Iron shoes

[   iron shoes
Appearance	hard shoes
Slot	boots
AC	2
Special	(none)
Base price	16 zm
Weight	50
Material	iron

A pair of iron shoes is a set of boots that appear in NetHack. They are naturally made of iron, and appear as hard shoes when unidentified.

Generation

In addition to random generation, general stores, used armor dealerships and antique weapon outlets can sell iron shoes.

Live dwarves have a ⁶⁄₇ chance of generating with iron shoes, and Uruk-hai have a ¹⁄₃ chance of generating with them. Orc-captains have a ¹⁄₂ chance of being generated with Uruk-hai armor, giving them an effective ¹⁄₆ chance of generating with the boots.

Player monsters on the Astral Plane have an effective ~4.68% chance of generating with iron shoes.

Description

While worn, a pair of iron shoes grants 2 base AC, and protects a character against a xan's leg-wounding sting ²⁄₅ of the time.

Strategy

Iron shoes and high boots are the only boots to grant 2 base AC: iron shoes are much easier to find, particularly in the Gnomish Mines, but weigh more and incur a small spellcasting penalty. They are additionally vulnerable to erosion by rusting and corrosion, which among other things can make encounters with rust monsters annoying.

In the early phases of the game, melee roles with low interest in spells and casters looking to prioritize AC will likely grab one of the many pairs of iron shoes they encounter in the Mines, and may swap them for high or low boots as necessary. Their spellcasting penalty is low enough that a character can usually retain comfortably low spell failure rates if they are the only metallic armor worn.

History

Iron shoes first appear in NetHack 3.0.0.

Variants

Some variants rename the hard shoes used by dwarves to dwarvish boots, which may also grant an AC bonus to dwarves that wear them (including dwarven characters), and are otherwise the same as iron shoes; other variants may additionally repurpose the iron shoes given to Uruk-hai into orcish boots, which may also grant an AC bonus to orcs that wear them (including orcish characters).

dNetHack

In dNetHack and notdNetHack, the pair of iron shoes is simply known as a pair of shoes and retains its unidentified appearance.

A pair of shoes grants 1 base AC and 1 DR while worn, and have a base object material of iron - a pair of shoes always displays its material when identified, even with the default material.

Several monsters can generate with a pair of shoes:

• Storm giants are generated with a pair of iron shoes.
• Master Kaen is generated with a cursed +4 pair of iron shoes that have the holy, consecrated, unholy, and desecrated object properties.
• Eclavdra, the quest leader for the Drow Racial quest and Hedrow shared quest, is generated with a blessed and erodeproofed +0 pair of silver shoes.
• Sister T'eirastra, the Drow Healer quest leader, is generated with a blue-colored blessed pair of cloth shoes.
• Pen'a mendicants are generated with a blue-colored blessed pair of cloth shoes.
• Neferet the Green is generated with a blessed and erodeproofed +5 pair of silver shoes.
• Nurses generated in the Anachrononaut quest are generated with a white-colored blessed +7 pair of cloth shoes.

xNetHack

xNetHack renames iron shoes to "dwarvish boots" and retains the odds of Uruk-hai generating with them, with a comment in makemon.c suggesting that they stole their boots from dwarves.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, iron shoes are renamed to dwarvish boots and grant a +1 AC bonus to dwarves that wear them, while Uruk-hai and other orcs are instead given orcish boots, which grant a +1 AC bonus to orcs wearing them.

Croesus has a ¹⁄₂ chance of generating with a set of gold dwarvish boots.

A pair of dwarvish boots can be created at a forge by combining a dwarvish short sword and a pair of gauntlets.

SlashTHEM

In SlashTHEM, the militant cleric of the rebel party that serves as quest nemeses for the default Noble quest will generate with iron shoes.

Hack'EM

Hack'EM splits iron shoes into dwarvish and orcish boots similar to EvilHack.

Upgrading a pair of high boots will produce a pair of dwarvish boots. As in EvilHack, a pair of dwarvish boots can be created at a forge by combining a dwarvish short sword and a pair of gauntlets.