Priest

This page describes a priest as a player character. For the monster, see aligned priest.

Priest is one of the roles in NetHack, capable of playing any alignment and as a human or elf.

Abilities

One distinct advantage enjoyed by the clergy is the ability to ascertain beatitude independently of their pets.

The main disadvantage of the Priest is his weapon skill set. Priests cannot gain skill in any edged weapons, and can only reach basic skill in ranged weapons. Combined with lack of attack spell-casting skills, it is hard for priests to find a good way to kill monsters.

Other than attack spells, Priests are decent spell-casters. They can advance to expert in clerical, divination and healing, but are restricted in other classes. Note that their spellcasting is based on Wis, not Int.

Priests can #turn undead, which can be helpful in their quest, but this should be done carefully.

Equipment

The starting equipment is definitely an advantage of the Priest. They get a spell-casting set of two spellbooks (random from their schools) and a robe, as well as a +1 mace and small shield as with aligned priests, which more than suffices for the beginning. This is complemented with a sprig of wolfsbane (handy against lycanthropy) and some holy water.

Skills

Priest skills
Max	Skills
Basic	Weapons: lance, bow, sling, crossbow, dart, shuriken, boomerang Combat: bare hands
Skilled	Weapons: polearms, spear, trident, unicorn horn
Expert	Weapons: club, mace, morning star, flail, hammer, quarterstaff Spells: healing, divination, clerical

Strategy

Weapon policy

The mace you get in the beginning works fine in the early game, but is certainly insufficient later. It may be worth trying to obtaining an artifact weapon, but most of them are restricted and will need to be granted by your god. The exceptions are Mjollnir (may be granted to neutral priests or wished for by any), the Sceptre of Might (may be wished for by a lawful priest, and gives magic resistance, but will blast you), and the mighty Staff of Aesculapius (may be wished for by a neutral priest, gives hunger-free regeneration and level-drain resistance, but will also blast you.).

Priests can reach skilled in polearms; it may be worth training this skill against large, slow monsters (like mumakil), whom you can outrun as they close to attack range, and sea monsters, who cannot hit you if you are not next to the water.

Spellcasting

One of the best ways to spend your starting holy water set is to bless any spellbook you find and learn new spells (unless you've got the identify spell, which makes this easier).

You should not have any problems with skill slots, as you don't learn many weapon skills and can advance them quickly in the quest thanks to all the wraith corpses. Hence you can advance spell-casting skill slots as soon as possible. If you run into problems, clerical spells should take precedence, as the spells most useful to you belong there.

In the late game you can learn simple attack spells (like force bolt or drain life) and cast them with 0% failure rate, especially with the Mitre of Holiness.

You should turn undead only if you are 100% positive that there are no non-undead monsters nearby.

Quest

Nalzok, the Priest quest nemesis, is quite tough, but he respects Elbereth and the scroll of scare monster. Beware the bullwhip-wielders (you may lose your weapon). Most of the quest is, however, rather boring and extremely profitable. All the levels contain several graveyards with wraiths (lure them out), and chests full of goodies.

The quest artifact is The Mitre of Holiness. While even an ordinary helm of brilliance is a great thing, the mitre additionally allows you to regain your power, gives fire resistance and halves damage from undead. However, unlike many quest artifacts, it doesn't confer magic resistance, so you have to get that from a different source.