Role difficulty

Role difficulty is the general difficulty of being able to successfully ascend with the various roles. It has been demonstrated that every role is ascendable, but opinions vary as to which roles are the easiest and hardest to ascend.

Most agree that valkyries and barbarians are the easiest classes - possibly followed by samurai - due to the strong physical combat options presented by the roles from the very beginning (arguably minimising the amount of strategy necessary). Barbarians have the advantage of poison resistance at the start of the game (as do orcs, although an orc barbarian gets no extra advantage), and Valkyries have the advantage of some easy access to early artifacts (Excalibur and Mjollinr) plus intrinisc cold resistance. Valkyries are always female (unless polymorphed), which can be useful when polymorphed into egg-laying creatures (such as dragons). It is notable that Valkyries cannot be Chaotic, and Barbarians cannot be Lawful, however these classes are similar, and strong options for beginners - some suggest that a beginner should play as a Barbarian until they learn which corpses are and aren't poisonous, and then switch to Valkyries for the cold resistance and artifacts.

Wizards are usually easy due to their good starting equipment (for this reason, wizards are often start scummed) and powerful late game (thanks to e.g. magic missile and finger of death). Those that attempt to play them as physical combat characters will, however, find them difficult due to their bad starting attributes.

The priest's innate ability to detect the BUC status of an item can be a tremendous advantage, but their poor choice of weapons can prove to be a burden.

The knight's codes of conduct can be cumbersome, though the penalty for breaking them (1 point of alignment) is minor, unless you are roleplaying or playing a pacifist.

Rangers and rogues can either be difficult or easy, depending on how capable one is of making use of their powerful ranged weapons (especially in the early game).

Cavemen can be considered a more difficult version of barbarians.

Monks are a unique class whose early game is relatively easy compared to its tricky midgame, mostly due to Master Kaen and armor and weapon penalties.

Healers and tourists have a reputation for being extremely difficult, due to weak starting attributes and poor equipment. Archeologists are almost as difficult but have the advantage over Healers and Tourists of starting with speed and stealth, and early access to a good weapon-the dwarvish mattock

Role Difficulty Chart

This chart is a rough ranking of the roles from easiest to hardest to ascend. Many things can affect the order based on a players preference, experience, strategy, and play style.

Rank	Role
1	Barbarian
2	Valkyrie
3	Wizard
4	Samurai
5	Caveman
6	Knight
7	Priest
8	Monk
9	Rogue
10	Ranger
11	Healer
12	Archeologist
13	Tourist

SLASH'EM Roles

SLASH'EM has several new roles with varying levels of difficulty. Also, some of the original classes may be more or less difficult in SLASH'EM than in vanilla NetHack.

• Flame Mage
• Ice Mage
• Necromancer
• Undead Slayer
• Yeoman