Hit points
Contents
Player
Hit points, also known as HP or hp, are your life. If your hit points reach zero, you usually die. The only way of avoiding death in this case is to wear an amulet of life saving. If you are polymorphed at the time, you will return to your natural form, unless you are wearing an amulet of unchanging, at which point you will die, as normal.
More hit points are automatically gained whenever the player gains a new experience level. How much, depends on the race, role and constitution. Fighter classes, such as a barbarian, generally start the game with more hit points and receive more hit points at each new level than other classes, such as a tourist.
Hit points can also be gained with some potions. Quaffing a potion of healing or potion of extra healing if already at maximum hit points gives you one or two (or five, in case of a blessed potion of extra healing) more hit points. Potion of full healing raises your maximum hit points by four, eight if blessed.
Other ways to raise maximum hit points include "nurse dancing" (letting a nurse hit you wielding no weapon and wearing no armor), a favor ("You are surrounded by a golden glow.") from praying to your god at an altar, and beneficial effects from a incubus or succubus encounter.
If your maximum hit points are no more than 5*(2+XL) where XL is your experience level (i.e. HP <= 15 at level 1, 20 at level 2 and so on), then when you pray with very low hit points, your god will increase your maximum HP by a random amount as well as healing you. This is a handy trick to use in the early game, especially for weak characters.
Messages
Once you have seen one of these messages, you will not see another for 50 turns[1].
- You hear the howling of the CwnAnnwn...
- You have less than 1/10 of your total hit points left.
- You hear the wailing of the Banshee...
- You have only 1 hit point left.
- Valkyrie/Wizard/Elf, your life force is running out.
- You have less than 1/10 of your total hit points left, are a Valkyrie, Wizard or Elf character, and have less than four intrinsics.
- Valkyrie/Wizard/Elf, all of your powers will be lost...
- You have less than 1/10 of your total hit points left, are a Valkyrie, Wizard or Elf character, and have at least four intrinsics.
- Valkyrie/Wizard/Elf is about to die.
- You have only 1 hit point left and are a Valkyrie, Wizard or Elf character.
Monster
A monster's hit points is based on its level, modified in some rare cases by other things[2].
Normal case
Default initial hit points: hp = (monster level)d8[3].
If a monster has a level of 0, their hp is simply 1d4[4].
Elementals
An elemental's hit points are calculated normally, except that on its home elemental plane they are tripled[5].
Golems
Golems' hit points are fixed and determined by type[6][7]:
| Hit Points | Golems |
|---|---|
| 20 | paper golem, straw golem |
| 30 | rope golem |
| 40 | flesh golem, gold golem, leather golem |
| 50 | clay golem, wood golem |
| 60 | glass golem, stone golem |
| 80 | iron golem |
Riders
Riders are a very special case; from the source code[8]:
- We want low HP, but a high mlevel so they can attack well
Their hp is 10d8
Adult dragons
An adult dragon's hp depends on whether or not the player is in the endgame[9].
- Not in endgame
- hp = (monster level)d4 + 4 * (monster level)
- In endgame
- hp = 8 * (monster level)
Special
Some other monsters have fixed hit points. Any monster with a level of 50-127 calculates its hp by[10]
- hp = 2 * ((monster level) - 6)
Their actual level is then approximated by:
- level = hp / 4
Raising Monster Maximum Hit Points
Monsters (including pets) gain levels by raising their hit points. Thus advancing levels and increasing hit points are one and the same goal for them. See main article for details.
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.
