Archeologist

Archeologists are one of the harder roles, but can become powerful in the late game. They are often called Arcs for short. According to the guidebook:

Archeologists understand dungeons pretty well; this  enables
them  to  move  quickly  and sneak up on the local nasties.  They
start equipped with the tools for a proper scientific expedition.

Archeologists can be lawful (human or dwarf) or neutral (human or gnome).

Starting equipment

• +2 bullwhip,
• +0 leather jacket,
• +0 fedora,
• 3 to 6 uncursed food rations,
• +0 pick-axe,
• uncursed tinning kit (30 to 99 charges),
• uncursed touchstone,
• uncursed sack.
• Following chances of ONE of:,
  • 10% uncursed tin opener,
  • 22.5% uncursed oil lamp,
  • 6.75% uncursed magic marker (30 to 99 charges).

Abilities

Archeologists gain the following abilities upon reaching the specified experience level:

• XL 1 : Stealth
• XL 1 : Speed
• XL 10: Searching

Additionally:

• You can use two-weapon combat.
• You can use uncursed touchstones as blessed.

Stats

You start with a base 11 HP, with a racial bonus: +2 for humans, +4 for dwarves, +1 for gnomes.

You start with a base power of 1, with a racial bonus: +2 for gnomes, +1 for humans.

Quest

The archeologist quest artifact is The Orb of Detection, a crystal ball. When carried, it confers magic resistance, telepathy and half damage when attacked by spells. When #invoked, it toggles invisibility on/off.

Gods

• Lawful: Quetzalcoatl
• Neutral: Camaxtli
• Chaotic: Huhetotl

Archeologist rank titles

The status line shows you to be one of the following ranks when you reach the specified experience level:

• XL 1-2: Digger
• XL 3-5: Field Worker
• XL 6-9: Investigator
• XL 10-13: Exhumer
• XL 14-17: Excavator
• XL 18-21: Spelunker
• XL 22-25: Speleologist
• XL 26-29: Collector
• XL 30: Curator

Origin

The archeologist's attire is heavily influenced by the Indiana Jones movies - you start with a leather jacket, fedora and bullwhip. The encyclopedia entry for Archeologist states:

             Archeology is the search for fact, not truth. [...]
             So forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel,
             and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried
             treasure, and X never, ever, marks the spot.
                     [ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ]

Strategy

Early Archeologists are neither berserkers nor powerful spellcasters, but can - and must - become proficient tool-users. The early game must be played cautiously, akin to the Tourist and Healer.

Your starting touchstone will instantly identify a gem even when uncursed. This is useful in the mines, where many gems clutter the floor and where there are shops in which to sell precious stones, and a priest to donate the cash to. Luck is very important in the early game, so you should throw your oversupply of gems (or at least your cheap ones) to unicorns.

Weapon selection and skills

Archeologist skills
Max	Skills
Basic	Weapons: dagger, knife, short sword, dart Combat: two weapon combat, riding Spells: attack, healing, matter
Skilled	Weapons: scimitar, club, quarterstaff, sling, unicorn horn
Expert	Weapons: pick-axe, saber, boomerang, whip Combat: bare hands Spells: divination

The best early weapons are the pick-axe and your starting whip (purely for the +2 bonus; whips are ordinarily quite poor). The whip can be applied towards a monster, which will disarm the monster if your dexterity is 6 or higher. This can be a lifesaver when fighting some monsters, given your poor starting AC. Dwarvish mattocks are two handed pick-axes that do more damage than any other non-artifact weapon.

A good artifact weapon for you is Grayswandir, which does double-damage and silver damage. A normal silver saber is an excellent weapon - the watch captain in Minetown often carries one, so consider getting a pet to kill him for it.

Archeologists should, like all roles, advance dagger to basic as soon as possible. Advancing pick-axe to expert is probably also a good idea, as a dwarvish mattock may be your primary weapon until you get an artifact. That artifact will hopefully be Grayswandir, so advance saber to expert too. That uses 12 skill slots so far, which you will have available at XL 13 - before you do the quest.

Later on you may want expert divination for casting magic mapping and identify, and basic in two weapon combat for supplementing your artifact sword with a silver saber. That uses 19 skill slots, for which you must be XL 20.

Very late in the game (XL 20 or over) you might consider polypiling for some boomerangs. A stack of +7 boomerangs can do a lot of damage if advanced to expert level. However, it's probably not worth advancing your skill in boomerangs if you only have 1 or 2 of them--thus this is only a viable strategy late in the game.

Actions Specific to an Archeologist

The following actions abuse your alignment:

• digging up graves, if you are lawful. You get the additional "You feel like a despicable grave robber." message in all cases, but you don't abuse your alignment if you're neutral, for example.
• breaking historically significant statues, like the ones on the Oracle level.

Ascension kit

You should not rely on The Orb of Detection as a source of magic resistance; the Wizard of Yendor and other covetous monsters can easily steal it. Assuming you do not wish for another quest artifact, that essentially requires you to wear either gray dragon scale mail or a cloak of magic resistance.

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