Piercer
The piercer, p, is a monster class in NetHack that contains the following monsters:
- p rock piercer
- p iron piercer
- p glass piercer
Contents
Common traits
Piercers are carnivorous animals capable of hiding on the ceiling, and surprise you by falling on you just as you pass beneath. The fall itself deals 4d6 damage regardless of piercer type, but is rather inaccurate and dependent on your AC - it has only a 3⁄5 chance to hit you at 10 AC, and will always miss a player with at least −2 AC. Wearing any metallic helm will reduce the attack's damage at 2 HP, with the blow glancing off it.
Outside of this, piercers are the slowest monsters in the dungeon with a measly 1 speed - their sole bite attack is somewhat damaging for the point at which you first encounter them, but this can easily be mitigated by keeping your distance. Piercers have relatively low AC that can pose a problem to players lacking a decent weapon, but are otherwise trivial to dispatch.
All piercers leave ordinary fleshy corpses - the adjectives prefixing their names describe what each piercer resembles, rather than what they or their shells are composed of.
p rock piercer 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 4 |
| Attacks |
Bite 2d6 |
| Base level | 3 |
| Base experience | 28 |
| Speed | 1 |
| Base AC | 3 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 4 (Uncommon) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 200 |
| Nutritional value | 200 |
| Size | Small |
| Resistances | None |
| Resistances conveyed |
None |
|
A rock piercer:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line661 |
p iron piercer 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 6 |
| Attacks |
Bite 3d6 |
| Base level | 5 |
| Base experience | 63 |
| Speed | 1 |
| Base AC | 0 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 2 (Quite rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 400 |
| Nutritional value | 300 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | None |
| Resistances conveyed |
None |
|
An iron piercer:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line668 |
p glass piercer 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 9 |
| Attacks |
Bite 4d6 |
| Base level | 7 |
| Base experience | 106 |
| Speed | 1 |
| Base AC | 0 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 400 |
| Nutritional value | 300 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | Acid |
| Resistances conveyed |
None |
|
A glass piercer:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line675 |
History
The piercer has been present in the game since Jay Fenlason's Hack - NetHack 3.0.0 introduces the three distinct types of piercer.
Origin
The piercer is a snail-like gastropod that first appeared in Dungeons & Dragons. It has a shell that resembles a stalactite, and clings to the ceiling to await prey, falling down to impale anything that passes underneath.
The "bestiary of Xygag" mentioned in the encyclopedia entry is an in-universe equivalent to the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual - the excerpt originates in "The Ecology of the Piercer" by Chris Elliott and Richard Edward, published in issue #72 of the Dragon magazine.
Messages
- A <foo> piercer suddenly drops off the ceiling!
- A piercer attempted to land on you.
- You are almost hit by a falling rock piercer.
- The piercer's falling attack missed.
- You are hit by a falling rock piercer!
- The piercer hit you and inflicted damage.
- Its blow glances off your helm.
- As above, but you are wearing a metallic helm, reducing the damage to 2.
Variants
xNetHack
In xNetHack, piercers have a dexterity-based percentage chance to miss the player, and a speed-dependent chance to miss a targeted monster. A metallic helm will only halve the damage dealt by a falling piercer hitting you.
dNetHack
dNetHack adds the heaven piercer, which is much faster than most piercers and can stun the player with its bite, though it is still relatively slow.
Encyclopedia entry
Ye Piercer doth look like unto a stalactyte, and hangeth
from the roofs of caves and caverns. Unto the height of a
man, and thicker than a man's thigh do they grow, and in
groups do they hang. If a creature doth pass beneath them,
they will by its heat and noise perceive it, and fall upon
it to kill and devour it, though in any other way they move
but exceeding slow.
