Caveman

The Caveman or Cavewoman, sometimes referred to as the Caveperson and abbreviated as Cav, is one of the roles available for a hero in NetHack. They can be either lawful or neutral, and can be humans, dwarves or gnomes. The guidebook has little to say about Cavepeople:

         Cavemen  and  Cavewomen start with exceptional strength but,
         unfortunately, with neolithic weapons.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (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 role is known as the Cave-dweller, with "Caveman" and "Cavewoman" as gendered role names.

Starting equipment

Each Caveperson starts with the following equipment:

• a +1 club (wielded)
• a +2 sling (alternate weapon)
• 10-22 flint stones
• 18-33 uncursed rocks
• +0 leather armor

The Caveperson's default starting pet is a little dog called Slasher.

Intrinsics

Cavepeople gain the following intrinsic properties upon reaching the given experience levels:

• Level 7: speed
• Level 15: warning

Attributes

The Caveperson's starting attributes are distributed as follows:

Attributes	Strength	Dexterity	Constitution	Intelligence	Wisdom	Charisma	Remaining
Minimum attributes	10	7	8	7	7	6	30
Distribution percentages	30%	20%	30%	6%	7%	7%
Mean w/ standard deviation	18/01.61±2.48	13.19±2.16	16.43±1.76	8.90±1.40	9.21±1.49	7.90±1.40

Skills

Cavepeople have the following skills available to them:

Caveman skills
Max	Skills
Basic	Weapons: dagger, pick-axe, morning star, unicorn horn Spells: attack
Skilled	Weapons: knife, axe, flail, hammer, polearms, trident, bow Spells: matter
Expert	Weapons: club, mace, quarterstaff, spear, sling, boomerang
Master	Combat: bare hands

Cavepeople start with Basic skill in clubs, slings, and bare-handed combat. Their special spell is dig.

Special rules

Cavepeople do not suffer any penalty for cannibalism, including the aggravate monster property given from eating domestic canine or feline corpses.

Cavepeople never get nausea from eating tripe rations.

Cavepeople get a +1 multishot bonus when throwing spears or firing proper ammunition from a sling.

Rank titles

The status line displays one of the following ranks for the corresponding experience levels:

• XL 1-2: Troglodyte
• XL 3-5: Aborigine
• XL 6-9: Wanderer
• XL 10-13: Vagrant
• XL 14-17: Wayfarer
• XL 18-21: Roamer
• XL 22-25: Nomad
• XL 26-29: Rover
• XL 30: Pioneer

Quest

The Caveperson's quest sees them fighting the Chromatic Dragon for The Sceptre of Might, an artifact mace. It has +1d5 to-hit and deals double damage against monsters of a different alignment from the artifact, and grants magic resistance while wielded. Invoking The Sceptre of Might toggles hungerless conflict on or off, and conflict caused by the artifact ends once it leaves the main inventory.

Strategy

Cavepeople are fairly difficult as a role: they are heavily melee-specialized with high starting strength and constitution, but are not as strong as other "traditional" melee roles like the Valkyrie or Barbarian due to lacking their strong weapon selection. Fortunately, Cavepeople are still relatively strong as a role with access to viable weapons that can get them through the early game, and their quest artifact The Sceptre of Might is one of the best in the game.

Character creation

Cavepeople possess the second-largest spellcasting penalty of all roles after the Barbarian and are unlikely to ever cast a spell in their lives, so the primary factor in choice of starting race should be pure physical power. Dwarves are clearly the superior choice, with generous HP growth and the highest possible maximums of dexterity and constitution, with infravision and a relatively peaceful Gnomish Mines as secondary benefits. Humans are a distant second choice due to a more hostile Mines and lack of infravision. Gnomes tend to have the least racial benefits for the role: their maximum strength and HP growth are poor, and their bonus energy and higher maximum intelligence are virtually useless for Cavepeople.

Cavepeople are restricted in most of the strong one-handed weapon skills, so the deterministic nature of lawful sacrifice gifts can be an advantage: your first gift is likely to be an artifact long sword that unrestricts the skill and grants access to Excalibur, or even possibly one of the strongest artifact weapons in Grayswandir. In addition to the lower reliability of neutral sacrifice gifts, only humans and gnomes can be neutral Cavepeople, which carries the aforementioned drawbacks; The Sceptre of Might is also a stronger artifact in the hands of a lawful Caveperson, especially once you reach Gehennom.

Early game

After gaining a few levels, Cavepeople should seek to secure some permafood as soon as possible from one of the two early branches: non-human Cavepeople will have a much easier time in the Gnomish Mines, and can use their pet to procure quality weapons and armor; human Cavepeople will have a much more hostile Mines, but will also not be as pet-reliant in finding equipment. Sokoban is also a reasonable option for securing permafood and other loot. In either case, the hero should be able to keep themselves fed with the corpses of monsters they kill.

The Caveperson's sling and accompanying ammo can wear down stronger hostiles at range and circumvent the deadly passive attacks of monsters such as floating eyes—unfortunately, the ammo is also is quite heavy and will make the player want to drop them very quickly; upon finding a replacement ranged weapon or two, the hero can freely drop their sling ammo. The starting club should be just enough to tide the hero over until they can find a better melee weapon:

• The aklys uses the club skill, and while its damage is low, it is prized for the ability to easily pull double duty as a ranged and melee weapon: when thrown while wielded, it returns ⁹⁹⁄₁₀₀ of the time, and will be caught ⁹⁹⁄₁₀₀ of the time if the hero is not impaired.this lets the aklys easily. Most Cavepeople should be well off after locating a non-cursed aklys or two.
• Spears are also solid choices, since they can also double as melee weapons and "traditional" stackable projectiles; Cavepeople can reach Expert in spears, on top of their multishot bonus for thrown spears. The dwarvish spear in particular has the highest base damage of the weapon class, and can usually be found in the Gnomish Mines.

As with most melee-focused roles and character builds, high AC should be a main priority: the starting armor should be dumped as soon as possible for anything better that can be curse-tested and safely worn, with the dwarvish mithril-coat and elven mithril-coat being ideal candidates. While non-human Cavepeople are capable of performing a protection racket, this is a much more unreliable strategy for the role.

Mid game

Weapons

Cavepeople are notably restricted in all swords. If you have access to a co-aligned altar, you may want to sacrifice for an artifact weapon--most of which are swords. Receiving a weapon from your god automatically un-restricts the corresponding skill. If lawful, you can #dip for Excalibur, but it will still be restricted unless your god has given you a long sword. A well-enchanted spear is still a viable primary mid-game weapon; you can price-check for enchantment at a shop. You can find dwarvish spears in the Mines, and soldiers are often generated with normal spears.

Armor

Since they can neither #twoweapon nor cast many spells, Cavepeople need not worry as much about utilizing shields; in the event you chance upon a wish, Sokoban has not provided an amulet of reflection, and you have not found one elsewhere, a shield of reflection is particularly useful to wish for. This leaves the amulet slot open, and the reflection will prove vital for the Caveman quest.

General

Due to the nature of the quest, there is a guaranteed co-aligned temple on the first level of the quest branch. Normally, the temple will be effectively unavailable to you until you reach experience level 14, as your quest leader Shaman Karnov will keep rejecting you and sending you back to the main dungeon if you make a move for the altar. However, if you are fast enough to move adjacent to Shaman Karnov on his turn and then #chat to him, he will begin wandering around after returning you to the main dungeon. You can then come back to the home area and wait for him to move out of the way so you can get to the priest.

The monster generation for quest levels favors bugbears and other humanoids, most of which are no trouble at this point outside of mind flayers; hill giants can provide valuable strength boosts from their corpses, and so it may be worth bringing a tinning kit along to avoid constant satiation. Bringing down the quest nemesis, the Chromatic Dragon, almost requires magic resistance and reflection, though there are alternative strategies; see that article for more detailed information. Once you have retrieved the Sceptre of Might, corrode-proof it as soon as possible.

Late game

Weapons

Heading into the endgame, you must not rely on the Sceptre of Might as your only melee weapon or your only source of magic resistance, as the Sceptre can be stolen by the Wizard of Yendor. In case this happens, you need to be sure you have a backup weapon (one you would be willing to fight the Wizard with!) and a second source of magic resistance.

Armor

The shield of reflection is still a very useful item to have for your ascension kit, especially when combined with gray dragon scale mail; this provides redundant magic resistance in case the Sceptre is stolen, as well as the free amulet slot (e.g. for an amulet of magical breathing or life saving).

General

Once you have reached XL 15 and received the warning intrinsic, leveling further is not strictly necessary; while improved hit rates and hit points are nice to have, alchemy and a blessed luckstone combined with high luck from sacrifices can easily provide a good substitute. In addition to alchemizing potions of full healing, nurse corpses can be freely eaten by human Cavepeople to recover full HP; blessed tins of nurse meat provide a very effective healing resource for the late game alongside potions of full healing.

As discussed earlier, most Cavepeople are unlikely to take up spell-casting; even though a player can sufficiently boost their intelligence and opt for a robe, Cavepeople can only advance their skill in attack and matter spells, and will very likely prefer wands and other magical items. Unlike the Barbarian's ability to cast haste self, the Caveperson's special spell, dig, is of much more questionable utility, and wands of digging (which the player is likely to have several by that point) serve the same purpose for much less opportunity cost.

Origin

The Caveman role is based on the stock character used to represent primitive humans in the Paleolithic era, and such depictions date to the early 20th century, when Neanderthals were influentially described as "simian" or "ape-like". The later ranks of the caveman are based on how real life archaic humans such as Neanderthals actually lived nomadic lifestyles, while they did use caves as shelters, they relyed more on moving with the seasons to hunt for food.

Variants

SLASH'EM

Cavepeople in SLASH'EM have a handful of benefits beyond their NetHack equivalents; most obvious is their natural 2-square vision range, making corridors and places like the Gnomish Mines substantially safer to explore. In addition, they are guaranteed Skullcrusher as their first sacrifice gift, which is a weapon that holds its own well into the late game. Lawful Cavepeople will gain a point of alignment for commiting cannibalism, with the message "You honour the dead". Also, their starting stack of flint stones can be upgraded into luckstones or healthstones. Unfortunately, The Sceptre of Might is considerably worse in SLASH'EM, and is not recommended as a main weapon unless no other alternatives exist.

The Caveperson's Primal roar technique can be a life-saver in early levels; using it temporarily boosts all your nearby pets up a tier in growth (a kitten becomes a housecat, a dog becomes a large dog, etc.). Enterprising Cavepeople may find this technique useful in the late game as well, if they happen to find themselves with liches or gnolls as pets.

UnNethack

UnNethack gives Cavepeople a bit of help at the beginning: their starting pet is a wolf.

Encyclopedia entry

Human Cave(wo)man

Now it was light enough to leave. Moon-Watcher picked up the shriveled corpse and dragged it after him as he bent under the low overhang of the cave. Once outside, he threw the body over his shoulder and stood upright - the only animal in all this world able to do so.
Among his kind, Moon-Watcher was almost a giant. He was nearly five feet high, and though badly undernourished weighed over a hundred pounds. His hairy, muscular body was halfway between ape and man, but his head was already much nearer to man than ape. The forehead was low, and there were ridges over the eye sockets, yet he unmistakably held in his genes the promise of humanity.

[ 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke ]

Dwarvish/Gnomish Cave(wo)man

'Twas in a land unkempt of life's red dawn;
Where in his sanded cave he dwelt alone;
Sleeping by day, or sometimes worked upon
His flint-head arrows and his knives of stone;
By night stole forth and slew the savage boar,
So that he loomed a hunter of loud fame,
And many a skin of wolf and wild-cat wore,
And counted many a flint-head to his name;
Wherefore he walked the envy of the band,
Hated and feared, but matchless in his skill.
Till lo! one night deep in that shaggy land,
He tracked a yearling bear and made his kill;
Then over-worn he rested by a stream,
And sank into a sleep too deep for dream.

[ The Dreamer, by Robert Service ]