Long sword
) 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | long sword |
| Appearance | long sword |
| Damage vs. small | 1d8 |
| Damage vs. large | 1d12 |
| To-hit bonus | +0 |
| Weapon skill | long sword |
| Size | one-handed |
| Base price | 15 zm (+10/positive enchant) |
| Weight | 40 |
| Material | iron |
A long sword is a type of weapon that appears in NetHack. It is made of iron.
There are several artifact weapon long swords: Demonbane, Excalibur, Fire Brand, Frost Brand, Giantslayer, Sunsword, and Vorpal Blade. Excalibur can be created by #dipping a long sword into a fountain as a lawful character who is at experience level 5, or else being crowned while wielding a long sword as a lawful character.
Contents
Generation
Long swords make up 5% of randomly generated weapons (on the floor, as death drops, or in shops).
Knights and Valkyries start each game with a +1 long sword.[1][2]
Several monsters can be generated with long swords:
- Barrow wights and Nazguls are always generated with long swords.[3]
- Yendorian army lieutenants and captains, as well as watch captains, have a 1⁄2 chance of generating with a long sword as their primary weapon.[4][5]
- Monsters with weapon attacks that are strong and do not have a default initial weapon may generate with a long sword.[6]
- Chieftains, pages, roshi, and warriors have a 2⁄3 chance of generating with a long sword.[7]
- Humanoid angelic beings are always generated with blessed, rustproofed and enchanted long swords, with the long sword always being made into either Sunsword or Demonbane for Archons, and a 1⁄20 chance of being made into either artifact for Angels and Aleaxes.[8]
- Player monsters, including those on the Astral Plane, have a 1⁄2 chance of being generated with a long sword as their initial weapon, and otherwise have a 5⁄116 chance (~4.3%) of generating one, resulting in an effective ~54.3% chance before role-based replacements.[9] Knights have a 3⁄4 chance of forcing a long sword in place of their initial weapon, resulting in an effective ~34.3% chance of their weapon being a longsword.[10]
Long sword skill
| Long sword | |
|---|---|
| Max | Role |
| Basic | |
| Skilled | |
| Expert | |
Both long swords and katanas use the long sword skill.
The following artifact weapons use the long sword skill:
- Demonbane (lawful long sword)
- Excalibur (lawful long sword)
- Fire Brand (unaligned long sword)
- Frost Brand (unaligned long sword)
- Giantslayer (neutral long sword)
- Snickersnee (lawful katana)
- Sunsword (lawful long sword)
- Vorpal Blade (neutral long sword)
Strategy
The long sword is one of the more popular weapons for its damage and versatility, and has the highest amount of artifact weapons at 7. Characters in roles that start with one (i.e. Knights and Valkyries) or else find one early in the game should ideally make it their main or backup weapon until they sacrifice for their first artifact weapon. Lawful and neutral roles that are restricted in long sword can unrestrict the skill by receiving one of the many artifact long swords as a sacrifice gift, as well as via crowning (even if they do not receive Excalibur or Vorpal Blade this way).
History
The long sword first appears in Hack 1.21 and Hack for PDP-11, both based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, and is included in the initial item list for Hack 1.0.
Variants
SLASH'EM
SLASH'EM also includes a silver long sword that deals an extra d20 in silver damage.
The Valkyrie's starting +1 long sword has been replaced with a +1 spear.[11]
The following additional artifact weapons use the long sword skill in SLASH'EM:
Giantslayer has been replaced by Giantkiller, an artifact axe.
The November NetHack Tournament
In The November NetHack Tournament, all Devteam members have a 1⁄2 chance of being generated with a long sword. The deathmatch opponent will always generate with a +5 to +7 long sword if they are a knight or a valkyrie that does not have a weapon.
References
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 74
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 153
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 474
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 203
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 207
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 539
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 292
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 329
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 155: 1⁄2 to get a random weapon - the designated range of objects covers weapons from the spear to the bullwhip inclusively in objects.c, and uses normal generation odds
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 199
- ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 229
