Monster behavior - Revision history

Umbire the Phantom: hatnote

2026-07-14T22:52:23Z

hatnote

Umbire the Phantom: /* History */ it's rudimentary, but it's sufficient to place historic info for later organizing

2026-07-14T22:48:58Z

‎History: it's rudimentary, but it's sufficient to place historic info for later organizing

Umbire the Phantom: start integrating upcoming stuff since it's gonna be a while before this article is fully up to date for 3.6.7, let alone nh5 - best to try and piecemeal it

2026-07-14T22:41:19Z

start integrating upcoming stuff since it's gonna be a while before this article is fully up to date for 3.6.7, let alone nh5 - best to try and piecemeal it

Umbire the Phantom: /* Tame monsters */ word choice

2026-07-14T17:12:11Z

‎Tame monsters: word choice

Umbire the Phantom: /* Monster behavior and standard monster creation */ word choice

2026-07-13T20:31:07Z

‎Monster behavior and standard monster creation: word choice

Umbire the Phantom: /* Grudges */ detail

2026-07-13T20:28:14Z

‎Grudges: detail

Umbire the Phantom: /* Hostile monsters */ expand section a bit

2026-07-13T18:03:17Z

‎Hostile monsters: expand section a bit

Umbire the Phantom: /* Making peacefuls hostile */ hatnote

2026-05-20T04:29:35Z

‎Making peacefuls hostile: hatnote

Umbire the Phantom: oopsie

2026-05-19T20:06:04Z

oopsie

Umbire the Phantom: word choice

2026-05-19T20:05:26Z

word choice

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{tocright}}
-{{otheruses|how a monster acts towards the hero|how a monster moves and acts in general|monster movement}}
+{{otheruses|how a monster acts towards the hero|how a monster moves and what influences their movement 'decisions'|monster movement}}
 In ''[[NetHack]]'', the '''behavior''' of a [[monster]] that the [[hero]] encounters is influenced by several factors, such as the [[monster attribute]]s and other similar flags that they possess. A monster's behavior may be further influenced by whether or not they are '''peaceful''' or '''hostile''' towards the hero, which is generally determined when that monster is placed by the normal mechanisms of [[monster creation]].{{refsrc|src/makemon.c|2003|nethack=3.6.7|name="peacemind"|comment=<tt>peace_minded()</tt> function}}

@@ Line 160: / Line 160: @@
 ==History==
-In [[NetHack 3.4.3]] and some earlier versions, including variants based on those versions, attacking peaceful monsters with polearms does not ask the player for confirmation to do so&mdash;this is [[Bugs in NetHack 3.4.3#C343-305|bug C343-305]], and is fixed via {{commit|bb5ade42935cbaa69400c60deef62d796a937379}} (imported from [[GruntHack]]).<!--
+In [[NetHack 3.4.3]] and some earlier versions, including variants based on those versions, attacking peaceful monsters with polearms does not ask the player for confirmation to do so&mdash;this is [[Bugs in NetHack 3.4.3#C343-305|bug C343-305]], and is fixed via {{commit|bb5ade42935cbaa69400c60deef62d796a937379}} (imported from [[GruntHack]]).
 In versions up to 3.6.7, the following applies:
@@ Line 166: / Line 166: @@
 * A hero that is ''not'' wielding a [[bloodthirsty]] weapon (i.e. [[Stormbringer]]) and moves into a peaceful monster will be given a 'yes/no' message prompt to confirm if they want to attack.{{refsrc|src/uhitm.c|344|version=NetHack 3.6.7|comment=<tt>safepet</tt> check}}
-NetHack 5.0.0 adds the following:
+NetHack 5.0.0 implements the current behavior for these and adds the following:
-* Per {{commit|aeb0ea65e3ea173ccab744964fa7a0bb8425dc0c}}, [[Lich (monster class)|liches]] and [[Zombie (monster class)|zombies]] will attack monsters that can be made into [[undead]]&ndash;[[Human (monster attribute)|humans]], [[Dwarf (monster attribute)|dwarves]], [[Orc (monster attribute)|orcs]], and so on&ndash;and vice versa.
+* Mutual grudges between live monsters with zombie counterparts and monster that can transform them into zombies (i.e. both lich and zombie monster classes) are added via {{commit|aeb0ea65e3ea173ccab744964fa7a0bb8425dc0c}}.
-* Per {{commit|228870706b7ad412953aa67ec4cddad458f16e9b}}, monsters with grudges will not attack each other if they are on the [[Castle]] level, and will not target [[unique monster]]s.
+* The mutual "truce" between monsters in the Castle level and the avoidance of targeting uniques is added via {{commit|228870706b7ad412953aa67ec4cddad458f16e9b}}.
-* Per {{commit|020abc9cbcea10d48a55b1afbf5bc02cdade3aaa}}, monsters with grudges will not attack each other inside the [[Wizard's Tower]] if the hero is currently outside the Tower, and vice versa.-->
+* The truce between monsters that are not in the same area of a Wizard's Tower level as the hero is added via {{commit|020abc9cbcea10d48a55b1afbf5bc02cdade3aaa}}.
 ==Variants==

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 A peaceful monster will not attack the hero, and simply moves around their current area somewhat randomly.
-A hero that is ''not'' wielding a [[bloodthirsty]] weapon (i.e. [[Stormbringer]]) and moves into a peaceful monster will be given a 'yes/no' message prompt to confirm if they want to attack.{{refsrc|src/uhitm.c|344|version=NetHack 3.6.7|comment=<tt>safepet</tt> check}} Safe-moving into a monster will simply print a message and use up the hero's turn. Wielding Stormbringer will ignore this prompt and safe-moving and attack any monster that the hero moves into, regardless of whether or not they are hostile (including during [[travel]]).
+A hero that is ''not'' wielding a [[bloodthirsty]] weapon (i.e. [[Stormbringer]]) and moves into a peaceful monster will displace them, while safe-moving into a monster will simply print a message and use up the hero's turn. [[Sleeping]] or [[paralyzed]] monsters cannot be displaced at all, but otherwise-immobile monsters (e.g. [[sessile]] beings) can be displaced with a {{frac|7}} chance&mdash;[[aligned priest]]s, [[shopkeeper]]s, [[guard]]s, [[Oracle (monster)|the Oracle]], and [[quest leader]]s cannot ever be displaced.
 Killing a monster of an "always peaceful" type that is initially generated as peaceful will incur general penalties to alignment record, as well as [[murder]] penalties unless the hero is chaotic&mdash;no penalties will occur if that monster was generated hostile.
 ===Making peacefuls hostile===
@@ Line 64: / Line 64: @@
 Under very rare conditions, a monster that is ''not'' tame will deliberately attack another monster of its own accord, without the influence of [[confusion]] or [[conflict]] and disregarding whether either of those monsters are peaceful or hostile towards the hero&mdash;this is informally referred to as a "grudge", after the Grudge Patch by Nephi that enables this behavior between several monster types.
-While vanilla ''NetHack'' does enable aggression between specific non-tame monsters if they are adjacent to each other, only two monsters are subject to this:{{refsrc|src/mon.c|1556|nethack=3.6.7}} [[purple worm]]s will attack any [[shrieker]]s that are adjacent to them.{{refsrc|src/mon.c|1562|nethack=3.6.7}}
+While vanilla ''NetHack'' does enable aggression between specific non-tame monsters if they are adjacent to each other, only a handful of monsters are subject to this:{{refsrc|src/mon.c|1556|nethack=3.6.7}}
-{{upcoming|NetHack 3.7.0|More grudge-style interactions are introduced:
+* [[Purple worm]]s will attack any [[shrieker]]s that are adjacent to them.{{refsrc|src/mon.c|1562|nethack=3.6.7}}
-* Per {{commit|aeb0ea65e3ea173ccab744964fa7a0bb8425dc0c}}, [[Lich (monster class)|liches]] and [[Zombie (monster class)|zombies]] will attack monsters that can be made into [[undead]]&ndash;[[Human (monster attribute)|humans]], [[Dwarf (monster attribute)|dwarves]], [[Orc (monster attribute)|orcs]], and so on&ndash;and vice versa.
+Monsters with grudges will not attack each other if they are on the [[Castle]] level, and will not target [[unique monster]]s. They will also not attack each other inside the [[Wizard's Tower]] if the hero is currently outside the Tower, and vice versa.}}
 ==Monster behavior and standard monster creation==
@@ Line 161: / Line 160: @@
 ==History==
-In [[NetHack 3.4.3]] and some earlier versions, including variants based on those versions, attacking peaceful monsters with polearms does not ask the player for confirmation to do so&mdash;this is [[Bugs in NetHack 3.4.3#C343-305|bug C343-305]], and is fixed via {{commit|bb5ade42935cbaa69400c60deef62d796a937379}} (imported from [[GruntHack]]).
+In [[NetHack 3.4.3]] and some earlier versions, including variants based on those versions, attacking peaceful monsters with polearms does not ask the player for confirmation to do so&mdash;this is [[Bugs in NetHack 3.4.3#C343-305|bug C343-305]], and is fixed via {{commit|bb5ade42935cbaa69400c60deef62d796a937379}} (imported from [[GruntHack]]).<!--
 ==Variants==

@@ Line 54: / Line 54: @@
 ==Tame monsters==
 {{main|Pet|Tameness}}
-Pets are monsters that are loyal to the hero and will not normally attack them, unless they are [[confused]] or subject to [[conflict]]. A pet whose tameness reaches 0 will become peaceful or hostile depending on the circumstances, and attacking a pet will decrease their tameness significantly&mdash;the article on tameness details what causes pets to lose tameness and how much [[pet abuse]] is required for a pet to become hostile.
+Tame monsters, or pets, are loyal to the hero and will not normally attack them unless they are [[confused]] or subject to [[conflict]]. A pet whose tameness reaches 0 will become peaceful or hostile depending on the circumstances, and attacking a pet will decrease their tameness significantly&mdash;the article on tameness details what causes pets to lose tameness and how much [[pet abuse]] is required for a pet to become hostile.
 Pets will attack peaceful and hostile monsters alike if they are strong enough to, and those monsters have a chance of retaliating against the pet each time. The hero is not held responsible for any monsters that a pet kills or any pets that are killed by retaliation from a monster that they attack.

@@ Line 95: / Line 95: @@
 |}
-Note that all human monsters the hero normally encounters in practice will be either "always peaceful" or "always hostile"&mdash;this above information is still applicable for cases such as [[reverse genocide]] that is performed while the hero is [[confused]], which will create [[player monster]]s of their role that will be peaceful or hostile based on those rules.
+Note that all human monsters the hero normally encounters in practice will be either "always peaceful" or "always hostile"&mdash;this above information is still applicable for cases such as a [[reverse genocide]] that is performed while the hero is [[confused]], which will create [[player monster]]s of their role that will be peaceful or hostile based on those rules.
 For monsters that are not any of the above races, whether or not they are hostile or peaceful is determined by the following:
-* A [[unicorn]] is always generated as peaceful to a co-aligned hero and always generated as hostile to a cross-aligned one.{{refsrc|src/makemon.c|1271|nethack=3.6.6}}
+* A normally-created [[unicorn]] is always generated as peaceful to a co-aligned hero and always generated as hostile to a cross-aligned one.{{refsrc|src/makemon.c|1271|nethack=3.6.6}}
 * [[Minion]]s sent by an angry [[god]] are always hostile.{{refsrc|src/minion.c|221|nethack=3.6.6}}
-* An [[Angel]] in the service of a [[deity]] is always generated as peaceful to a co-aligned hero and always generated as hostile to a cross-aligned one&mdash;if the Angel is a "renegade", however, they are always generated as peaceful to a cross-aligned hero and always generated as hostile to a co-aligned one.
+* An [[Angel]] in the service of a [[deity]] is always generated as peaceful to a co-aligned hero and always generated as hostile to a cross-aligned one&mdash;if the Angel is a "renegade", however, they are always generated as peaceful to a ''cross-aligned'' hero and always generated as hostile to a ''co-aligned'' one.
 * An [[angelic being]] that is ''not'' an Angel serving a god is always generated as hostile if the hero is not lawful or they have a negative alignment record, and will otherwise be peaceful.{{refsrc|src/makemon.c|2031|nethack=3.6.6|comment=<tt>is_minion</tt> is used for this check, but all applicable monsters with <tt>M2_MINION</tt> are angelic beings}}
-* A chaotic monster that is generated while the hero has the [[Amulet of Yendor]] will always be created hostile.{{refsrc|src/makemon.c|2027|nethack=3.6.6}}
+* A chaotic monster that is generated while a hero has the [[Amulet of Yendor]] will always be created hostile whether the hero is chaotic or not.{{refsrc|src/makemon.c|2027|nethack=3.6.6}}
-* A [[major demon]] summoned by [[same-race sacrifice]] will be peaceful to a chaotic hero and hostile otherwise.{{refsrc|src/pray.c|1426|nethack=3.6.7}}
+* A [[major demon]] summoned by [[same-race sacrifice]] will be peaceful to a chaotic hero and will be hostile otherwise.{{refsrc|src/pray.c|1426|nethack=3.6.7}}
 * A lawful [[demon lord]] or prince is generated as peaceful so that they will try to [[bribe]] the hero upon meeting them, ''unless'' that hero is not lawful or else was wielding [[Excalibur]] at the time of that monster's creation.{{refsrc|src/makemon.c|1332|nethack=3.6.6}}
 * Monsters created by the [[summon nasties]] [[monster spell]] are always hostile ''unless'' they are random monsters selected to replace a summoned nasty type that has been removed by [[genocide]].{{refsrc|src/wizard.c|604|nethack=3.6.6}}
@@ Line 130: / Line 130: @@
 ===Always-hostile monsters===
 Some monsters are '''always hostile''' when created randomly under normal circumstances, and these monsters will have the <tt>'''M2_HOSTILE'''</tt> flag.{{refsrc|src/makemon.c|2010|nethack=3.6.7}}{{refsrc|include/mondata.h|123|nethack=3.6.7}}{{refsrc|include/monflag.h|127|nethack=3.6.7}}
 ==Specific level generation==

@@ Line 62: / Line 62: @@
 ==Grudges==
 {{main|Grudge}}
-Under very rare conditions, a monster that is ''not'' tame will deliberately attack another monster of its own accord, without the influence of [[confusion]] and with no regard to whether those monsters are peaceful or hostile towards the hero&mdash;this is informally referred to as a "grudge", after the Grudge Patch by Nephi that enables this behavior between several monster types.
+Under very rare conditions, a monster that is ''not'' tame will deliberately attack another monster of its own accord, without the influence of [[confusion]] or [[conflict]] and disregarding whether either of those monsters are peaceful or hostile towards the hero&mdash;this is informally referred to as a "grudge", after the Grudge Patch by Nephi that enables this behavior between several monster types.
 While vanilla ''NetHack'' does enable aggression between specific non-tame monsters if they are adjacent to each other, only two monsters are subject to this:{{refsrc|src/mon.c|1556|nethack=3.6.7}} [[purple worm]]s will attack any [[shrieker]]s that are adjacent to them.{{refsrc|src/mon.c|1562|nethack=3.6.7}}

@@ Line 39: / Line 39: @@
 ==Hostile monsters==
-A hostile monster will generally pursue and attack the hero if they are given an opportunity. Not all hostile monsters will constantly advance towards the hero, which is dependent on [[Monster movement|the monster's other behaviors and traits]], and some hostile monsters may be unable to actively attack the hero.
+A hostile monster will generally pursue and attack the hero if they are given an opportunity. Not all hostile monsters will constantly advance towards the hero, which is dependent on [[Monster movement|the monster's other behaviors and traits]]&mdash;for example, some monsters that are hostile may seek out and pick up items while searching for the hero, including weapons and other items that can be used against them. Certain hostile monsters may be unable to actively attack the hero at all. e.g. if they are [[sessile]] or lack any form of active [[attack type]].
 A hero that moves into a hostile monster will automatically [[fight]] them with their current wielded weapon.
@@ Line 50: / Line 50: @@
 * A monster that cannot be tamed ''and'' is not [[The Wizard of Yendor]], [[Medusa]] or a [[quest nemesis]] will become peaceful when subjected to [[taming]] effects&mdash;this consists of all [[Human (monster attribute)|humans]] and [[covetous]] monsters, and includes all non-unique [[major demon]]s ''unless'' the hero is currently [[polymorph]]ed into a demon themselves.
 * Applying a [[wooden flute]] or an uncharged [[magic flute]] can pacify [[Snake (monster class)|snakes]] dependent on the hero's [[dexterity]] and [[experience level]].
 ==Tame monsters==

← Older revision		Revision as of 04:29, 20 May 2026
Line 15:		Line 15:

	===Making peacefuls hostile===		===Making peacefuls hostile===
		+	{{for\|angering the hero's god\|anger}}
	A hero can anger a peaceful monster and cause them to become hostile through one of several means:		A hero can anger a peaceful monster and cause them to become hostile through one of several means:

@@ Line 56: / Line 56: @@
 Pets will attack peaceful and hostile monsters alike if they are strong enough to, and those monsters have a chance of retaliating against the pet each time. The hero is not held responsible for any monsters that a pet kills or any pets that are killed by retaliation from a monster that they attack.
-The [[scroll of taming]], [[magic harp]] and the {{+ of|charm monster}} spell all have [[taming]] effects that are capable of turning peaceful and hostile monsters into pets, and monsters that are not made tame or cannot be tamed will often become peaceful&mdash;Medusa, quest nemeses and the Wizard of Yendor cannot even be pacified.
+The [[scroll of taming]], [[magic harp]] and the {{+ of|charm monster}} spell are all capable of turning peaceful and hostile monsters into pets, and monsters that are not made tame or cannot be tamed will often become peaceful. Medusa, the various quest nemeses and the Wizard of Yendor cannot even be pacified.
 ==Grudges==