Grimtooth

)   Grimtooth
Base item	orcish dagger
Damage vs. small	1d3 +1d6
Damage vs. large	1d3 +1d6
To-hit bonus	+1d2
Bonus versus	(any)
Weapon skill	dagger
Size	one-handed
Affiliation	chaotic orcish
When carried	(none)
When wielded	detect elves
When invoked	(none)
Base price	300 zm
Weight	10
Material	iron

Grimtooth is a chaotic artifact orcish dagger.

Generation

Grimtooth is eligible for random generation; an orcish dagger has a ¹⁄₂₀ chance of being Grimtooth. It's a potential sacrifice gift for chaotic non-elven characters.

Player monster rogues on the Astral Plane have a have a 25% chance of starting with an orcish dagger—like all player monsters on the Plane, there is a 50% chance it will be made into an artifact weapon of the same base item. Grimtooth is the only artifact orcish dagger, resulting in a 12.5% chance that a Rogue will be carrying it on the Planes.

Effects

Grimtooth has +d2 to hit and a +d6 damage against all monsters. It provides warning against elves, glowing red when any elves are present on the level.

Despite not having a specific damage bonus against elves, Grimtooth is still considered to "attack" them. Elven players, or those polymorphed into elven monsters, cannot wield Grimtooth, and attempting to do so will damage them in addition to the usual chance for blasting.

Strategy

Grimtooth's weak base item means that even with its damage bonuses to all monsters, it is effectively on par with a normal long sword, and most chaotic non-elven players will only consider Grimtooth as an obstacle to receiving Stormbringer through sacrifice. However, it averages the same damage as a crysknife, without the crysknife's danger of reverting to a worm tooth or the requirement of a scroll of enchant weapon to create.

Despite its relatively low damage in comparison to other artifacts, orcish rangers and rogues are likely to make good use of it before they are able to acquire Stormbringer or Fire/Frost Brand.

Average damage calculation

The average damage calculations in the following table do not include bonuses from weapon skills, strength, or from using a blessed weapon against undead or demons.

Weapon	Damage
+0 Grimtooth	$\frac{1+3}{2}+\frac{1+6}{2}=\bold{5.5}$
+7 Grimtooth	$\frac{1+3}{2}+\frac{1+6}{2}+7=\bold{12.5}$

Variants

dNetHack

In dNetHack, Grimtooth instead has +d5 to-hit, doubled damage, and warning against elves, humans and minions. It can be created by naming an orcish dagger, and can be twoweaponed as a secondary weapon.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, Grimtooth is quite a bit more useful. It is permanently poisoned, so against monsters which are not poison resistant it deals an additional 1d6 damage and has a 10% chance of killing them instantly. Grimtooth is the first gift Rogues receive from sacrifice.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, Grimtooth gives a flat +6 damage bonus as opposed to 1d6. Still, there are many better artifacts out there, particularly for chaotic players. It might be a decent choice for twoweaponing, which is allowed for artifacts in SLASH'EM.

xNetHack

In xNetHack, Grimtooth is permanently poisoned; however, the removal of poison instadeath makes it less powerful than in UnNetHack. Its base price is raised from 300 to 1000.

References

This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.0. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-360}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.