Nightgaunt (dNetHack)
g nightgaunt 
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|---|---|
| Difficulty | 17 |
| Attacks |
Claw 1d6 tickling |
| Base level | 15 |
| Base experience | 552 |
| Speed | 13 |
| Base AC | -2 |
| Base MR | 50 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 1450 |
| Nutritional value | 400 |
| Size | medium |
| Resistances | cold, sleep, poison |
| Resistances conveyed | cold |
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A nightgaunt:
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A nightgaunt, g, is a type of monster that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. The nightgaunt is a strong and eyeless humanoid monster that is amphibious, breathless, capable of flight, can see invisible, and can be seen via infravision. Nightgaunts possesses enhanced regeneration, have a tendency to wander while moving, will seek out and pick up magical items and other objects, and can follow the hero to other levels if they are adjacent.
A nightgaunt has a single claw attack that deals damage and inflicts tickling, which causes the hero to become immobilized if it targets them unless they have a source of free action or resist it with magic cancellation - the section below has details on how the attack specifically affects a player character, while monsters hit by the attack are simply paralyzed for up to 10 turns. Nightgaunts possess cold resistance, sleep resistance and poison resistance.
Nightgaunts are poisonous to consume, and eating a nightgaunt's corpse or tin or quaffing its blood grants temporary cold resistance.
Nightgaunts can be warded by the Elder Sign, a heptagram, or an Elbereth engraved by an elven character.
Generation
Nightgaunts can generate in small groups, and may generate as peaceful towards neutral characters.
Strategy
Nightgaunts are somewhat hard to kill due to their base monster level, and the tickling attack is only partially mitigated by magic cancellation, as explained in detail below. Combined with their 13 speed and tendency towards small groups, this can make nightgaunts a serious enough threat to warrant targeting them with a wand of death, the finger of death spell or even genocide.
Tickling
Against a player character, the nightgaunt's tickling attack has effects that are carried out over multiple stages in the order listed:
- The attack rolls versus magic cancellation and checks if the character is already immobilized - if the attack is blocked for either reason, the nightgaunt will attempt to remove one piece of the character's equipment:
- If the character has a cloak, the nightgaunt will attempt to remove it and drop it on the character's square, with a percentage chance of avoiding this equal to the character's dexterity. For a character wielding Tensa Zangetsu while not wearing a cloak, the artifact will block the rest of the unequip effect.
- If the character has an alternate weapon item that is not a chained heavy iron ball, and they are not currently in two weapon combat, the nightgaunt will attempt to steal that item and add it to their inventory, with a percentage chance of avoiding this equal to the character's dexterity.
- If the character is wearing a suit of body armor without a cloak, the nightgaunt attempts to remove it: this has a 3⁄4 chance to fail, and otherwise there is a percentage chance of avoiding this equal to the character's dexterity.
- If the attack succeeds but the character has free action, no effects occur.
- Otherwise, the tickling abuses dexterity and constitution, with a 1⁄3 chance of paralyzing them for up to 10 turns and a 2⁄3 chance of paralyzing them for 1 turn. The character may also drop their wielded weapon, with a percentage chance of avoiding this equal to the lower between their dexterity, and a character that is twoweaponing may also drop their offhand weapon as well.
Losing any items due to the effects of tickling may trigger the effects of the "talons" madness and cause the character to panic for 2-7 turns. As mentioned above, the tickling can be blocked by MC3 and will not remove shirts: this makes Victorian underwear one of the better safeguards against the attack, though it will not provide complete protection like free action does.
