Helm
A helm is a form of armor that appears in NetHack, and is one of seven armor slots available to the hero and certain other monsters.
Description
Helms can be worn by any intelligent monster that has a head and meets the following conditions:
- Their head lacks horns and/or other features that would obstruct wearing the helm:[1] horned monsters cannot wear metallic helms, and polymorphing into such a monster will force a worn metallic helm off the monster's head.[2][3]
- They have hands to put on the helm with: a naga can technically wear a helm, but is unable to put on one themselves and is typically the result of a helm-wearing monster being polymorphed.
Wearing any type of helm has a 7⁄8 chance of blocking the intelligence-draining effects from the individual tentacle attacks from a mind flayer or master mind flayer - a greased helm always blocks these effects, but the grease has a 1⁄2 chance of wearing off after each attack.
Wearing a metallic helm significantly lowers damage from falling objects, such as falling rock traps, boulders from a scroll of earth, objects thrown upward by the hero, and falling piercers - however, metallic helms also increase spellcasting failure rates, with the exception of the helm of brilliance.
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.
The helm of brilliance now has an unidentified description of "crystal helm" and is made of glass, which does not inhibit spellcasting as a material.
The helm of caution is a new helm that grants 1 AC and warning when worn.List of helms
Name | Cost | Weight | AC | Material | Appearance | Effect |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fedora | 1 | 3 | 0 | Cloth | ||
Dunce cap | 1 | 4 | 0 | Cloth | Conical hat | Autocurses when worn; Int and Wis set to 6 |
Cornuthaum | 80 | 4 | 0 | Cloth | Conical hat | MC1; wizards can enchant to +7; clairvoyance and Ch+1 for wizards; blocks clairvoyance and Ch−1 for non-wizards |
Elven leather helm | 8 | 3 | 1 | Leather | Leather hat | Can be enchanted to +7 |
Orcish helm | 10 | 30 | 1 | Iron | Iron skull cap | |
Dented pot | 8 | 10 | 1 | Iron | ||
Dwarvish iron helm | 20 | 40 | 2 | Iron | Hard hat | |
Helmet (kabuto) | 10 | 30 | 1 | Iron | (randomized) | |
Helm of brilliance | 50 | 50 | 1 | Iron | (randomized) | Int and Wis +/− enchantment amount; doesn't hinder spellcasting |
Helm of opposite alignment | 50 | 50 | 1 | Iron | (randomized) | Autocurses when worn; opposite alignment |
Helm of telepathy | 50 | 50 | 1 | Iron | (randomized) | Grants telepathy |
The helms marked (randomized) in the chart above have their appearances randomly chosen from:
plumed etched crested visored
Of these, the visored helmet is always special. It protects against the blinding attack of ravens and the venom-spitting attack of cobras.
Variants
In UnNetHack and SporkHack, a helm with the appearance tin foil hat blocks telepathy from all sources.
References
This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.
It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.
Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-343}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.