Garter snake

S garter snake
Difficulty	3
Attacks	Bite 1d2

S garter snake
Difficulty	3
Attacks	Bite 1d2
Base level	1
Base experience	8
Speed	8
Base AC	8
Base MR	0
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	1 (Very rare)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	50
Nutritional value	60
Size	Tiny
Resistances	None
Resistances conveyed	None
A garter snake: can swim. can hide under items. cannot pick up items. has no limbs. is an animal. has a serpent body. can lay eggs. is carnivorous. normally appears in large groups.
Reference	monst.c#line1746

A garter snake, S, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is a non-poisonous variety of snake that can swim and hide under objects, and are the first snakes (and often the first hiding monsters) that you may encounter.

A garter snake has a single bite attack.

Generation

Randomly generated garter snakes can appear in large groups of 2-11 each, and may generate as peaceful towards neutral player characters.

Garter snakes generate among the random S that are part of the second quest monster class for Archeologists and make up ²⁴⁄₃₅ of the monsters that randomly generate on the Archeologist quest. Garter snakes may generate among the random snakes that appear on the first and fourth variants of Medusa's Island at level creation.

Garter snakes generated at level creation are given a random item to hide under.

Strategy

Garter snakes are quite harmless on their own, but their tendency to appear early and in groups can overwhelm weak or careless characters - they can still be handled fairly easily otherwise. Their ability to hide makes for a rude surprise when encountered in shops, though not nearly to the level of most mimics. Pets that are not terribly weak themselves should have no trouble dispatching a group of them.

History

The garter snake first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.

Origin

Garter snakes are a group of generally harmless, small to medium-sized snakes commonly known snakes found in North America. While real garter snakes are venomous, they are only mildly so, and they can only become poisonous by feeding on toxic newts and retaining those toxins.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, The Snake Pit of the Lawful Quest may contain garter snakes among the random 2-4 S generated at level creation.

Encyclopedia entry

See the encyclopedia entry for snake.