Bat

B bat
Difficulty	2
Attacks	Bite 1d4

B bat
Difficulty	2
Attacks	Bite 1d4
Base level	0
Base experience	6
Speed	22
Base AC	8
Base MR	0
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	Very rare, appears in small groups
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	20
Nutritional value	20
Size	Tiny
Resistances	None
Resistances conveyed	None

The bat is a class of NetHack monster represented by the overall symbol B. They are all extremely fast and can fly, as one would expect.

The bat, B, is also the weakest monster of this class. Other bats include the B giant bat and the B vampire bat. Note that one bird, the B raven, also uses the same symbol.

You should not eat bat corpses. Eating a bat corpse stuns you; it is not worth only 20 nutrition. Note that pets will eat bat corpses, and stunning does not seem to affect them; do not follow your pets' example.

Bats grow up to be giant bats.

Commentary

The bat is to NetHack as the insect swarm is to Zangband. The bat appears early in the game; a melee-oriented character or a Wizard with force bolt can dispatch it quickly; bats are thus easier to fight than those dreaded soldier ants. However, if you do not kill it quickly, then it can bite you to death because it moves faster than you do. Kill it quick or it kills you. The speed of a bat gives it multiple bites per turn and also makes it difficult to run away. If you miss too often and your pet does not make the kill, then you might have to resort to dusting Elbereth.

Bats and giant bats both appear early in the game, and individually the giant bats are actually more dangerous. The danger with the bat is that it often brings a partner. Survive one bat and the second bat could finish you.

What about bats?

Real life bats are nocturnal. They thrive in the night and sleep in caves and other dark places. Bats probably feel at home in the Mazes of Menace. One can imagine though, then bats would have a dislike for those perpetually lit rectangular dungeon rooms. Death to a bat in a dark corridor is more realistic than death to a bat in a well lit room, is that not so? Actually, bats do not dislike light; they would just sometimes prefer not to be seen. Bats have only a melee attack, and you have night vision of radius 1, so you can always see them when they attack you. Bats are infravisible, so races with infravision can even spot them through dark corridors.

The reason while (real life) bats like the night is because it gives them cover from other creatures while the bats apply echolocation, employing sound to discover the positions of things. NetHack does not implement echolocation (though the biodiversity patch does, at least if you polymorph into a bat); in fact NetHack gives very little artificial intelligence to most monsters that do not use items and have only melee attacks, making them only approach the hero and whack them repeatedly.

Take comfort then, if you actually find a bat but are too weak to kill it before it kills you, that you are not playing Dungeon Crawl. The bats of Crawl are smart enough to dash in, bite once, then fly out of melee range before your turn. (The bats of CastlevaniaRL adopt a slightly different tactic; their attacks bounce you away from them, so that you often must retaliate with a ranged attack.) It is a good idea for Crawl players to carry around some daggers, darts or other ranged weapons to throw at bats; it helps that the upper levels of Crawl are completely lit, leaving bats vulnerable unless they go behind a corner or pillar. The bats of NetHack stay in melee range, so that if you are a good fighter then it is trivial to defeat them.

What trips some players, what causes them to have their new character die to a bat, is NetHack's #enhance system. Throwing something at a bat (even it if it is infravisible down the corridor) is most likely a waste of a turn if you happen to be unskilled or restricted in that weapon. Players who early wield an unskilled weapon to trade can encounter trouble. They think that they see an easy bat and try to kill it, only to miss too often and fear wasting a turn to wield a different weapon.

Alas, bats preexisted the #enhance command. Bats have annoyed adventurers seeking the Amulet of Yendor since the days of Hack, back when eating a dead bat would cause confusion because stun was not yet distinct.