Barbarian

The Barbarian is one of the player roles of NetHack. He or she is a strong melee fighter who starts the game with poison resistance. Because barbarians can fight their way through situations that would kill other players, and because they need not worry about poison, they are one of the easier classes for a new player.

In addition to starting with poison resistance, barbarians gain intrinsic speed at level 7 and intrinsic stealth at level 15.

Barbarians can be either neutral or chaotic, and can be either humans or orcs.

Barbarians should sacrifice corpses at altars until they receive Cleaver, their first sacrifice gift. Cleaver is an artifact battle-axe that goes well with the barbarian's melee style. Their Quest artifact is the Heart of Ahriman, which alas is not so useful, though you can #invoke it for levitation.

Equipment

A barbarian starts with:

• two-handed sword or battle-axe
• axe or short sword
• ring mail
• food ration
• 16% chance of an oil lamp

Barbarians receive an excellent two-handed major weapon and a somewhat weaker one-handed minor weapon. Fifty percent of new barbarians start with a two-handed sword and an axe (1H). The other fifty percent start with a battle-axe (2H) and a short sword (1H). A barbarian wielding a battle-axe will be able to dish out copious amounts of damage, and will most likely be skilled with axes by the time he receives Cleaver. Barbarians that start out with a two-handed sword often wind up saving it for those special occasions, and instead use their one-handed axe as their primary weapon in order to prepare for Cleaver.

Although your ring mail will get you by in the beginning of the game, it is the weakest mail armor, so you'll do well to keep an eye out for some heavier and better armor. Defense-wise, whichever armor gives you the lowest AC, is the best. Every moon has a dark side, though. Heavy armor (like plate mail) will limit your loot-carrying capacity, so packrats are ultimately better off searching high and low for a dwarvish mithril-coat (these are often found in the Gnomish Mines) in the early game.

Barbarians start off with but one food ration, but this is generally not a problem. Most fresh corpses (even the poisonous ones) will slide down a barbarian's gullet like an eel in a waxed tube. However, like other classes, barbarians need to avoid eating old corpses (including any corpse of a mummy or zombie) and the corpses of their dead pets. Cannibalism does not fly as far as human barbarians, so human corpses (including Keystone Kop) should be not be consumed lest you are willing to suffer the consequences. Barbarians will also gain aggravate monster if they eat dog or cat corpses (this won't be too much of a problem if you have stealth,though), so this should be avoided in all but the most desperate times.

Spellcasting

Barbarians use their intelligence stat to cast spells, but because their intelligence is low, they are restricted in most schools (though can reach skilled in attack spells), and as a role they hate magic, so spellcasting is close to impossible. They do have one special spell, haste self, which is easier than the others.

Barbarians are unlikely to do any spellcasting until the late game. Once they gather an ascension kit with a helm of brilliance and no metal nonmagic armor (for example, a dragon scale mail, gauntlets of power, speed boots or jumping boots, no shield), it might be feasible to enchant the helm of brilliance and start casting some spells, especially haste self and attack spells like force bolt.

Skills

Barbarian skills
Max	Skills
Basic	Weapons: dagger, saber, flail, quarterstaff, bow Combat: two weapon combat, riding Spells: attack, escape
Skilled	Weapons: pick-axe, broadsword, long sword, scimitar, club, mace, morning star, spear, trident
Expert	Weapons: axe, short sword, two-handed sword, hammer
Master	Combat: bare hands

The most obvious strategy is to fight with Cleaver (using the axe skill). The problem is that Cleaver is a two-handed weapon, and that becomes annoying in Gehennom when monsters start cursing your stuff. Barbarians should also aim for two-weapon combat, but Cleaver will not allow that. You could try to alternate between Cleaver (or another artifact) and fighting bare-handed. A better solution for that late into the game is to sacrifice for more gifts until you receive a good artifact sword such as Frost Brand (using the long sword skill). Once you have Frost Brand at skilled, then start fighting with two weapons (preferably with a silver saber as your secondary weapon).

SLASH'EM

A droven Barbarian is an easy race-role combination for SLASH'EM players. At the start of the game, a droven Barbarian should immediately unwield the weapon ([w][-]) and fight bare-handed. This gains access to the drow's very useful melee sleep attack, an immense help for the difficult melee environment at the start of SLASH'EM. The ability to repeatedly put your opponent to sleep should compensate for bare hands doing less damage than good weapons! To train your axe skill, wield your axe or battle-axe against monsters with sleep resistance. Eventually, you will be fighting primarily with Cleaver, alternating to bare-handed only when you need it.

Drow cannot two-weapon, but fighting bare-handed should more than offset that.