Scalpel
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| |
|---|---|
| Name | scalpel |
| Appearance | scalpel |
| Damage vs. small | 1d3 |
| Damage vs. large | 1d3 |
| To-hit bonus | +2 |
| Weapon skill | knife |
| Size | one-handed |
| Base price | 6 zm (+10/positive enchant) |
| Weight | 5 |
| Material | metal |
- For the artifact weapon named "Scalpel" in SlashTHEM, see Mouser's Scalpel.
A scalpel is a type of weapon that appears in NetHack. It is a one-handed melee weapon that uses the knife skill, and is made of metal.
Contents
Generation
Scalpels are not randomly generated on the dungeon floor, in shops, or as a death drop.
All Healers start each game with a +0 scalpel as their weapon.[1]
Player monster healers, including those on the Astral Plane, have an effective 1⁄16 chance (6.25%) of generating with a scalpel in lieu of their initial weapon.[2]
Description
Scalpels are not suitable for throwing like other knives and have a -2 to-hit penalty when thrown, though they can still be multishot.[3][4][5]
Strategy
Scalpels are very poor weapons roughly on par with orcish daggers, with the only real advantage being their inherently erosion-proof material. However, knives tend to be sparse compared to other projectile weapons like daggers, and are slightly worse melee weapons themselves.
In any case, the starting scalpel for Healers may be worth keeping as a backup weapon against monsters such as acid blobs that can corrode or rust weapons; you can stash or simply ditch it once you gather a decent stack of knives and/or obtain a primary weapon that is either non-iron or erode-proofed. Early-game Healers can also use their scalpel to train the knife skill on gas spores, monitoring their HP with the stethoscope and healing it when it gets low to prevent the spore from dying and exploding.
History
The scalpel first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.
A bug caused player monster healers to receive stacks of scalpels during monster generation; this was fixed in NetHack 3.6.2 via commit c056ca1.
Origin
A scalpel is a small and extremely sharp bladed instrument used for surgery, anatomical dissection, podiatry and various arts and crafts (where it is either called a "hobby knife" or an "X-acto knife"); double-edged scalpels are referred to as "lancets". Scalpels may be single-use disposables or re-usable: Disposable scalpels usually have a plastic handle with a utility-knife style extensible blade, and are used once then discarded completely; re-usable scalpels have either removable single-use blades, or permanently attached blades that can be sharpened.
Scalpel blades are usually made of hardened and tempered steel, stainless steel, or high carbon steel; various other materials such as silver, titanium, ceramic, diamond and even obsidian are not uncommon, since steel blades are unusable when performing surgery under MRI guidance. Historically, the use of scalpels in medical contexts go back multiple millennia - there have been obsidian scalpels dated older than 2100 BC in a Bronze Age settlement located in Turkey, and skulls from the same era and location show signs of brain surgery.
Use of scalpels and identical tools have been recorded among various other cultures: the ancient Egyptians made incisions for embalming with scalpels of sharpened obsidian. The first medical writings of ancient Greeks indicate common use of scalpel-like tools such as the double-edged amphismela, which lends its name to a similar tool used in 18th-century France, and Ancient Romans used scalpels alongside more than 150 different surgical instruments. The amphismela is likely the basis for the starting scalpel of the Healer role in NetHack, which is heavily based on ancient Greece.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, Healers can use cure sickness or sliming using the surgery technique with a carried scalpel, making them a bit more useful.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, Healers also apply their healing spell skill level as bonuses to to-hit and damage when attacking with scalpels (+0 at Basic, +2 at Skilled, +3 at Expert). At maximum skill, a scalpel is roughly equivalent to other starting weapons in the hands of a Healer, though it is still outperformed by a unicorn horn or quarterstaff at high strength.
All nurses in dNetHack are generated with scalpels, as are some deminymphs. Several hostile nurses in the Madman quest are generated wielding sickness-poisoned scalpels.
xNetHack
In xNetHack, scalpels are made stronger and deal 1d5 damage versus small monsters and 1d7 damage versus large one. Nurses have a 1⁄5 chance of generating with a scalpel.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, a scalpel can be made at a forge by combining a knife and a stiletto.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM changes, the Undertaker role starts with a +2 scalpel as their weapon. Player monster undertakers are always generated with scalpels.
Encyclopaedia entry
A scalpel is a very sharp knife used for surgery ... Merely
touching a medical scalpel with bare hands to test it will
cut through the skin. ... Medical scalpel blades are gradually
curved for greater precision when cutting through tissue.
