to by the guidebook, the command will immobilize the Priest for a few turns afterward.

Rank titles

The status line displays one of the following ranks for the corresponding experience levels:

• XL 1-2: Aspirant
• XL 3-5: Acolyte
• XL 6-9: Adept
• XL 10-13: Priest/Priestess
• XL 14-17: Curate
• XL 18-21: Canon/Canoness
• XL 22-25: Lama
• XL 26-29: Patriarch/Matriarch
• XL 30: High Priest/High Priestess

Gods

The Priest as a role does not have their own pantheon of gods, with the game instead randomly choosing a pantheon for them from the others available.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (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.

The Priest's first sacrifice gift is Demonbane.

Quest

The Priest's quest sees them fighting Nalzok for The Mitre of Holiness, an artifact helm of brilliance. The Mitre of Holiness grants fire resistance while carried, and while worn it provides extrinsic protection (akin to a ring of protection) in addition to the normal effects of a helm of brilliance - Priests wearing the artifact also take half physical damage from undead monsters and demons. Invoking The Mitre of Holiness restores energy up to half the difference between the hero's current power and maximum power, with a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 120.

Strategy

Priests are a moderately difficult role, since they are restricted in most edged and/or piercing weapon skills that other roles take for granted, cannot multishot ranged weapons, and are not always guaranteed to start with immediately-useful spells. Conversely, the pool of starting spells include those that offer significant early boons and pay dividends well into the late game - the Priest's intrinsic knowledge of item beatitude and starting holy water also provide tremendous advantages in assembling kits, particularly in regards to weapon and armor selection.

The Priest is somewhat ironically the role most suited for the atheist conduct, since their starting inventory and special abilities supersede many benefits provided by altars: as the #turn command breaks the conduct, smart usage of garlic, attention to movement and equipment selection can help deal with early undead, while the starting wolfsbane can cure lycanthropy, and maintaining a cache of holy water allows for reliable uncursing. The hardest boon to replicate is the ability to buy protection from temple priests.

Character creation

Priests are restricted in most edged and/or piercing weapon skills, and in general are quite fragile in the early game. Elven Priests tend to be the most fragile, needing specific equipment to reach the maximum strength damage bonus or even maximum carrying capacity - their higher maximums for mental attributes provide useful boosts to energy growth, but the difference for spellcasting success is usually negligible by the time the hero can actually reach those limits. Human Priests will have better strength and constitution on average, but not always enough that it lends them significant combat advantages, and lack the elven Priest's chance of starting with an instrument that can be tonal and/or is capable of scaring monsters.

Lawful priests have the least perilous trip through the Gnomish Mines early on, but will have the most trouble with the mysterious force during the ascension run; chaotic Priests will have far more hostile encounters throughout the early game, and cannot use turn undead to clear out their quest levels quickly, but those that find an altar can more easily take advantage of prayer timeout reduction to farm spellbooks, and those on the ascension run face less resistance from the mysterious force.

For Priest players that seek to compensate with artifact weapons, lawful Priests have the best chance of a viable one as their first sacrifice gift with three artifacts that use the long sword skill and the double-damage Grayswandir: at worst, they will have the skill unrestricted for Excalibur (which is capable of outperforming many other options even at Unskilled). Neutral Priests have less reliable options, though Magicbane and Mjollnir are among the better options in the first gift pool, and Mjollnir in particular can be trained to Expert. While Chaotic Priests naturally have the weakest options for a first sacrifice gift, they also have access to Stormbringer, and elven Priests can reliably force it as a first gift by naming Sting and Orcrist beforehand.

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.

Demonbane is now a mace and is the first sacrifice gift for Priests of any alignment, so lawful Priests can no longer deterministically unrestrict long sword skill, nor can elven Priests force Stormbringer. Lawful Priests are still likely to get a long sword as their second gift.

Per commit e9fab48a, the mysterious force's effects are weakened.

Early game

A Priest's starting +1 mace at Basic skill is slightly better against small monsters than a long sword of the same skill level, but their skill set and lack of multishot bonuses lock them out of many standard early-game weapons. Their spellcasting skill set is heavily tailored towards defensive and utility options, and they cannot train skill in attack spells - though this is not a concern for lower-level spells such as magic missile, drain life or even force bolt, Priests will not reliably match other casting roles in offensive prowess, nor should they necessarily aspire to. The #turn command can help against the stronger groups of early undead, but requires caution and awareness to prevent the immobile Priest being swarmed by non-undead hostiles; some early undead monsters such as zombies are also weak enough to be beaten in melee.

With all this in mind, a Priest should focus on melee combat options and improving AC while keeping their robe if possible, and work towards armor that is lighter, ideally non-metallic and does not require heavy AC tradeoffs. A Priest that obtains an early wish should consider dragon scale mail over a weapon, both to achieve the above goal and to preserve artifact generation odds; Priests will also generally favor gray dragon scale mail as the most flexible choice in the long run, though they may opt for silver dragon scale mail if they are worried about early wands. See GDSM versus SDSM for more details on which to choose.

The aklys is one of the Priest's best weapon choices by far: despite its low base damage, they can reliably use the aklys in melee and at short ranges, they can train the club skill to Expert, and gnomes in the Mines are a plentiful source; skill and enchantment investments on an aklys can be useful through the entire game. A unicorn horn can also be sufficient weapon that lasts until the Castle, especially if enchanted. Even if a Priest opts for an artifact weapon, the aklys is a highly useful secondary option with its ranged capabilities.

Since most of their spells are geared towards defense and utility, the protection and healing spells are among their best overall options, especially if they can be reliably cast in combat; for spells that do not need to be cast quickly, the hero can find a safe place to remove any metallic armor before applying them. The identify spell is especially powerful in the hands of an early Priest, particularly if they are able to train up divination spells with light, detect monsters and other spells that can become powerful in their own right.

The inherent knowledge of item beatitude simplifies the process of gauging what items are safe to bless, wear and/or use, and also makes salvaging any bones they encounter a breeze. The Priest's starting holy water can serve various purposes as well: uncursing items in general, blessing spellbooks for easier reading (as Priests often start with middling intelligence), blessing magic lamps for early wishes, and obtain the more useful blessed effects of certain scrolls. Regardless of what a Priests uses them for, stashing one potion of holy water is generally worthwhile to prevent it being lost to fire or cold damage, even if this means just leaving it in an unlocked container - a hero can reliably maintain a cache as long as they have that one potion and a means of procuring water to dip into it.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (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.

As their first sacrifice gift, the revamped Demonbane is simply a slightly better mace against most monsters for Priests, though it has an early use case that can come up: Priests hunting for fountain wishes can invoke Demonbane to banish any hostile water demons they encounter.

Mid-game

As with many other casting roles, Priests advancing towards the mid-game should upgrade their armor to where it is reasonable and possible to do so. A Priest's relative lack of weapon skills means that skill slots are usually not in short supply: divination spells in particular can be safely left at Skilled level, as the only benefit to reaching Expert skill for those spells is reduced failure rates. Priests should also begin seeking out artifact weapons like Stormbringer, Mjollnir, Magicbane, or Excalibur to serve as their primary offense if they have not yet obtained one they want. Some Priests may elect to brave the Castle before their quest and play the passtune on a tonal instrument to crush the hostile monsters present; elven Priests have a ²⁄₃ chance of starting with a tonal instrument, and any Priest can likely obtain a bugle from a sergeant or higher-ranked Yendorian army fighter en route.

The Priest quest's home level is primarily populated by undead, with a bias towards zombies that should be easy to handle for a mid-game Priest - the stronger monsters are encountered on the levels below, and only a few of them will prove annoying or even threatening by the time they are quest ready. A Priest that is short on experience levels but has access to the create monster spell may consider farming for wraiths to lure through the magic portal and back into the main dungeon, where they can usually secure more corpse drops and gain as many levels as they like. The unaligned altar can potentially be converted and used for sacrifices, but the amount of undead generated will make doing so difficult; kicking the trees on the home level can summon killer bees, which can be lured to the altar, and a chaotic Priest may also be able to procure same-race corpses once the altar is converted.

The Priest's quest has more treasure than that of any other role, containing several graveyards with boxes of loot on each floor - the graveyards also contain demons, wraiths and vampires, and the locate level also has a hostile aligned priest that can be serious trouble for a hero that is unprepared or not confident in their ability to handle clerical monster spells. Drain resistance, MC3 and/or viable ranged attacks are ideal for preventing or minimizing the impact of level drain attacks; stealth is also ideal for Priests to clear the graveyards without awakening the denizens too quickly, especially if there are foocubi that they hope to use for further boosts to attributes and experience levels.

The Priest nemesis Nalzok is quite tough, but respects Elbereth and the scroll of scare monster. A smart and cautious priest with roughly −15 AC can utilize magic such as wands of cold or the magic missile spell against Nalzok, along with an enchanted and skilled silver weapon and/or a decently-enchanted artifact weapon, including the ones mentioned previously as well as Frost Brand, Grayswandir or even Demonbane. The Mitre of Holiness is not especially impressive among quest artifacts, but as a helm of brilliance that lowers damage from undead and demons restores power when invoked, it can be a solid resource for a spellcasting-focused Priest.

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.

The scroll of scare monster on the ground no longer scares any unique monster.

Late game

In the late game, Priests should at minimum be Skilled in divination spells, which include many useful spells for Gehennom: magic mapping in particular saves on magic marker ink and makes mapping and navigation trivial on floors where it can be cast, and maintaining detect monsters lets them keep track of hostiles across the entire level. The magic missile spell is a good idea to obtain if you have not done so since its damage scales with experience level, and the remove curse spell is invaluable against hostile casting monsters, especially demon lords and princes and the Wizard of Yendor; managing the Mitre's invoke timers in general should keep a smart Priest full of energy to cast when needed. A well-enchanted Mitre and a worn robe may even allow a Priest to cast the polymorph spell for polypiling purposes.

A Priest should also have their artifact weapon of choice blessed and highly enchanted by this point, with Frost Brand naturally being one of the best options for Gehennom. A blessed and enchanted aklys can prove a solid ranged option, and a blessed and enchanted silver spear can also be a tempting secondary option.

A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:

"Flesh out late game strategy."

History

The Priest is introduced in NetHack 1.3d.

Origin

A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, and administers religious rites; in particular, they act as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities, including during rites of sacrifice and propitiation. Their office or position is the "priesthood", a term which also may apply to such persons collectively. A priest may have the duty to hear confessions periodically, give marriage counseling, provide prenuptial counseling, give spiritual direction, teach catechism, or visit those confined indoors, such as the sick in hospitals and nursing homes.

The Priest as a role is modeled off the "church militant" archetype of cleric featured in Dungeons & Dragons: the restriction on weapon type is influenced by a popular interpretation of the Bayeux Tapestry where Odo of Bayeux is depicted with a mace in hand; Odo is sometimes conflated with Archbishop Turpin of the Chanson de Roland (or "Song of Roland"), who actually wields a spear and a sword. The cleric is also partially modeled off the holy fighters of the Crusades, as well as the archetype of vampire hunting clergy seen in Bram Stoker's Dracula and "Hammer Horror" B grade movies, with Dracula in particular coining the popular term 'undead' and establishing a vampire hunter's ability to turn away vampires by the presentation of a holy symbol (e.g. a crucifix).

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, Priests are given a first sacrifice gift in Disrupter, an artifact mace that deals major damage against undead.

The Priest's skill set is expanded to allow for a wider spell repertoire, and they can also train long swords as well. However, Priests will typically want another artifact to serve as their main weapon, especially with their starting mace being weakened. Additionally, all body armor incurs spellcasting penalties in SLASH'EM, with the starting robe being among the few exceptions - this robe also does not actively boost spellcasting rates, with the robe of power serving this purpose. Fortunately, Disrupter can still assist Priests significantly against the tougher undead introduced to SLASH'EM, and the blessing technique is a powerful resource that can save on potions of holy water.

FIQHack

FIQHack priests can be orcs.

Priests get a +20 bonus to effective XL when writing scrolls. Thus at XL30 they can always write unknown scrolls.

Turning undead has been buffed compared to vanilla.

Encyclopedia entry

For the two priests were talking exactly like priests, piously, with learning and leisure, about the most aerial enigmas of theology. The little Essex priest spoke the more simply, with his round face turned to the strengthening stars; the other talked with his head bowed, as if he were not even worthy to look at them. But no more innocently clerical conversation could have been heard in any white Italian cloister or black Spanish cathedral. The first he heard was the tail of one of Father Brown's sentences, which ended: "... what they really meant in the Middle Ages by the heavens being incorruptible." The taller priest nodded his bowed head and said: "Ah, yes, these modern infidels appeal to their reason; but who can look at those millions of worlds and not feel that there may well be wonderful universes above us where reason is utterly unreasonable?"

[ The Innocence of Father Brown, by G.K. Chesterton ]