Knight

The Knight is one of the player roles in NetHack. Knights are always lawful humans.

Starting Equipment

• +1 long sword
• +1 lance
• +1 ring mail
• +0 helmet
• +0 small shield
• +0 leather gloves
• 10 to 20 uncursed apples
• 10 to 20 uncursed carrots

Starting pet is always a pony with a saddle.

Abilities

Knights can identify all weapons and non-magical armor from the beginning. They also have a special intrinsic ability to #jump like the knight piece in chess. They are able to #turn undead, and their special spell is turn undead.

• At Experience Level 7 knights gain intrinsic speed.

Skills

Knight skills
Max	Skills
Basic	Weapons: dagger, knife, pick-axe, scimitar, club, flail, hammer, trident, bow
Skilled	Weapons: axe, short sword, broadsword, two-handed sword, saber, mace, morning star, polearms, spear, crossbow Combat: two weapon combat Spells: attack, healing, clerical
Expert	Weapons: long sword, lance Combat: bare hands, riding

Quest

Main article: Knight quest

The quest monster is a quasit. The quest nemesis is a dragon called Ixoth. He is a rather tough opponent, although he can be dealt with by using Elbereth or paralysis. Knights receive the Magic Mirror of Merlin after the quest, which allows them to become powerful spellcasters.

Code of conduct

There are special rules of conduct for a knight:

Honor in combat

"You caitiff!"

Knights take a -1 alignment penalty for attacking sleeping, paralysed or fleeing monsters (even if the monster continues to attack while fleeing).

If monster is a weak one then it is a good idea to dismount and let your horse finish it: your horse will get an additional HP.

Frugality in food

"You feel like a glutton!"

There is a -1 alignment penalty for eating while satiated.

Honorable Shopping

"You feel like a common thief."

There is a -1 alignment penalty for digging down in a shop.

Strategy

The Lance

The knight is perhaps the easiest class in the game if you apply the proper tactics. There are more tactics you can use than just fighting on foot with a sword and trading blows with monsters. Knights should joust by fighting mounted with a lance, using skillful retreats and the lance's special abilities. Using this tactic, you should be able to deal with Minotaurs, Dragons and ArchDaemons without losing a single hit point.

Since in the weapon charts the lance seems to do less damage than the long sword and there is no lance artifact weapon, people playing knights tend to discard the lance and rely on the long sword. However, when you account for the effects of jousting the lance causes significantly more damage than the sword: against a normal-sized opponent the long sword does 1d8 that is on average 4.5 hp of damage, the lance causes 1d6 (3.5 on average) but a successful joust causes an additional 2d10 (11 on average) hp of damage. Thus at Unskilled level the average damage is 3.5+11*0.2=5.7, at Basic 7.9, at Skilled 10.1 and at Expert it is 12.3. In contrast Excalibur does 1d8+1d10 HP of damage for an average of only 10. Against a large opponent the sword does 1d12 (6.5) on average versus 1d8 (4.5 on average for the lance but after factoring jousting we find 6.7 at Unskilled level of expertise, 8.9 at Basic, 11.1 at Skilled and 13.7 at Expert. Excalibur does on average only 12 HP against large opponents. It is true that Excalibur gets a +5 to hit bonus but this is irrelevant for high level characters with enchanted weapons and Expert level of expertise, since they hit every round anyway. In addition the lance allows attacking non adjacent opponents (Pounding) and a successful joust pushes the opponent one square away (possibly for another round of Pounding) and stuns him thus making him fight at a severe disadvantage. In fact an unencumbered Knight with boots of speed and a lance is possibly the only character who can kill Demogorgon in melee combat without resorting to tricks like polymorphing into basilisk: just joust him: he will not be able to attack a second time or teleport before the Knight finishes him. The only case where the Knight should use Excalibur in combat is when there is a risk of being level drained. At high skill levels the lance is ideal for dealing with situations where you find youself surrounded: every joust (and you will be getting a lot of them) will push a monster one square away, meaning there is one less monster who will attack you this round and possibly allowing you to slip away. At base skill levels you will rarely succeed in jousting, so if foes get next to you, jump away. As an aside: you don't get paralyzed when you apply your lance on a floating eye.

To make full use of your lance you need two things: light and speed. You will be unable to apply your lance if you cannot see your foe. Detecting it by telepathy doesn't work, so having a light source is important.

Caring for your Lance

Lances are nearly impossible to replace (short of wishing for one) and lances can break. If your luck is good, the probability of it breaking is very low. At the beginning use it only for pounding, not for close combat (especially on Friday the 13th) until you can increase your luck. You can switch weapons with the command 'x'. Once you get to Expert skill level with the lance there is no point in using it on weak monsters; shift to the sword to avoid breaking your lance. Until you can get it rustproofed (or at least covered with grease) don't wield it in places likely to have rust traps (eg most levels of the Gnome Mines), unless you have a supply of potions of oil.

Speed

Speed is more important for a knight than for other classes. If you are faster than your opponent and you joust it, it will be unable to hit back. In this way, you can attack a monster without it ever being able to attack. Being encumbered slows you down and bars you from jumping. Never fight while encumbered; get a bag, put everything you don't need to have on hand for a combat into it, and drop it as soon you see a monster. At 7th level you will become fast, but becoming very fast (eg by getting boots of speed) will make your jousting much more effective.

Don't charge your opponent unless there is a very good reason: it will probably get an attack before you can begin to joust it.

Become invisible

Monsters will detect you only if they move adjacent, but if you stay at a distance of two squares you will remain undetected (even if carrying a light!) and they will move aimlessly while you apply your lance on them again and again until they are killed.

The Horse

You don't want to mount your pony as soon you enter the dungeon, because there is a high probability you will fall. This causes you to lose up to 20 HP, which could be fatal to a level 1 Knight. Wait until you are at least level 2 or 3 before you mount it, and whatever your level, do not mount it when your current HP is 20 or less. You also want your pony to kill some newts and jackals in order to build more hit points. If you find a harmless monster like a yellow mold or a lichen, then dismount and let your pony dispatch it.

If your horse has been repeatedly hit and you are mounted, flee. If you aren't mounted but you have a magic whistle, use it to get your horse out of danger. Get a stethoscope as soon as possible. If your horse is low on hit points then look for a safe place (telepathy is great for checking if there are no monsters around), remove your armor and cast healing spells on it (direction is ">" if you are riding it). As soon as you can see invisible or get telepathy then make your horse invisible; monsters will attack it less.

Keeping the horse fed

Because pets feed mostly on the corpses of fallen monsters and few of them are vegetable, horses are harder to keep fed as other pets. One of the two primary sources of food for a horse is the food the knight gets in his initial equipement. A carrot or apple will feed a horse for much longer then it will do for you. For that reason don't eat carrots and apples (unless in an emergency, you need to cure blindness, or if you are weak and cannot pray). Try to find other sources of food until you become weak and then pray. Carrots and apples can be used to reward a horse who has stolen an item from a shop, encouraging it to steal more items, with no alignment penalty.

The other primary source of food for horses is corpses from creatures like lichens and molds (except yellow molds).

Monitor your horse's hunger status by chatting to it regularly. It is not necessary to dismount to chat with your horse, just chat in the down direction (">"). If it "whickers," it is fine, but if it "whinnies," it is hungry. If it ever comes close to starvation ("you feel worried about your horse" or "your horse is confused from hunger"), it will also accept "people food" such as food rations. You should heal a starving horse as soon as possible after feeding it; a starving horse has its maximum HP reduced to one quarter of its original. While feeding it restores its maximum HP, the horse will still have to heal its current HP from the one-quarter level.

Taming another horse by throwing it an apple is tempting but the food problem will become even more acute. Taming a third horse is definitely unwise.

The Saddle

The Knight's pony starts with a saddle. If your saddle becomes cursed and you aren't riding you will be unable to mount your horse, and if you are riding then you can't dismount. Reading a spell of remove curse or zapping a wand of cancellation downwards doesn't work. Only praying to your god will dismount you. Once you get holy water potions to spare it is a good idea to use one of them to bless your saddle. It is best to use your lance and speed to keep monsters that curse from ever coming in contact with you. Your saddle's worst nemesis is black dragons. By the time you meet one of them you will probably be immune to disintegration, but your horse won't be, and the saddle will suffer its fate. Saddles are nearly as difficult to replace as lances. It is usually a good idea to quickly close with black dragons, joust them and then finish them before they recover.

Dragons

Because they don't have carnivorous pets eating any egg they can find, Knights have a higher chance than other classes to get dragon eggs and, once they hatch, a tame dragon as pet. Dragons can be saddled and ridden and thus are more useful to knights than to most other classes. They can reach level 27 and 216HP; Tame dragons will only use melee attacks, but they have the same immunities (poison, desintegration, electricity) than other dragons of the same species. Dragons can fly, this allows the knight to cross obstacles impassable to horses but also means that burdened knights no longer need to dismount before going downstairs.

Once acquired a Dragon must be grown. It will gain 1 Hp every time it kills a monster whatever the level of the monster. It will increase level by one for every 8 Hp gained. Therefore once the egg is hatched you should go to areas with large numbers of weak monsters like the Gnome caves or leprechaun halls, avoid killing those weak monsters but let the dragon do it (unmount if you are ridng it).

You have to decide if you will change mount from horse to dragon. A mounted pet will attack any monster whatever his level when monster's attack goes astray and falls on pet instead of you. An unmounted pet will attack from own initiative any monster provided monster's level is not superior by two or more to pet's own level and monsters don't attack unmounted pets unless attacked first. In general it is better to ride the dragon because you get better control of its whereabouts, what it is is engaging and when. Nothing more frustrating that having a dragon getting killed because it engaged the Oracle or the captain of the guard at at moment when it was low on Hp. Also because dragon will only targeted by "stray attacks" the danger of it getting killed are lesser that when dismounted where frequently it will have to fight monsters alone without your assistance and getting the full share of their blows. Finally, if you are riding the dragon there will be no chance of you becoming separate due to a trap door or a level teleport trap. The only case where you should continue riding your horse is when you found the egg quite late in the game and most of the monsters you find could kill your new born dragon in one or two blows: an unmounted dragon will not attack those powerful monsters and they will ignore it while if you had been riding it the dragon could be killed by a stray attack.

You will also have to decide what to do with your horse. Dragons are relatively slow and at the beginning they don't do much harm. Thus if your horse is around and you are not riding it you will find time and again that after you having dismounted to let the dragon to fight a newt or lichen, at the last moment your horse (who is at maximum HP and no longer grows) comes and kills the monster thus impeding dragon's growth. In general it is better to let the horse behind and eventually come back later when your dragon has grown enough. Eventually your horse will have turned wild and you will have to tame it again by throwing it food.

External links

• Knight FAQ (unfinished)