Excalibur

)   Excalibur
Base item	long sword
Damage vs. small	1d8 +1d10
Damage vs. large	1d12 +1d10
To-hit bonus	+1d5
Bonus versus	(any)
Weapon skill	long sword
Size	one-handed
Affiliation	lawful intelligent
When carried	(none)
When wielded	drain resistance automatic searching better searching (special)
When invoked	(none)
Base price	4000 zm
Weight	40
Material	iron

Excalibur is a very easy artifact weapon to get (if you are lawful). Simply dip a long sword into a fountain, provided you are a lawful character and at least level 5. Each time you dip, there is a 1/6 chance that the sword will be transformed into Excalibur. The dipped sword becomes rustproof, and any rust or corrosion on it is removed. It's intelligent, so it can only be safely wielded by lawful characters. As a weapon, it adds +d5 to-hit and +d10 damage. What's equally useful is that it confers level-drain resistance and automatic searching, and makes searching more likely to be successful. On the other hand, when wielded, it also makes demon princes generated hostile, and every monster can find you, whether it has eyes or not.

Excalibur is never randomly generated, and cannot be granted as a sacrifice gift. Lawful characters may receive Excalibur when crowned.

Special Effects

Searching

When wielded, Excalibur improves (or worsens) your ability to find secret doors and secret corridors (including with the automatic searching it grants) by an amount equal to its enchantment, to a maximum of +5.

Demon Princes

If Excalibur is wielded when a Demon Prince is generated, the Demon Prince will be generated as hostile rather than peaceful. The main effect of this is that it will not offer to accept a bribe for safe passage before attacking you. If you were not wielding Excalibur when the Demon Prince was generated, but are doing so when it wants to demand a bribe, it will instead become angry and attack.

Tracking

When you are wielding Excalibur, monsters without eyes are able to track you as well as those with eyes.

Generation

Excalibur is never randomly generated. It cannot be generated in the inventory of a monster. It cannot be granted as a gift from sacrifice (although if it could, it would be the first sacrifice gift for knights).

Crowning

If you are crowned as lawful, Excalibur does not yet exist, and you are wielding a non-artifact longsword in your primary hand, it will be converted to the blessed rustproof +1 Excalibur (and identified). The longsword skill will be unrestricted for you.

Dipping

If you are lawful, are at least level 5, Excalibur does not yet exist, and you dip a non-artifact longsword into a fountain, there is a 1/6 chance your longsword will be converted to the blessed rustproof Excalibur. The sword will keep the enchantment it had before the conversion. The other 5/6 of the time your longsword gets wet and the normal effects of dipping an item into a fountain occur.

Strategy

Dipping for Excalibur is easy for Knights and lawful Valkyries, who both start with a long sword. It is also a decent weapon for Samurai, though they will first need to find a long sword to dip with. Acquiring it is generally a good idea, although the chance of getting it is only 1/6 at each dip. The other 5/6 of the time, normal dipping effects occur, so be prepared to deal with water demons, nymphs and other fountain hazards.

When you are given Excalibur, the fountain will dry up and disappear. This can be a big problem for you in Minetown, because this will anger the town watch and set them against you. It is probably a Bad Idea to dip for Excalibur in Minetown; if you try this, be very sure you know what you're doing. You may want to consider either using a pet to kill all the guards, or lock them up in rooms where they cannot come out and attack you.

One possible downside to getting Excalibur early is that it increases the number of artifacts in the game, which decreases your chance of successfully wishing for a better one later.

Another disadvantage of dipping for Excalibur is that doing so does not unrestrict the long swords skill. If your role is restricted in that skill, you may want to wait to dip until you receive another artifact longsword from your god.

As Excalibur is generated from an existing long sword, you can get a +9 Excalibur in the late game by enchanting an ordinary long sword to +9 first (likely evaporating several other long swords in the process). A +9 Excalibur is more competitive damage-wise with other late-game artifacts safely enchanted to +7, conveys more useful extrinsics, and will not destroy potentially valuable items (like Mjollnir or Frost Brand may).

Like all artifacts, Excalibur will refuse to be wielded as the second weapon in #twoweapon combat. SLASH'EM lifts this restriction.

Average damage calculation

We assume the player has expert skill in long sword, which gives a +2 damage bonus. A blessed weapon deals 1d4 extra damage against demons and undead. The worst case scenario is against a non-undead, non-demon small monster. The best case scenario is against a undead/demon large monster.

Weapon	Against regular small monsters	Against regular large monsters	Worst case scenario	Best case scenario
Uncursed Excalibur + 0	$\frac{1+8}{2}+\frac{1+10}{2}+2=\bold{12}$	$\frac{1+12}{2}+\frac{1+10}{2}+2=\bold{14}$	$\frac{1+8}{2}+\frac{1+10}{2}+2=\bold{12}$	$\frac{1+12}{2}+\frac{1+10}{2}+2=\bold{14}$
Blessed Excalibur +7	$\frac{1+8}{2}+\frac{1+10}{2}+7+2=\bold{19}$	$\frac{1+12}{2}+\frac{1+10}{2}+7+2=\bold{21}$	$\frac{1+8}{2}+\frac{1+10}{2}+7+2=\bold{19}$	$\frac{1+12}{2}+\frac{1+10}{2}+7+2+\frac{1+4}{2}=\bold{23.5}$

Mythos

Excalibur is the legendary sword of King Arthur, who is also present in NetHack as the Knight's quest leader. See Wikipedia for an in-depth description.

Encyclopedia description

At first only its tip was visible, but then it rose, straight,

proud, all that was noble and great and wondrous. The tip of

the blade pointed toward the moon, as if it would cleave it

in two. The blade itself gleamed like a beacon in the night.

There was no light source for the sword to be reflecting

from, for the moon had darted behind a cloud in fear. The

sword was glowing from the intensity of its strength and

power and knowledge that it was justice incarnate, and that

after a slumber of uncounted years its time had again come.

After the blade broke the surface, the hilt was visible, and

holding the sword was a single strong, yet feminine hand,

wearing several rings that bore jewels sparkling with the

blue-green color of the ocean.

[ Knight Life, by Peter David ]

History

Excalibur first appeared in NetHack 1.3d.

Before NetHack 2.2a, the method of obtaining Excalibur was different from the present time. One first had to name a long sword Excalibur and then dip it in a fountain. Excalibur in these versions had no special properties, but the dipping would make the sword +5 (if it was not already higher), rustproof it, and remove any curse.