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 |
- This article is about the mundane weapon. 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
All Healers start each game with a +0 scalpel as their weapon.[1]
Scalpels are not randomly generated, though they can be wished for or found in bones.
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
A scalpel has a +2 to-hit bonus. 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 that are roughly on par with orcish daggers, with their only real advantage lying in metal being inherently erosion-proofed. While actual knives are better as melee weapon and projectiles, they tend to be sparsely generated compared to other projectiles like daggers, and are not especially strong 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 either gather a decent stack of knives 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 c056ca1b.
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, notdNetHack, and notnotdNetHack, scalpels have weaker base damage, with the same 1d3 slashing damage against small monsters and only 1d1 damage versus large monsters, but their to-hit bonus is raised to +3. Like all slashing weapons, scalpels can be poisoned by dipping them in an appropriate potion.
Nurses are always generated with scalpels, and those generated in the Madman quest are given filth-encrusted scalpels. Deminymphs that are given healer kits will always generate with scalpels, and those generated on the Drow Healer quest will have scalpels made of obsidian.
Healers gain to-hit and damage bonuses from their skill in healing spells when attacking with scalpels: +0 at Basic, +2 at Skilled, +3 at Expert). At Expert skill in healing spells and at least Basic in knives, a scalpel is roughly equivalent to other starting weapons when in the hands of a Healer, though it is still outperformed by a unicorn horn or quarterstaff at high strength.
xNetHack
In xNetHack, scalpels are made stronger, and deal 1d5 damage versus small monsters and 1d7 damage versus large ones.
Nurses have a 1⁄5 chance of generating with a scalpel.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, a scalpel can be created at a forge by combining a knife and a stiletto.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, the Undertaker role starts with a +2 scalpel as their weapon.
Player monster undertakers are always generated with scalpels.
Encyclopedia 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.
