Sergeant (monster)

From NetHackWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
@ sergeant Sergeant.png
Difficulty 10
Attacks

Weapon 2d6 physical

Base level 8
Base experience 118
Speed 10
Base AC 10
Base MR 5
Alignment −3 (chaotic)
Frequency (by normal means) 1 (Very rare)
Genocidable Yes
Weight 1450
Nutritional value 400
Size Medium
Resistances None
Resistances conveyed None

A sergeant:

Reference NetHack 3.6.7 - src/monst.c, line 2246
This article is about the Yendor military monster. For the rank title and other uses of the term, see Sergeant (disambiguation).

A sergeant, @, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The sergeant is a chaotic-aligned human fighter that is higher-ranked than the soldier in the Yendorian army, which informally refers to a group of human mercenaries that are directly employed by the Wizard of Yendor.

Sergeants are strong and omnivorous, can be seen via infravision, will pick up any weapons, armor, food, and other items that they come across, and can follow a hero to other levels if they are adjacent. Applying a bugle will cause sergeants that hear it to awaken from any sleep, end any paralysis or scaring, and turn hostile if they are currently not[1][2]—any sergeants and other non-guard mercenaries that have a bugle will play it to awaken, unscare and/or unparalyze any nearby army fighters, with the same effect as the hero playing a bugle.[3] A sergeant cannot be made tame, only becoming peaceful instead. As a mercenary, they have a 2⁄3 chance of being pacified by a bribe, with the sergeant having a base value of 250zm for acceptable bribes.[4][5][6]

A sergeant has a single weapon attack.

Generation

Sergeants are always generated hostile, and are frequently generated in small groups of 2-4. They are not a valid polymorph form. A soldier can grow up into a sergeant, and a sergeant can grow up into a lieutenant.

A barracks has a 3⁄20 chance of generating a sleeping sergeant on each square at level creation, including the following:[7]

Monster starting inventory

Main article: Mercenary

As mercenaries, sergeants have more specific generation rules than most other monsters.[16][17]

A sergeant will be generated with either a flail or a mace as their primary weapon with roughly equal probability.[18] Default generation for mercenaries means that a sergeant also has a 1⁄4 chance of being given a dagger as a primary weapon and a 1⁄7 chance of being given a spear as a secondary weapon, and any sergeant that has a primary weapon other than a dagger and no secondary weapon then has a 1⁄4 chance of being given a knife as their secondary weapon.[19]

For armor, a sergeant has a target AC of 0 and may receive the following armor:[20]

  • They have a 4⁄5 chance of receiving body armor that counts for 6 points of their target AC and will either be splint mail (2⁄3 chance) or banded mail (1⁄3 chance).[21]
    • If neither splint nor banded mail is given, they have a 4⁄5 chance of receiving either ring mail (2⁄3 chance) or studded leather armor (1⁄3 chance) that counts for 3 points of their target AC.[22] Otherwise, they will be given leather armor that counts for 2 points of their target AC.[23]
  • They have a 2⁄3 chance of being given a helmet that counts for 1 point of their target AC.[24] Otherwise, they have a 1⁄2 chance of being given a dented pot that counts for 1 point of their target AC.[25]
  • They have a 2⁄3 chance of being given a small shield that counts for 1 point of their target AC.[26] Otherwise, they have a 1⁄2 chance of being given a large shield that counts for 2 points of their target AC.[27]
  • They have a 2⁄3 chance of being given a pair of low boots that counts for 1 point of their target AC.[28] Otherwise, they have a 1⁄2 chance of being given a pair of high boots that counts for 2 points of their target AC.[29]
  • They have a 2⁄3 chance of being given a pair of leather gloves that counts for 1 point of their target AC.[30] Otherwise, they have a 1⁄2 chance of being given a leather cloak that counts for 1 point of their target AC.[31]

Finally, a sergeant has a 1⁄3 chance of generating with a K-ration, a separate 1⁄2 chance of generating with a C-ration, and a separate 1⁄3 chance of generating with a bugle.[32] All sergeants are eligible for offensive items, defensive items and miscellaneous items.[33][34][35]

Strategy

Main article: Soldier strategy

Sergeants are slightly tougher than soldiers and likely to generate with better weapons, but can be handled in most of the same ways: drawing them into a corridor is effective for both reducing vulnerability and thinning their ranks, especially if other hostile fighters zap attack wands at them to get to you. While a wand of death is rare enough that reflection or magic resistance are not strictly required, said wands can still be a danger to the hero. Additionally, be mindful of leaving chickatrice and cockatrice corpses around sergeants with gloves (especially in the Castle or within Gehennom), and have lizard corpses or other cures for stoning ready to go in case.

Sergeants have the same movement speed of 10 as the rest of the Yendor military, and can be a valuable source of wands if a zap from a wand of lightning does not destroy them. They also completely lack any MR score, meaning that poisoned weapons, poison attacks and various forms of magic are very often effective. The bugles sergeants can carry do introduce potential wrinkles, however: sergeants and other fighters will apply a bugle if any of their fellow fighters nearby are scared or immobilized, which can wake up entire barracks and ruin stealth-based approaches while scaring pets—this may also awaken other nearby monsters as well if the combat itself does not do so.

Leftover equipment from sergeants make a good source of polyfodder and/or replacements for any eroded or lower-enchantment armor, and their rations make for good nutrition sources. A human hero should make sure they do not eat a sergeant corpse by accident while trying to pluck their rations off the ground if they are in a hurry—similarly, a human hero that is polymorphed into a mind flayer or master mind flayer should not attack them in melee if they want to avoid cannibalism penalties. Human Cavepeople and heroes of other races can eat sergeant corpses safely for half the nutrition of a standard food ration, while chaotic human heroes can use them as same-race sacrifices to summon major demons and raise their luck—a human hero that is not chaotic or a Caveperson can still use the corpse to feed any meat-eating pets.

Though not commonly employed, bribery can be used can be used to block off a hallway using a pacified sergeant, since hostile monsters will not route their movement past peaceful ones. This can help a hero herd and eliminate groups of monsters with other crowd control strategies, including pounding and casting skilled fireball or cone of cold—it will not stop teleporting or covetous foes, however, and breath weapons and other ranged attacks can still kill the sergeant. Additionally, sergeants require more gold to be bribed compared to soldiers.

History

The sergeant first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.

From NetHack 3.0.0 to NetHack 3.1.3, including some variants based on those versions, sergeants and other mercenaries have their intended target AC recorded in their monster data, with code in makemon.c set to outfit them with armor that matches the target AC[36]—any difference is compensated for by equipping that monster with a ring of protection whose enchantment is equivalent to that difference, with the ring being cursed if that difference was negative (i.e. a sergeant's equipment took them above their target AC).[37] Additionally, from NetHack 3.1.0 to NetHack 3.1.3, sergeants only appear if the ARMY and MUSE compile-time options are both defined: if only the former is defined, then they are replaced by unarmored soldiers.[38]

NetHack 3.2.0 phases out the unarmored soldier and makes MUSE a default feature while also establishing the modern mechanism of equipment generation for mercenaries, removing the ring of protection from the process.

From NetHack 3.0.0 to NetHack 3.3.0, sergeants and other Yendorian army monsters move at a much slower speed of 4—in NetHack 3.3.1, their speed is boosted to 10.

From NetHack 3.0.4 to NetHack 3.0.6, sergeants and other Yendorian army members use the @ glyph—sergeants are given their current glyph color in NetHack 3.0.7.

From NetHack 3.2.0 to NetHack 3.3.1, sergeants and other Yendorian army monsters can generate with elven cloaks—the leather cloak is introduced in NetHack 3.4.0 to resolve this incongruity, as stated in that version's bugfix list.

Messages

"Resistance is useless!"
"You're dog meat!"
"Surrender!"
You were chatting to a hostile sergeant.[39]

Variants

In some variants of NetHack, sergeants are treated as racial monsters.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, barracks will not be randomly generated under normal circumstances due to a bug that reverses the check for genocided monsters, meaning that barracks will only appear if soldiers specifically are genocided[40]—such barracks will consist mostly of random monsters alongside a few sergeants and higher-ranked army members. Predefined barracks such as those in the Castle will appear normally, as in NetHack.[41][42][43]

In the black market, Yendorian army officers are called in place of the Keystone Kops if the hero steals anything, with sergeants generated in place of Kop Sergeants.[44][45]

The sergeant's starting weapons are changed drastically if the FIREARMS compile-time option is defined: Their primary weapon has a roughly equal probability of being either an assault rifle with 2 different stacks of 3–32 bullets as ammo, or an auto shotgun with 2 different stacks of 3–12 shotgun shells.[46] Their secondary weapon will be either a knife or a dagger with roughly equal probability.[47] Sergeants will also be given a stack of either 3–7 frag grenades or 3–7 gas grenades, and have a separate 1⁄5 chance of being given a grenade launcher.[48][49]

The sergeant's armor selection, starting food, chance of a bugle, and their fall-through cases for daggers, spears and knives are all applied as in NetHack.[50][51][52][53][54][55] Their melee weapon selection will also remain the same as NetHack if FIREARMS is not defined.[56]

GruntHack

Main article: Sergeant (GruntHack)

In GruntHack, sergeants and other Yendorian army fighters are racial monsters, and can be generated as any applicable race.

SporkHack

In SporkHack, the soldiers guarding the four towers of the Castle are replaced by sergeants.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, Yendorian army officers are called in place of the Keystone Kops if the hero steals anything in the black market, with sergeants generated in place of Kop Sergeants.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, sergeants are lawful rather than chaotic. Sergeants have skilled prowess in martial combat and a full base attack bonus of +1 to-hit per level, can command accompanying soldiers fighting alongside them to increase their damage and accuracy, and can be similarly commanded by lieutenants and captains to gain damage and accuracy boosts. They have a mutual grudge with skeletal pirates and damned pirates.

Several sergeants are generated on various levels of the Law quest at level creation:

  • A sergeant is placed randomly on the road to the Arcadian Fortress.
  • Four sergeants are generated on the outskirts of the fortress drawbridge.
  • Eight sergeants are generated within the inner section of the fortress, with each one accompanied by a group of three soldiers.
  • The fourth floor of the Arcadian Tower contains a sergeant accompanied by three soldiers.

When randomly generating soldiers via normal monster creation on certain levels of the Law quest, there is a 1⁄6 chance of a sergeant being generated instead: this applies to the Arcadian Road, the outskirts of the Arcadian Fortress, the inner section of the fortress, and the second floor, which is divided between the dwelling of the Arsenal and the ground floor of the Arcadian Tower. If soldiers or sergeants are extinct or genocided when the game attempts to randomly generate them in this manner, a random human or elf will be generated instead.

Zombified sergeants can appear among the many undead that are randomly generated in the Anachrononaut quest and Android quest after level creation.

Sergeants may appear among the random @ that are part of the first quest monster class for Binders and make up 24⁄175 of the monsters randomly generated on the Binder quest. Two sergeants are also randomly placed on the locate level of the Binder quest at level creation.

Sergeants may additionally appear among the random @ that are part of the second standard quest monster class for Nobles and make up 6⁄175 of the monsters randomly generated on the default Noble quest. Some sergeants are also generated on the default Noble quest at level creation: one is placed on the northwest corner of the hero's stronghold on the home level alongside three soldiers, and two more are placed randomly on the goal level.

Some sergeants are generated on a few floors of the Pirate quest at level creation: one is placed randomly on the home level, and another is randomly placed on each lower filler level.

In the Tourist quest, the Kop Sergeant placed within the "police station" structure on the goal level is replaced by a sergeant, as dNetHack replaces the Keystone Kop monster class.

Sergeants in dNetHack have their starting inventory changed significantly:

  • For their primary weapon, they have a roughly equal probability of generating with either a flail or a mace as in NetHack, and have a separate 1⁄2 chance of being given a crossbow with 3–38 crossbow bolts as ammo.
  • As in NetHack, default generation for mercenaries means that a sergeant also has a 1⁄4 chance of being given a dagger as a primary weapon and a 1⁄7 chance of being given a spear as a secondary weapon, and any sergeant that has a primary weapon other than a dagger and no secondary weapon then has a 1⁄4 chance of being given a knife as their secondary weapon.
  • For armor, sergeants that are generated in the Law quest are always created with harmonium scale mail, a harmonium helm, a pair of harmonium gauntlets, and a pair of harmonium boots. Otherwise, they are given armor for each slot as detailed below, with the base AC for each given piece of armor counted towards their target AC of 0:
    • For their suit, they have the same chance of receiving splint mail, banded mail, ring mail, studded leather armor, or leather armor as in NetHack.
    • For their helm, they have a 2⁄3 chance of being given a helmet, a 1⁄2 chance of being given a leather helm if they are not given a helmet, and a 1⁄10 chance of being given a war hat if they are not given a leather helm.
    • For their shield, they have the same chance of being given a buckler or a kite shield as they do in NetHack, with both items being equivalent to the small shield and large shield respectively. Otherwise, they have a 1⁄2 chance of being given a roundshield if they are not given either of the aforementioned shields.
    • For their boots, they have the same chance of being given a pair of low boots or high boots as they do in NetHack. Otherwise, they have a 1⁄2 chance of being given a pair of armored boots if they are not given either of the aforementioned boots.
    • For their gloves, they have a 2⁄3 chance of being given a pair of gloves, and a 1⁄2 chance of being given a pair of gauntlets if they are not given standard gloves.
    • For their cloak, they have a 1⁄2 chance of being given a standard cloak.
  • Sergeants have the same chance of being given C-rations and K-rations as in NetHack, but this chance does not apply if they are placed on level creation (including generation in barracks), are generated in the Law quest, or are created as zombies. They also have the same chance of generating with a bugle as in NetHack.

EvilHack

Main article: Sergeant (EvilHack)

In EvilHack, sergeants and other Yendorian army fighters are racial monsters and can be generated as any applicable race.

Encyclopedia entry

The soldiers of Yendor are well-trained in the art of war, many trained by the Wizard himself. Some say the soldiers are explorers who were unfortunate enough to be captured, and put under the Wizard's spell. Those who have survived encounters with soldiers say they travel together in platoons, and are fierce fighters. Because of the load of their combat gear, however, one can usually run away from them, and doing so is considered a wise thing.

References

  1. ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3730
  2. ↑ src/music.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 184
  3. ↑ src/muse.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 490
  4. ↑ src/dokick.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 360
  5. ↑ src/dokick.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 363
  6. ↑ src/dokick.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 370
  7. ↑ src/mkroom.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 766: populating barracks
  8. ↑ dat/Tourist.des in NetHack 3.6.7, line 171
  9. ↑ dat/Tourist.des in NetHack 3.6.7, line 172
  10. ↑ dat/Tourist.des in NetHack 3.6.7, line 174
  11. ↑ dat/Tourist.des in NetHack 3.6.7, line 328
  12. ↑ dat/Tourist.des in NetHack 3.6.7, line 336
  13. ↑ dat/Tourist.des in NetHack 3.6.7, line 338
  14. ↑ dat/knox.des in NetHack 3.6.7, line 98: Ludios barracks
  15. ↑ dat/castle.des in NetHack 3.6.7, line 240-L241: Castle barracks
  16. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 188
  17. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 591
  18. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 199
  19. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 209-L221
  20. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 601
  21. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 625
  22. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 628
  23. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 631
  24. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 634
  25. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 636
  26. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 638
  27. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 640
  28. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 642
  29. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 644
  30. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 646
  31. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 648
  32. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 665
  33. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 556
  34. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 794
  35. ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 796
  36. ↑ makemon.c in NetHack 3.0.0, line 328
  37. ↑ makemon.c in NetHack 3.0.0, line 353
  38. ↑ monst.c in NetHack 3.1.0, line 1732
  39. ↑ src/sounds.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 913
  40. ↑ mklev.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 769
  41. ↑ mkroom.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 324
  42. ↑ mkroom.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 815
  43. ↑ mkroom.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 819
  44. ↑ shk.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 367
  45. ↑ shk.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 3935
  46. ↑ makemon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 293
  47. ↑ makemon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 302
  48. ↑ makemon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 303
  49. ↑ makemon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 308
  50. ↑ makemon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 358
  51. ↑ makemon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 364
  52. ↑ makemon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1002
  53. ↑ makemon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1011
  54. ↑ makemon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1031
  55. ↑ makemon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1033
  56. ↑ makemon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 314: falls through to this case if FIREARMS is not defined
Retrieved from "https://nethackwiki.com/index.php?title=Sergeant_(monster)&oldid=204866"