Iron golem
' iron golem 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 22 |
| Attacks |
Weapon 4d10, Poison breath 4d6 |
| Base level | 18 |
| Base experience | 545 |
| Speed | 6 |
| Base AC | 3 |
| Base MR | 60 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 2000 |
| Nutritional value | 0 |
| Size | Large |
| Resistances | fire, cold, sleep, electricity, poison |
| Resistances conveyed |
None |
|
An iron golem:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line2103 |
The iron golem is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is the toughest golem that can be encountered in the game, with the ability to use weapons and breathe streams of poison clouds that can drain strength. Iron golems have resistance to fire, cold, sleep, poison, and shock damage; electricity also slows down an iron golem, while fire heals it. While polymorphed into an iron golem, using #monster allows you to breathe a stream of poison clouds for 15 energy.
As a monster made of iron, it is instantly destroyed if submerged in water or hit by rust traps - this also applies to you if you are polymorphed into one. In both cases, the rust trap deals damage equal to the iron golem's maximum HP, subject to half physical damage; dying in this manner returning you to you normal form even if you are wearing an amulet of unchanging.[1][2][3] This also makes the iron golem the only monster to be damaged by a rust monster's touch attack.
Contents
Generation
In addition to random generation, iron golems can generate as a result of polypiling if there enough iron objects in a pile of items. Iron golems are also eligible to be created by the summon nasties monster spell.[4] Iron golems are always generated with 80 hit points, which is the most among golems.[5]
An iron golem has a roughly 9⁄25 chance of generating with any one of the default weapon sets given to strong weapon-wielding monsters: a battle axe, a two-handed sword, a bow and 3-14 arrows, a longsword, or a lucern hammer.[6] They are not eligible for a random offensive item.
Iron golems drop several iron chains upon death, which are known primarily for being one of the game's most useless items.
Strategy
By the time you encounter iron golems (barring a polypiling accident), you should be more than prepared to deal with their poison breath - but your pets (if any) may not be, and will likely perish if allows to remain in or near the poison clouds for too long without poison resistance. Iron golems themselves can hit quite hard and have the second best AC among golems, but are also just as slow as any of them, and player that reach the point of encountering iron golems regularly should have little trouble making short work of them.
History
Iron golems first appear in NetHack 3.0.0.
References
- ↑ src/trap.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 1162: Rust trap on player
- ↑ src/trap.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 2370: Rust trap on monsters
- ↑ src/trap.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 3773: Stepping into water while polymorphed into iron golem
- ↑ src/wizard.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 44
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 1991
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 535
