Barbarian

The Barbarian, abbreviated as Bar, is one of the roles available for a hero in NetHack. According to the guidebook:

Barbarians are warriors out of the hinterland, hardened to battle. They begin their quests with naught but uncommon strength, a trusty hauberk, and a great two-handed sword.

Barbarians can be humans or orcs, and can be of neutral or chaotic.

Starting equipment

Each Barbarian starts with the following equipment:

• Either of these weapon sets (with equal probability):
  • a +0 two-handed sword and a +0 axe
  • a +0 battle-axe and a +0 short sword
• a +0 ring mail
• 1-2 food rations
• an oil lamp (¹⁄₆ chance or 16.67%)

Orcish Barbarians receive an orcish short sword in place of a short sword, a set of orcish ring mail in place of ring mail, and are given two additional stacks of 1-2 random comestibles.

Barbarians start with knowledge of all non-magical weapons and armor, in addition to any applicable racial equipment.

The Barbarian's default starting pet is a little dog named Idefix.

Intrinsics

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

• Level 1: poison resistance
• Level 7: speed
• Level 15: stealth

Attributes

The Barbarian's starting attributes are distributed as follows:

Attributes	Strength	Dexterity	Constitution	Intelligence	Wisdom	Charisma	Remaining
Minimum attributes	16	15	16	7	7	6	8
Distribution percentages	30%	20%	30%	6%	7%	7%
Mean w/ standard deviation (human)	18/00.89±1.34	16.72±1.01	17.69±0.59	7.60±0.87	7.69±0.91	6.60±0.87

Skills

Barbarians have the following skills available to them:

Barbarian skills
Max	Skills
Basic	Weapons: dagger, saber, flail, quarterstaff, bow Combat: two weapon combat, riding Spells: attack, escape
Skilled	Weapons: pick-axe, broadsword, long sword, scimitar, club, mace, morning star, spear, trident
Expert	Weapons: axe, short sword, two-handed sword, hammer
Master	Combat: bare hands

Barbarians start with Basic skill in axes and bare-handed combat, along with either short swords or two-handed swords depending on their starting weapons. They use the intelligence stat to cast spells, and their special spell is haste self.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.

Per commit 296a3ac2, the scimitar skill is merged into the saber skill, and Barbarians can train sabers to Skilled.

Special rules

The barbarian's attack messages replace most instances of "hit" with "smite" (e.g. "You smite the goblin!"), but this is flavor text with no gameplay effect.

Rank titles

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

• XL 1–2: Plunderer/Plunderess
• XL 3–5: Pillager
• XL 6–9: Bandit
• XL 10–13: Brigand
• XL 14–17: Raider
• XL 18–21: Reaver
• XL 22–25: Slayer
• XL 26–29: Chieftain/Chieftainess
• XL 30: Conqueror/Conqueress

Gods

The Barbarian pantheon is based on the Hyborian pantheon from Robert E. Howard's Conan mythos. Their first sacrifice gift is Cleaver.

• Lawful: Mitra
• Neutral: Crom
• Chaotic: Set

Quest

The Barbarian's quest sees them fight Thoth Amon for The Heart of Ahriman, an artifact luckstone. While carried, it confers stealth in addition to acting as a luck item like other luckstones, and can be invoked to toggle controlled levitation, even if already levitating: after invoking this effect, the hero can return to the ground by pressing >, or else by dropping or stashing the artifact.

Strategy

Because a Barbarian does not need to worry about poison and can fight their way through situations that would kill other heroes, they are one of the easier roles for a new player.

Character creation

Being an orc has relatively few benefits for a Barbarian: their poison resistance is redundant, and their 18/50 strength cap limits their late-game damage without gauntlets of power. While they have a wider selection of safe corpses without cannibalism penalties, orcish corpses are already commonplace in the early game - this does make altar conversion and raising luck much easier for always-chaotic orcs. Orcish Barbarians may also have the best ranged weapon for the melee-focused role, due to their +1 multishot bonus from using an orcish bow and orcish arrows; the frequency of hostile orcs also makes it easy to assemble a sizable stack of arrows.

Human Barbarians are not as troubled by a lack of infravision as humans in other roles since a Barbarian's ranged options are overall limited, though they should still exercise caution in dark levels, hallways and cavernous areas such as the Gnomish Mines. The aklys is a decent ranged option that can double as a melee weapon, though it cannot be multishot and has low damage; spears are fairly heavy in exchange for somewhat better damage, and can be trained to Skilled and multishot, but amassing a stack of them is typically difficult in general. A human's superior strength cap of 18/** also makes them a better pick for damage output than an orc.

In addition to same-race sacrifice perks, chaotic Barbarians can decrease prayer timeout more quickly through sacrifice, have a more merciful mysterious force, and murder is more feasible due to the relatively lax penalties. While neutral Barbarians have access to a generally better selection of artifact weapons, chaotic ones have access to one of the best in Stormbringer.

Early game

Barbarians should have no trouble dishing out damage, but should not lean on health and armor to carry them through every fight; their intrinsic poison resistance increases the amount of corpses that can be eaten in lieu of permafood. Early altars are a good opportunity to convert them and build luck - as mentioned prior, orcish Barbarians have an easier time finding corpses to convert altars with, though human barbarians can still make use of werecreature corpses or the corpses dropped by human zombies and mummies.

Weapons

Most Barbarians should use their starting two-handed weapon to maximize damage, while seeking out their first sacrifice gift in Cleaver as soon as possible: at minimum, Cleaver's ability to slice through multiple foes provides a well-needed early boon for dealing with groups of hostiles, such as giant ants and hill orcs.

Armor

The starting mail should be replaced with better metal armor as soon as possible, preferably an elven or dwarvish mithril-coat. The Barbarian's combat capabilities make the Gnomish Mines a viable choice to visit early, as they are likely to come across dwarven armor that they can test with their pet.

Mid game

While the Barbarian quest is not especially difficult compared to those of other roles, there are still many significant wrinkles. Monster generation is biased towards ogres and trolls, and the stronger ones can prove fairly durable and heavily damaging, especially for an under-prepared Barbarian; trolls and ogres are also eligible for high-level offensive items, such as the wand of lightning or even the wand of death. Barbarians preparing for the quest will usually seek out at least another artifact weapon to twoweapon with and increase their damage, though Cleaver can still help deal with hordes of ogres and other hostiles, especially in the wide-open levels of the quest. More careful players will typically postpone the quest until they obtain magic resistance or reflection, and in some cases may even wait until they are about to perform the invocation (or are particularly desperate for a silver 'weapon' to handle Orcus-town shades).

Additionally, misfortune with reviving trolls may cause them to "swarm" around the hero as they rise from the dead faster than they can be disposed of - a tinning kit can be extremely helpful in this situation, as can a wielded footrice corpse; meat-eating pets can help dispose of corpses as well, and the locate level has a large body of water that troll corpses can be thrown into, where they will drown upon reviving. Among last-resort options, a bag of holding can be dropped on the floor and used to stash troll corpses until they fail to revive; the trolls on the goal level can also be lured up the stairs (since they will follow a hero that changes levels if they are adjacent) and dispatched on the level above, eventually leaving the hero free to deal with the ogres and the quest nemesis. Thoth Amon himself is not especially difficult by quest nemesis standards, and his low MR score means that a Barbarian can use wands or potions to immobilize him and hack away or even zap him with a wand of death, even if they do not have magic resistance themselves.

Finally, there is the notable lack of incentive presented by The Heart of Ahriman, which is commonly regarded as one of the most useless quest artifacts. Its base item is a luckstone, which is guaranteed at Mines' End and can usually be found well before the Quest itself; its slotless stealth is made redundant by the stealth Barbarians gain at experience level 15, one level after the quest even becomes an option) While the levitation from invoking The Heart of Ahriman is far from useless, the effects can also be provided by a ring of levitation or even a potion of levitation without being dependent on a timer - levitation from the artifact does have a few advantages over those sources, since it is slotless, controllable (as with the blessed potion) and allows the hero to ride a non-flying steed.

Late game

Neutral Barbarians who are not averse to wishing for quest artifacts and have not generated too many artifacts may find The Orb of Fate a worthwhile use of a wish for its half physical damage and half spell damage, though it is also very heavy as well. Chaotic barbarians will prefer The Master Key of Thievery for its half physical damage and other effects.

Weapons

Cleaver becomes a risky weapon to carry into the lowest floors of the dungeon and beyond, since it does not resist item-cursing effects. Most Barbarians at this stage commit to two-weapon combat, if they have not already done so; Frost Brand, Stormbringer or Vorpal Blade are good candidates, with a silver spear or silver saber as an ideal offhand weapon. Keeping curse removal items in a separate bag to #tip out if needed is a good general practice, regardless of whether a Barbarian commits to Cleaver or elects for twoweaponing: while successful prayer treats a lack of free hands as a major trouble, it will not work in Gehennom, and the pace of the ascension run is too hectic to rely on prayer.

For Barbarians that opt to continue using Cleaver in the late game or even the end game, genociding liches and keeping Cleaver blessed will greatly reduce the danger of it becoming cursed.

Spellcasting

Spellcasting is essentially out of the question for Barbarians that do not have a robe: they have the highest spellcasting penalty in the game, making it impossible for them to cast any spell other than their special spell haste self at lower than a failure rate of 66% fail (or 67% without a worn helm of brilliance). Even with skill in escape spells, the failure rate of haste self will cap at 30% (31% without a helm of brilliance, 34% if escape spells are left at Unskilled). A Barbarian with a robe intending to cast spells will generally be limited to the low-level spells, including non-combat ones such as their special spell and jumping which they can use to speed up movement during the ascension run.

History

The Barbarian first appears in Hack 1.0 as the Fighter - NetHack 2.2a gives the role its current name.

Origin

The Barbarian as a role is heavily based on the Conan the Barbarian stories of Robert E. Howard, particularly including the titular anti-hero Conan, also known as Conan the Cimmerian (from the name of his homeland). The tales of Conan first debuted in the Weird Tales comics of the 1930s. Conan's iconic appearance features him with square-cut black hair, blue eyes, tanned skin, and giant stature, often wearing a barbarian's garb.

Conan was born on the battlefield during a battle in Cimmeria, where his mother Greshan was fatally wounded by an enemy while attempting to save her husband, the village blacksmith Corin. The weakened Greshan used the last of her strength to give birth to her son, and names him Conan before dying. Conan grew up quickly, and was already a respected warrior by age fifteen, participating in the destruction of the Aquilonian outpost of Venarium. Struck by wanderlust, Conan traveled the world, beginning the colorful and exciting adventures chronicled by Howard and others. Conan possesses great strength, combativeness, intelligence, agility, and endurance, as well as a sharp wit and sense of humor.

Conan has been a thief and outlaw, a mercenary and commander of a mercenary company, and a pirate; although his adventures often result in him performing heroic feats, Conan's primary motive is his own survival, enrichment, or rise to power. Licensed comics published in the 1970s by Marvel drew further popularity to the character, introducing the now-iconic image of Conan in his loincloth. The most popular cinematic adaptation is the 1982 film directed by John Milius and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan, in which the plot revolves around Conan facing the villainous Thulsa Doom.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, Barbarians are given a second sacrifice gift in Deathsword, and have many more playable races available to them—they are also charged more when buying from shops.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, in addition to human and orc, the vampire is available as a starting race for Barbarians.

The Heart of Ahriman gives its owner displacement and energy regeneration instead of stealth, making it more desirable acquisition for Barbarians and other chaotic roles.

dNethack

The Heart of Ahriman now grants MR, reflection, half-spell damage, drain resistance, fire resistance and poison resistance while carried, and #invokes for blessed remove curse. This makes uncursing your weapon a tad easier, so barbarians can possibly wield Cleaver late in the game.

SpliceHack

The starting weapon sets for Barbarians in SpliceHack are one of:

• +0 battle-axe and +0 short sword
• +0 falchion and +0 scimitar

The falchion is a two-handed scimitar. SpliceHack Barbarians can reach expert skill in scimitar.

SpliceHack Barbarians also have access to the blood rage skill, which boosts damage when the player has low health.

Encyclopedia entry

They dressed alike -- in buckskin boots, leathern breeks and deerskin shirts, with broad girdles that held axes and short swords; and they were all gaunt and scarred and hard-eyed; sinewy and taciturn.
They were wild men, of a sort, yet there was still a wide gulf between them and the Cimmerian. They were sons of civilization, reverted to a semi-barbarism. He was a barbarian of a thousand generations of barbarians. They had acquired stealth and craft, but he had been born to these things. He excelled them even in lithe economy of motion.
They were wolves, but he was a tiger.

[ Conan - The Warrior, by Robert E. Howard ]