Dart

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Name	dart
Appearance	dart
Damage vs. small	1d3
Damage vs. large	1d2
To-hit bonus	+0
Weapon skill	dart
Size	one-handed
Base price	2 zm (+10/positive enchant)
Weight	1
Material	iron

Darts are a type of projectile that appear in NetHack. They are the most common type of ranged weapon.

Generation

Tourists start with 21–40 +2 darts.

¹⁄₄ of kobolds are generated with 3–14 darts. ¹⁄₄ of ninja are generated with 6–11 darts.

Dart traps will shoot darts when activated, and untrapping them will produce 50−rnl(50) darts.

Dart skill

Dart
Max	Role
Basic	Archeologist, Priest
Expert	Healer, Rogue, Ranger, Tourist, Wizard

Darts are the only weapons to use the dart skill, and there are no artifact darts. The skill can only be trained by throwing the darts.

Description

As with most other projectiles, darts are used by throwing or firing them, and are ineffective in melee. They may break after hitting a monster, which is based on their enchantment, beatitude and Luck; depending on role and skill, they may also be multishot. Like other missile weapons, darts that are cursed occasionally slip from your hand and hit the ground or fly in a different direction.

Dipping darts in a potion of sickness will poison them, adding d6 damage and 10% chance of instadeath per dart against non-poison resistant foes.

Strategy

Because of their initial low damage and high chance of breakage, darts are generally ineffective as thrown weapons in the early game (daggers or an aklys are generally preferable). However, these concerns become negligible with high Luck, enchantment, and strength, and darts have many advantages over other projectiles: they are of the lightest possible weight, are the most plentiful of all weapon types, may be poisoned, require no launcher, and gain a damage bonus from strength (which launcher-using projectiles don't get).

External links

• An RGRN discussion on the usefulness of darts.