Weretiger

From NetHackWiki
Revision as of 15:00, 28 August 2024 by Umbire the Phantom (talk | contribs) (pasto)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

A weretiger, @ / f, is a type of monster that appears in SLASH'EM, SlashTHEM, SpliceHack, and Hack'EM. The weretiger is an omnivorous human werecreature that can shift between human and feline form - in both forms, they possess enhanced regeneration and can be seen via infravision. In human form, weretigers will seek out and pick up items.

A weretiger in human form has a weapon attack—in tiger form, they have a bite that can cause lycanthropy in the hero, two claw attacks, and the ability to summon other felines on nearby squares when in melee range. Weretigers possess poison resistance and drain resistance, and are weak to silver.

A weretiger corpse is poisonous to eat, and a hero eating a weretiger corpse or tin will be given lycanthropy.

Generation

Randomly-generated weretigers are always created hostile and in human form. They are not a valid form for normal polymorph.

A weretiger summoning help has a 45 chance of generating a hostile jaguar and a 15 chance of generating a hostile tiger on each applicable square[1] - characters that get lycanthropy from a weretiger can summon these monsters as pets using the #monster extended command, which costs 10 power.

In SLASH'EM, SlashTHEM and Hack'EM, weretigers may appear among the @ generated within the Lawful Quest's Chamber of Junk.

A weretiger that leaves a corpse upon death will always leave a corpse of its human form: their animal form is considered to be corpseless.

Strategy

Werecreatures in SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM are already made more dangerous than in NetHack due to changes in polymorph mechanics, which allows them to revert to human form if killed while in animal form—if the hero cannot dispatch the werecreature fast enough, they may have to be "killed" several times before going down for good.

The new lycanthropes introduced in these variants are also far more dangerous than their NetHack counterparts, and the weretiger is one of the greater threats among them: they are stronger than the werepanther in terms of monster level and attacks, and can summon tigers for help alongside jaguars instead of panthers—they also move slower at 12 speed to the werepanther's 15, and are much more likely to generate later in the dungeon. This allows a hero to more reliably exploit the speed system against weretigers, though they should still use the far look command to identify felines at a distance. Lycanthropes cannot follow the hero to other levels, so do not be afraid to run away if necessary!

As always, silver items are good options for dealing with weretigers and other lycanthropes, and there is a better selection of silver weapons and items available compared to NetHack. The ring of protection from shape changers is considerably stronger against lycanthropes, since they only need to be killed once while locked into human form, and cannot give the hero lycanthropy or summon help. Ranged weapons with multishot bonuses can bring them down before they get close enough, and engraving Elbereth can scare off both a weretiger in animal form and any help they summon in order to either create space for an escape or more efficiently kill them.

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

"SpliceHack and Hack'EM specifics"

Origin

The concept of humans shapeshifting into animals has been a common concept in folklore among various human eras and cultures, while "therianthropy" and related terms as a means of describing specific forms of human-animal shapeshifting have been in use since the early 20th century. A werecat (also written in a hyphenated form as were-cat) is an analog to "werewolf" for a feline therianthropic (or "ailuranthropic") creature.

Encyclopedia entry

See the encyclopedia entry for werecreature.

References