Guard
@ guard 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 14 |
| Attacks |
Weapon 4d10 |
| Base level | 12 |
| Base experience | 284 |
| Speed | 12 |
| Base AC | 10 |
| Base MR | 40 |
| Alignment | 10 (lawful) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 0 (Not randomly generated) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 1450 |
| Nutritional value | 400 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | None |
| Resistances conveyed | None |
|
A guard:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#2195 |
A guard, @, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The guard is a strong and lawful human mercenary that is typically peaceful and patrols the vaults belonging to Croesus: they are the source of the footsteps heard on some levels, indicating there is a vault on that floor. Guards can be seen via infravision and will pick up weapons, armor and other items they come across if made hostile—they may also accept bribes.
Guards that are polymorphed into a monster that can divide and then made to split will produce clones that do not retain the original's memory of their initial form.[1]
A guard has a single powerful weapon attack.
Contents
Generation
Guards are not randomly generated, and normally-created guards are always peaceful.
If a hero remains on any of the squares within the 4x4 area of a vault for 30 turns, or else applies a cursed tin whistle, a guard will be generated on the outer squares of the vault, opening a space in the room's wall or the outside solid rock if necessary.[2][3][4] There is no limit to the amount of guards that a vault can generate, including the normal extinction cap used for other monsters, but only one guard will be present on the level at a time.
Items
Guards are always generated with a cursed tin whistle, providing a source for the shrill whistling sound a hero will hear while escaping them.[5][6] For other items, they follow similar generation mechanisms to other mercenaries such as soldiers and watchmen for armor and weapons, in addition to rules specific to them:
- For armor, guards have a target AC of -1.[7]
- For their suit of armor, they have a 4⁄5 chance of being given either splint mail (2⁄3 chance) or banded mail (1⁄3 chance) that counts for 6 points of their target AC[8]—if they are not given either type of armor, they have a 4⁄5 chance of being given either ring mail (2⁄3 chance) or studded leather armor (1⁄3 chance) that counts for 3 points of their target AC, and will otherwise be given leather armor that counts for 2 points of their target AC.[9][10]
- For their helm, they have a 2⁄3 chance of being given a helmet, with a 1⁄2 chance of a dented pot otherwise, and the helm will count for 1 point of their target AC.[11]
- For their shield, they have a 2⁄3 chance of being given a small shield that counts for 1 point of their target AC, and otherwise have a 1⁄2 chance of being given a large shield that counts for 2 points of their target AC.[12]
- For their boots, they have a 2⁄3 chance of being given a pair of low boots that count for 1 point of their target AC, and otherwise have a 1⁄2 chance of being given a pair of high boots that count for 2 points of their target AC.[13]
- Finally, they have a 2⁄3 chance of being given a pair of leather gloves, with a 1⁄2 chance of a leather cloak otherwise, and the item will count for 1 point of their target AC.[14]
- For weapons, guards have a 1⁄4 chance of being given a dagger and an independent 1⁄7 chance of a spear, with a 1⁄4 of being given a knife if they receive neither weapon.[15]
- Guards have the standard 2⁄3 chance of being given a K-ration and an independent 1⁄2 chance of being given a C-ration.[16]
Figurines of a guard cannot be generated. Guards are special-cased to become human zombies if the hero attempts to animate their corpse or statue by any means, including animating statues from statue traps and directly creating them in wizard mode without forcing that monster to be generated.[17]
Interacting with guards
When a guard is generated from the hero waiting or applying a cursed tin whistle, their behavior depends on the hero's current state: If the hero is in a polymorphed state from eating a mimic corpse, or else is polymorphed into a form that can hide, the guard will not notice the hero and leave; being transformed from eating a mimic corpse while hallucinating produces a different message, but otherwise has the same effect. If the hero is unable to speak, e.g. due to paralysis, unconsciousness, or else being in a form that cannot speak, the guard will also leave. The guard will not notice a hero that is invisible when they enter, and will leave when the hero moves away from them.
Otherwise, the guard will ask the hero their name, prompting the player to enter an answer: replying with Croesus, Kroisos or Creosote will cause them to leave you alone and disappear, while attempting this after killing the actual Croesus will instead make the guard hostile.[18][19] If you answer their query with a different name, they will ask hero to drop all of their gold and follow them out of the vault, including any gold in open inventory and in containers within that inventory, so stashing cannot fool them. A lawful hero incurs a small alignment record penalty for giving a false name to the guard.[20]
The guard will peacefully escort the hero out as long as they comply with orders, and this can be used to escape a vault if the hero lacks any other means to do so. If a hero picks up the gold they dropped, the guard will demand they drop it and turn hostile if they do not obey quickly—however, a hero can freely teleport it away or throw it outside of the vault without angering the guard. A hero that attacks the guard or attempts to escape by some other means will anger that guard. Since guards are always generated peaceful, killing a hostile one will still count as murder even if the guard attacks the hero first.
A guard escorting a hero with no gold out of a vault will will open a passage from the vault to a nearby corridor in the dungeon and wait for you to follow them along the path: both that guard and the passage will vanish once you safely reach the corridor, with the guard's inventory being removed and the passage being replaced with unlit solid rock; items left inside the passage will be embedded in the solid rock, and any other monsters caught in the disappearing passage will be moved to a random location on the current level. If a guard is killed in the passageway they create, it will close immediately and their corpse and possessions will be left embedded in stone, along with the hero if they were in the passage.
Strategy
Guards have the same speed as an unhasted hero, along with decent armor and a very strong attack—this is mitigated by the fact that guards are relatively easy to avoid fighting, and are usually not worth the effort unless the hero is actively farming them. Being escorted out of a vault is generally a slight inconvenience at worst, since the hero will only have to leave their gold behind; not only can this be worked around, but the hero ocan simply dig or teleport their way back in later to retrieve any gold, and it is even preferable if a hero ends up in a vault with no means of exiting. Once a hero can reliably make their way in and out of vaults, e.g. via controlled teleports, the guard is little more than a minor obstacle.
Some players name their hero Croesus (or one of the acceptable variants mentioned above) to avoid the alignment penalty for lying, though said penalty is small and easily remedied, and such a strategy is also much more common in local play since servers often default to naming the character after the user. While guards can be bribed, this is often a waste of gold even when successful, but can be of use in some corner cases, e.g. to pacify a hostile guard and avoid murder penalties.
Should a hero dealing with a guard somehow get stuck in a disappearing passageway, they can pray to escape: being stuck in a wall is considered a major trouble, and a successful prayer will teleport them out. If teleportation somehow fails, the player will be granted temporary phasing for a handful of turns, which should be enough for them to make it back onto a safe square.
Farming guards
As vault guards do not go extinct, it is possible to farm guards for their inventory, including replacement armor, potions and wands: while chaotic heroes are not penalized for murder and can theoretically farm guards directly, they will still suffer a massive alignment penalty. This kind of farming is best done with pet that is strong enough to kill them quickly, especially with a pet that has a digestion attack such as a purple worm—be sure to monitor your pet's health during and in-between fights where necessary.
Messages
- Suddenly, one of the vault's guards enters!
- A guard entered the vault while you were present.
- "Hello stranger, who are you?"
- The guard can see you; this will give you a prompt to enter your name.
- "Most likely all of your gold was stolen from this vault."
- The guard is aware of the gold in your inventory and wants you to drop it all.
- "Please follow me."
"Move along!" - The guard is leading you out of the vault, opening a passageway through the solid rock if needed.
- "Drop all your gold, scoundrel!"
- You attempted to pick up the dropped gold again while in their view.
- "So be it, rogue!"
- The guard becomes hostile because you did not drop your gold in time or else refused to.
- You hear the shrill sound of a guard's whistle.
- You fled from a guard without dropping your carried gold while they were watching you, and they blew the whistle in their inventory.
- You hear angry shouting.
- As above, but there was no whistle in their inventory.
- "Oh, yes, of course. Sorry to have disturbed you."
- You told the guard you are Croesus, causing them to leave.
- "Back from the dead, are you? I'll remedy that!"
- As above, but you have already killed Croesus; the guard will become hostile.
- "I'll be back when you're ready to speak to me!"
- You were in an impaired state that prevents you speaking when the guard entered, and they left.
- The guard turns around and leaves, puzzled.
- You were not visible when the guard entered, causing them to leave immediately. This is the result of eating a mimic corpse or polymorphing into a hiding monster and hiding under the gold.
- "Hey! Who left that orange in here?"
- As above, but you were polymorphed from eating a mimic corpse while hallucinating when the guard entered.
Encyclopedia entry
- See the encyclopedia entry for human.
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 858
- ↑ src/vault.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 222
- ↑ src/vault.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 321
- ↑ include/hack.h in NetHack 3.6.7, line 36: guard timer called in vault.c
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 658
- ↑ src/vault.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 838
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 595
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 625
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 628
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 631
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 634
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 638
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 642
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 646
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 209
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 665
- ↑ src/read.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2415
- ↑ src/vault.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 458
- ↑ src/vault.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 469
- ↑ src/vault.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 452
