Convict/dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, the Convict is a role available to the hero that is incorporated from the original Convict Role patch against NetHack 3.4.3 by Karl Garrison.
Convicts are always chaotic, which overrides normal alignment restrictions. In dNetHack, they can be played as humans, dwarves, gnomes, orcs, elves, drow, vampires, half-dragons, incantifiers, chiropterans, or yuki-onna. In notdNetHack, they can be played as leprechauns and salamanders in addition to the above races, while in notnotdNetHack they can additionally be played as octopodes.
A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:
"Add a bit more detail about salamander and octopode Convicts below."
Starting inventory
Each Convict starts with the following "equipment":
- a cursed striped shirt
- some rocks
- an uncursed +0 spoon
Convicts start with knowledge of the skeleton key, the grappling hook and any applicable racial equipment.
Orcish Convicts are exempt from the extra food given to orcs of most other roles, since there is no equipment replaced (as they barely have any at all). Drow Convicts are from fallen houses, and are not given any additional items as drow of most other roles are. Leprechaun Convicts will be given at least 2000 gold.
The Convict's default starting pet is a sewer rat named Nicodemus.
Intrinsics
Convicts gain the following intrinsic properties upon reaching the given experience levels:
- XL 1: Sickness resistance
- XL 7: Poison resistance
- XL 20: Automatic searching
Attributes
The Convict's starting attributes are distributed as follows:
| Attributes | Strength | Dexterity | Constitution | Intelligence | Wisdom | Charisma | Remaining |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum attributes | 10 | 7 | 13 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 25 |
| Distribution percentages | 20% | 20% | 20% | 20% | 10% | 10% |
Skills
Convicts in dNetHack have the following skills available to them before racial adjustments:
| Convict skills | |
|---|---|
| Max | Skills |
| Basic |
|
| Skilled |
|
| Expert | |
Convicts start with Basic skill levels in slings, due to the rocks in their inventory. They use the intelligence stat to cast spells, and their special spell is teleport away.
Special rules
Convicts start the game punished, with an alignment record of -10, a sin counter of 16, and a hod counter of 6 (with 11 needed for a Hod Sephirah to generate). Chiropteran Convicts will have the weight of their chained heavy iron ball set to 1600 aum.
Convicts start each game with 600 nutrition if they are an incantifier and 200 nutrition otherwise, and they burn nutrition at half the normal rate while they are at least hungry.
A Convict cannot tame domestic animals with food, which renders them peaceful at most, but has a chance of pacifying or taming rats by chatting to them.
Convicts that are not polymorphed can train the flail skill while using a heavy iron ball as a weapon, and can make sneak attacks while using a spoon as a melee weapon.
Convicts only gain 1 point of luck per luck item in their inventory, up to a maximum of +3 (which is the amount granted by a non-cursed luck item for other roles).
Watchmen, watch captains and guards that see an unpolymorphed Convict will become hostile.
Monsters of races that would normally be friendly to the hero will be generated hostile for Convicts.
A Convict descendant will have their inherited artifact placed in the locate level their Quest branch as opposed to beginning the game with it, while their experience gain is reduced to 1⁄2, and the increase in effective depth is applied upon reaching experience level 14 rather than immediately as with other descendants—starting attribute reductions are applied as normal.
Rank titles
The status line displays one of the following ranks for the corresponding experience levels:
- XL 1-2: Detainee
- XL 3-5: Inmate
- XL 6-9: Jail-bird
- XL 10-13: Prisoner
- XL 14-17: Outlaw
- XL 18-21: Crook
- XL 22-25: Desperado
- XL 26-29: Felon
- XL 30: Fugitive
Gods
The Convict pantheon is based on deities worshiped by the human inhabitants of Faerûn in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of Dungeons & Dragons. Their first gift is Luck Blade.
Ilmater's crowning gift is The Red Cords of Ilmater, while Grumbar and Tymora offer the standard crowning gifts for their alignment.
Quest
The Convict's quest sees them fight Warden Arianna for The Iron Spoon of Liberation, an artifact spoon. The Iron Spoon of Liberation grants automatic searching and free action, adds its enchantment as a bonus to manual searching, and acts as a luck item while carried, and while wielded it also grants stealth. As a weapon, The Iron Spoon of Liberation has +1d5 to-hit and double damage, and can be applied to dig as with other spoons. Engraving with the artifact has the same quality as using an athame. Invoking The Iron Spoon of Liberation grants temporary phasing.
Strategy
A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:
"Writeup in the section below applies primarily to 2017 dnh - update, and write other parts from scratch to be applicable to the most recent versions of dNetHack and its derivatives."
Vampiric Convicts
Vampires get the advantage of being able to fly, so you will never take damage when going downstairs with the iron ball (wielded or not). The sickness resistance is not very useful for food, but it may be useful late-game. Unless you get incredibly lucky, you will most likely not make it to turn 600 without fainting.
The monsters in the first few levels don't have much nutrition in their corpses, and since you only get 20% of the base nutrition it's even less. Getting lucky on the extra bite attack will give you a significant amount. Since this is unlikely, you may need to find a place to faint for 50-100 turns to make it to turn 600 in order to pray successfully. This goes a little contrary to the suggestions for vampires to constantly fight and for convicts to do whatever is necessary to find nutrition, but it may be necessary in some games.
The gnomish mines are a feast for vampire convicts. Once you have your first prayer, slaughtering a bunch of gnomes and dwarves is relatively easy. It's important to make the most out of your regeneration and not get overwhelmed, so make sure you play cautiously. This will level you up quickly and get you to poison resistance (convict specific). Once you have that, it opens up a new set of corpses that can be drained.
Minetown is especially dicey for vampire convicts, since the watch captain usually has a silver saber (50% chance) and is always hostile towards you. Since you are powerful and your iron ball does a lot of damage, it is feasible to kill the watch, but make sure to have an escape plan. You regenerate health faster than they do, so a hit and run strategy works well. Avoiding the watch captain until the rest are dealt with might be a good idea.
Once you survive, vampires can be a great race. With intrinsic flying and regeneration, combined with the sickness immunity from a convict makes you a very strong late-game character. Your death effect immunity can even supplement MR in some cases. If you can get over the early-game hump, a vampire convict can be very rewarding.
