Role difficulty/Variants

Some NetHack variants add many roles of their own, and often change the behaviour of existing roles, substantially changing the information about role difficulty. This page contains the new information.

SLASH'EM roles

SLASH'EM has several new roles with varying levels of difficulty. Also, some of the original roles are more or less difficult in SLASH'EM than in vanilla NetHack, due to differences in starting equipment, skills, abilities, and the character of the game. Below is a rough, subjective ordering of difficulty of various SLASH'EM roles, incorporating some stats on ascensions from the SLASH'EM server at slashem.crash-override.net.

Rank	Role	Notes	Ascension rate*
1	Valkyrie	Starts with spear instead of long sword, but still the easiest; Mjollnir much more powerful in SLASH'EM	24%
2	Samurai	Fast speed more important in early game where you must flee often; Snickersnee and Excalibur make powerful weapon combo; charged 2x more in shops	13%
3	Knight	Start with plate mail, long sword, Str 18/**; much weaker as a spellcaster than in Vanilla	10%
4	Monk	Powerful techniques and automatic AC bonuses as level increases	6%
5	Yeoman	Two powerful guaranteed sacrifice gifts: Sword of Justice and Reaper	N/A
6	Barbarian	Charged 3x more in shops	N/A
7	Rogue	Ultra-powerful guaranteed sacrifice gift: Bat from Hell	4%
8	Caveman	Gets underground vision but the Sceptre of Might is considerably weaker	N/A
9	Wizard	Starts with more but lower-level spells	5%
10	Undead Slayer	Slow, weak fighter whose main advantages (drain resistance and immunity to sickness) are less important in early game than late game	N/A
11	Ranger	Bows require two hands to wield in SLASH'EM	1%
12	Flame Mage	Starts with a hell hound pup and a wand of fire but otherwise far weaker than Wizard	N/A
13	Priest	Can now use long swords effectively	N/A
14	Ice Mage	Starts with a winter wolf but weaker than either Wizard or Flame Mage	3%
15	Necromancer	First sacrifice gift Serpent's Tongue moderately good, otherwise like Undead Slayer with drain resistance and immunity only mattering late in game	N/A
16	Archaeologist	Fedora acts as luckstone	N/A
17	Healer	First sacrifice gift will not be a weapon	N/A
18	Tourist	Starts with more gold and scrolls of magic mapping	N/A

Note: Ascension rate equals the percentage of games for each role that ended in ascension on slashem.crash-override.net as of Feb. 13, 2013, given that (1) the race was not Doppelganger (too easy) or Vampire/Lycanthrope (too difficult), (2) the player had achieved at least one ascension on the server, and (3) at least 20 qualifying games had been played for that role. N/A indicates a sample size of < 20.

In SLASH'EM, race is often more of a factor than role in determining success. In particular, Doppelgangers are far and away the most powerful race to play, Drow are extremely hardy in early game thanks to their barehanded sleep attack, and Vampires and Lycanthropes are extremely challenging.

Slash'EM Extended roles

Slash'EM Extended has all of SLASH'EM's roles and also new ones with varying levels of difficulty. There are no ascension statistics for this NetHack variant (yet), but a brief overview of their strengths and weaknesses will be given below.

Acid Mages are the acid-based counterpart of flame/ice/electric mages. They specialize in acid spells, and both they and their starting pet are acid resistant. Starting with a wand of acid, they can blast nasty enemies but unlike flame/electric mages cannot burn permanent Elbereths, making them a bit harder to play.

Activistors start with poor equipment; the main thing they have going for them is the starting charm monster spell. They are also slow and restricted in most weapon skills, but they can advance all spellcasting skills to Expert and eat several types of non-food items. Still, Activistors are a hard role.

Altmer can't get fire/cold/shock resistance, but they're excellent spellcasters that even start with a special form of energy regeneration which stacks on top of other forms of Pw regeneration. If they luck into getting some powerful spells they'll have an easy time overall, and they also get some great intrinsics from leveling up.

Amazons are good archers. Enchanting their arrows and building up some points of luck will be important to prevent arrows from disappearing constantly, but their starting items ensure that they're capable of surviving some dangerous situations. If the Amazon makes it to her quest, some powerful hidden weapons may be claimed, and especially the quest artifact bow with its ability to create ammo will be very useful.

Artists can engrave twice as many characters in a single turn compared to other characters, and with a higher chance of success even when impaired. Their conduct causes alignment penalties if they blank scrolls or break statues though. The artist starts with surprisingly good equipment too, but they're very slow.

Assassins share the rogue's backstab bonuses, and they're also otherwise similar to the rogue but with slightly changed starting equipment.

Augurers start with an extra point of luck, as well as telepathy and telekinesis, but sub-par starting equipment, plus they're slow, making them a harder role.

Bards are a hard role with very weak starting equipment. Their lack of a starting weapon is a problem that should be corrected by finding a suitable weapon ASAP, and their wooden/tin instruments won't be of much use either.

Binders can gain lots of intrinsics and techniques by enhancing their skills, but it will take a while, making the early game very difficult due to the lack of good equipment. However, leveling up may grant a Binder a random spellbook. They may get lucky and receive a useful one.

Bleeders are the dictionary definition of a harder-than-hard role: they take double damage. This applies to just about any source of damage, so they effectively have half the amount of hit points shown on their status bar. Worse, Bleeders randomly lose HP, the random HP loss gradually becomes bigger as time passes, they randomly lose max HP and Pw, and their bad starting equipment means they probably won't be able to rush past the early game quickly to keep the nasty random HP loss at bay. To top it off, the Bleeder quest shows especially malicious design. Bleeders either hurry up and complete their quest as quickly as possible or they will simply die to random HP loss. They will also die if they linger after their quest instead of ascending ASAP, or basically, if they linger at any time, as the HP loss may randomly be higher than their max HP, leading to instadeath.

Bloodseekers heal some hit points whenever they kill a monster, depending on the monster's level. They also start with a wand of fire and occasionally a scroll of teleportation, allowing them to escape from sticky situations more easily.

Bosmer start with a bow and a stack of highly enchanted arrows, so unlike other archer roles they may not have to preserve their ammo until they can build up some luck. The starting poison resistance also helps in the early stages of the game, but their melee options are somewhat limited.

Bullies can steal like a nymph when attacking monsters in melee, allowing them to prevent monsters from using their items so the bully can use them instead. They also start with moderately enchanted gear, but they move at a moderately slow speed, and their starting weapons aren't good either.

Chevaliers are a fighter/cleric role with the ability to detect the beatitude of objects, bless them every once in a while and use healing and other clerical spells. They also start with an awesome baby dragon pet that can eventually grow up into an adult dragon. Chevaliers have to follow the knightly code of conduct though.

Convicts (which are also playable in UnNetHack, dNetHack or with the Convict patch) are a harder-than-hard role that starts with a heavy iron ball chained to the player, a cursed striped shirt and negative alignment, luck and a high sin counter. Races that would usually be peaceful will be hostile to the Convict. Shopkeepers who see their striped shirt will not allow them into their shop, and watchmen as well as vault guards will attack them on sight.

Cooks can always recognize detrimental food, and even on the off chance they do get sick from food poisoning they have a 50% chance of survival. Plus, cooks are fire resistant and can automatically disarm fire traps by setting them off with a 50% chance. However, their starting knife won't likely take them very far, and they suffer from a lack of decent weapon skills.

Couriers are a harder-than-hard role that hungers extremely rapidly (about 7 extra points of nutrition get used up every other turn), always causes conflict and is slow to boot. They're immune to mind flayer intelligence drain attacks though, and start with a pistol and a knife.

Cruel Abusers start with highly enchanted gear, allowing them to be strong early on both offensive- and defensive-wise, but their real difficulty comes from trying to beat the quest. If the cruel abuser kills their nemesis, their god will become very angry, and even if the player survives the deity's wrath, any newly spawned monsters will most likely be hostile, even if they're of a normally peaceful kind. This means the player should find a way to beat the quest without killing the nemesis monster, which may be very hard to do as the nemesis is a fragile level 1 monster with very little health.

Death Eaters start out slow. Their main strength is spellcasting; they start with several high-level spells and a wand of death as well as an amulet of life saving and a cloak of reflection. If an early nymph shows up and steals some or all of those items, YASD is imminent.

Divers are an experimental role with moderate to high difficulty. They don't particularly excel at anything but don't suffer from serious drawbacks either; their starting equipment includes an oilskin cloak and an amulet of magical breathing among other things. Divers are notable for the ability to reach legendary skill with tridents.

Doll Mistresses start out slow, and their starting equipment isn't exactly good either. However, among their starting items they have a worm tooth that can become a very powerful weapon if a scroll of enchant weapon is found, and the doll mistress also knows the attire charm technique from the beginning. When combined with the Navi race they can even start using it right away, allowing them to gain powerful pets. Furthermore, their big selection of starting food ensures they won't starve early on.

Drunks benefit from quaffing booze and can always make more, but they also start with a large stack of random potions that may be full healing or other useful types. Other than that they get nothing special, and their starting weapon is particularly crappy, so they'll need to luck into finding good equipment or they'll have a hard time.

Dunmer are yet another archer class that starts with +0 arrows, so they'll probably be better off using their enchanted dagger for a while. They can use some melee techniques after leveling up a few times though, which may help a little.

Electric Mages are the lightning-based counterpart of flame/ice mages. They specialize in shock spells, and both they and their starting pet are shock resistant. Starting with a wand of lightning, they can easily survive the early game by burning a permanent Elbereth in critical situations.

Elphs are basically rangers on steroids, with even bigger multishot bonuses for their starting bow. When combined with the Elf race, they can really do massive damage in a single round of combat, making the early game very easy if the player doesn't unneccesarily waste arrows. Blessing them and enchanting them up with enchant weapon scrolls will make sure they almost never break.

Feat Masters can tame any vortex by chatting to it, use the #jump command at will, and also use the liquid leap and jedi jump techniques. However, their starting equipment is quite crappy.

Firefighters should be quite safe early on due to the guaranteed wand of fire which can burn Elbereths, and the scroll of fire is very useful if they run into a green slime with no other way to cure the sliming condition. Their starting stack of water is just waiting for an altar that allows converting it to holy water, so either a dive to Minetown (1 in 3 chance) or an early altar conversion may be viable strategies. The Firefighter's starting axe is not exactly the strongest weapon but they can advance a large variety of other weapon skills as well.

Foxhound Agents are telepathic and clairvoyant, which helps while exploring and also allows them to avoid potentially dangerous monsters. Their starting equipment is average, but one of the foxhound agent's weaknesses is their complete lack of spellcasting skills.

Gamers begin with a very high dexterity, basically ensuring they'll rarely miss with their attacks. However, they don't start with any useful equipment.

Gangsters start with a submachine gun and bullets. They also have the very useful create ammo technique that allows them to create new ammo every once in a while, allowing them to shoot enemies with wild abandon. A gangster is good at using daggers, darts and crossbows too, which can be used on weaker foes to conserve ammo for the stronger ones.

Geeks (a role from NhTNG) are very hard to play. They move slowly and don't have a lot of hit points or mana, and their starting electric sword is quite weak too. One of their advantages is that nasty trap effects time out twice as fast.

Gladiators are an experimental role with moderate to high difficulty. They don't particularly excel at anything but don't suffer from serious drawbacks either; their starting equipment includes a shield of reflection though, which might come in handy.

Goffs are constantly high on acid, and they're also very slow so they're very hard to keep alive. The first thing they need to do (unless their player read spoilers) is figuring out what their starting inventory actually is, and even if they find a way to stop the hallucinations (which is possible), their slow movement speed will make the entire game much harder. Finding an item that gives permanent speed (preferably "very fast", e.g. speed boots) should be the Goff's top priority. However, they also need to adhere to the "anorexia conduct" that puts restrictions on eating, and if that wasn't enough, they're also permanently vampiric meaning they can only drain fresh blood from corpses. This means that unless they find a ring of slow digestion, they'll constantly be low on food.

Graduates are basically a weaker version of the Geek, starting with useless wacky equipment and none of the intrinsics that make the Geek worth playing. They're also slow, but at least they have a camera that can be used to shoo away dangerous opponents. For a Graduate, the duration of nasty trap effects is quartered.

Gunners start with lots of guns and ammo, plus the ability to make more by using the create ammo technique, but if they try to melee monsters with anything that isn't a dagger, knife or firearm, they not only tax their alignment but suffer from a massive to-hit penalty too. This basically forces them to use only those types of weapons, and if they run out of bullets and don't have an enchanted dagger or knife yet, they're screwed.

Intel Scribes are a slow role that starts with a magic marker and several blank scrolls, but apart from that they're quite weak.

Jedis (also available with the Jedi patch for SLASH'EM) use lightsabers and have techniques to recharge them, move objects from a distance and do jumps. They can't get proficient at most other types of weapons though, and they either run out of lightsaber energy often or have to waste a turn every time a monster shows up to turn their saber back on.

Jesters get a +3 damage bonus for using a rubber hose, which they also start with but later on they should switch to a real weapon. Their large amount of starting gems may be used to build up luck early on if a unicorn can be found, but occasionally some gems may be generated with high enchantments, making slings a possible weapon choice. However, sometimes one of the starting gems will be a cursed loadstone, and to top it off, jesters are also a slow-moving role.

Korsairs are an experimental role with moderate to high difficulty. They don't particularly excel at anything but don't suffer from serious drawbacks either; their starting equipment includes an amulet of magical breathing as well as a good stack of daggers. Korsairs can reach legendary skill with firearms.

Ladiesmen will cancel foocubi less often and have a high chance of not paying them after an encounter, plus they can "seduce" nymphs, nurses and succubi by chatting to them, sometimes taming them. If that fails, they can still use the attire charm technique to tame any intelligent human(oid), and they start with quite some gold. Their downsides are that they may never as much as hit, let alone kill an intelligent female being, plus they're moving at slowest speed, making it much harder to escape from fast monsters.

Librarians are capable of successfully reading cursed spellbooks, plus they can identify items more easily by using the research technique and start writing scrolls once they recharge their empty magic marker. The downsides are a slightly slower movement speed and a complete lack of weapon skills, making the librarian a very hard-to-play role.

Locksmiths start the game with no weapon and no armor, and their (un)locking tools and wands won't help much in an actual combat situation so they need to turn up useful equipment quickly or they won't stand a chance. They're likely to have to rely on their starting pet for quite some time and engrave Elbereth often.

Lunatics are a role-specific version of the Lycanthrope race; their wereform is randomly determined at the start of the game, but otherwise most of the Lycanthrope's quirks apply. So the player either has to find a way to control their random transformations or accept not always being able to wear/wield armor and weapons. Unlike characters who catch lycanthropy from being bit by a werecreature, their wereforms do more damage if the player's experience level is higher though.

Mahou Shoujo always aggravate monsters and start out slow, but to make up for it, they also start with magic resistance and gain both teleport control and polymorph control by leveling up. Their real strength is spellcasting though. A Mahou Shoujo can always perform hungerless casting, their spell memory will last for a much longer time and all spells only cost half the usual amount of mana. The only disadvantage to this is that mahou shoujo always announce their spells, waking up monsters close by whenever they cast.

Musicians can use their magic harp to try to tame dangerous monsters, and their other instruments (including a drum of earthquake) may also be useful at times. They don't start with an actual weapon though, so they should try to find one quickly. If they manage to get surrounded by several strong monsters and tame them all at once with their harp they may be quite able to survive the early game.

Mystics begin the game with randomized intrinsics and items. Whenever they level up, they may also learn a random technique. A Mystic may enhance any weapon or spellcasting skill to Expert level.

Ninjas are similar to Rogues but with considerably worse starting items, so their early game won't exactly be easy. They get some useful intrinsics from leveling up though.

Nobles (also available in DNetHack) are a melee role that mainly uses one-handed weapons. They start with a saddled pony, but their hit points and mana aren't great, making them a hard-to-play role.

Officers start with a pistol and some useful wands, which can be "doubled" by their starting pet that starts with the same items and immediately drops them on their first turn. This allows the Officer to dual-wield pistols from the start and gun down any dangerous enemies with the downside of doing crappy melee damage. Still, it's probably better than whacking enemies with a club that doesn't do any meaningful damage either, and may allow the Officer to survive long enough to find another useful weapon. Dual-wielding with a pistol in main hand and a strong melee weapon (e.g. silver saber) in the other hand enables the player to do well in both melee and ranged combat without having to switch weapons.

Ordinators will have an easy early game thanks to the big amount of highly enchanted starting weapons in their inventory; their hit points aren't great though, and they lack armor, plus every stat other than strength starts out very low. This means that the Ordinator will have to kill enemies quickly since if he doesn't, they will quickly overwhelm him. If the Ordinator gets their quest artifact, their offense will be improved even more; the artifact tsurugi always starts out +6 and grants +8 to-hit as well as +4 damage. Keep a potion of holy water in open inventory to be able to uncurse it though, in case an enemy spellcaster curses it!

Otaku are similar to tourists, which means shopkeepers will rip them off and they start with lots of food and gold, but also a katana and some useful weapon skills. The early game is therefore likely to be relatively easy for them.

Paladins are basically enhanced knights who also get undead warning and demon warning, but their code of conduct is much harsher, giving larger penalties than the knight conduct. Attacking Izchak will cause instant death at the hands of the player's deity. However, the paladin's starting equipment is also better than the knight's, and they have a higher chance of successfully casting difficult spells.

Pickpockets will aggravate monsters whenever their alignment record is negative, but their melee attacks can steal gold from monsters and all traps only have a 50% chance of triggering if a pickpocket steps on them. They start with some gold and stacks of daggers and knives.

Pirates (also available in DNetHack) specialize in one-handed weapons and firearms; they have the ability to swim. However, their hit point and mana totals are usually pitiful, making them hard to play.

Pokemon are bad at using weapons, and they don't start with spells. A viable strategy would be to dig down to the Oracle and smash the statues in hope of finding spellbooks; they may also be combined with a race that gets unarmed damage bonuses and fight hand to hand. Pokemon can throw poke balls at random monsters for a chance to turn them into pets; if the monster has the "petty" string in their name, the ball will always work.

Politicians are capable of sometimes taming soldiers by bribing them, and they sometimes receive extra gold when offering a corpse on an altar, but they don't gain alignment points for killing monsters. Also, they start with absolutely no weapon or spellcasting skills at all; instead, they come to the dungeon with lots of money and a bag of holding.

Psions are glass cannons with lots of techniques and intrinsics; leveling up enough allows them to detect monsters permanently, which is a huge boon considering that warning and telepathy have been nerfed in Slash'EM Extended. Their single-digit starting HP aren't going to improve much from leveling up though, so nurse dancing or full healing potions are probably required if a Psion is supposed to survive the later parts of the game.

Rockers are lithivores with petrification resistance. This would make them an excellent YASD-proof character were it not for the fact that they start out slow, and they also have a very hard quest to beat. They can repeatedly produce cockatrice eggs from thin air to use on enemies though.

Sages are basically wizards that start with a mace instead of a staff; they're even more likely than wizards to successfully write unknown scrolls, but they don't receive some of the wizard's other benefits.

Saiyan are similar to monks but weaker in many aspects; one of their advantages is a wider variety of weapon skills, but they don't get intrinsics from leveling up.

Scientists start out with a chemistry set, a spellbook of chemistry and some bottles; they also know all potions that exist in the game, so they'll be able to make any potion they want, including invulnerability. Their highly enchanted starting armor might keep them safe for some time but their offensive options kind of suck; finding a good weapon early will be important.

Slave Masters have a chance of starting with items that can be used in conjunction with pets, but generally they're very underwhelming. About the only thing they really have going for them is they gain teleport control by leveling up.

Spacewars fighters start out woefully underequipped, but they also get a lot of money so they might be able to buy what they need. They suffer from a relative lack of ranged options though, and their quest can be annoying. This is especially true if they allow their quest nemesis to banish them to the depths of Gehennom, possibly even right into Demogorgon's lair. However, with good preparation the Spacewars Fighter quest isn't too hard to beat.

Supermarket Cashiers are a slow role that starts with teleportitis, which they won't be able to control unless they level up a lot of times or find a source of teleport control. They start with some gold though, and at experience level 18 they also learn the martial arts techniques.

Thalmor are a kind of battlemage class that gets solid stats, starting equipment and intrinsics. They also start with a useful pet that may make the early game quite easy.

Topmodels are relatively good fighters that start out with a rifle, but bullets may be hard to come by. They also get lots of great intrinsics at the start of the game, including flying, unbreathing, warning and more. Additionally, the Topmodel may use the attire charm technique to convert intelligent human(oid)s into pets. However, Topmodels are the slowest role of all, also all of their powers are lost if they take off or lose their high heels, and they need to follow the "anorexia conduct" or they will suffer from negative effects including, but not limited to, vomiting, food poisoning, stat point loss, negative alignment record and eventually being unable to pray safely. Topmodels also face some of the most obnoxious random monsters ever in their quest, and their nemesis commands armies of nasty monsters too.

Transvestites excel at fighting with weapons that use the hammer skill. They should wear high heels at all times for extra speed; if they don't, they will be slow and have a hard time overall. Also, the attire charm technique may be used to turn any adjacent human or humanoid monster (except uniques, quest nemeses and shopkeepers, but including things like gnomes or orcs) into pets. The transvestite starts with a saddle and has increased chances of successfully mounting a steed.

Undertakers begin the game with a useless scalpel that should be ditched for a real melee weapon, and they can turn undead both by using the technique and zapping the wand of undead turning so they may sometimes resurrect a fallen pet. Unless they luck into good equipment, they'll probably need to use pets in order to survive the early game.

Wandkeepers are a slow, but potentially very powerful role that starts with many resistances and gains a lot of other useful intrinsics simply by leveling up. They always know the exact amount of charges a wand has, and they can recharge most wands (with a few exceptions like the wand of wishing) with a much lower chance of blowing them up. If a wandkeeper successfully charges a wand, the added amount of charges will be higher than if another role had charged it, even allowing them to get an extra wish out of a wand of wishing. A wandkeeper starts with lots of wands, a scroll of charging and the polymorph spell, but their weapon skills aren't very useful so they'll be better off learning some attack spells.

Warriors are great at using melee weapons and good at ranged combat too, but they can't learn any spellcasting skills. The warrior starts with a saddled green nightmare steed. Their main difficulty is beating the Quest, thanks to their nemesis basically being a Master Kaen on steroids. If you used to have difficulty beating Master Kaen, the Archnemesis will probably be next to impossible to defeat.

Zookeepers start with three blessed scrolls of taming, allowing them to turn dangerous monsters into pets. They also get tripe rations and leashes which further aids them in gaining and maintaining pets, but unless they randomly find a magic marker and a way to blank scrolls, their taming scrolls will only last so long, so the player should make the most out of them. Confusion may allow the scrolls to tame a much bigger amount of monsters, turning them against the ones that resist. Other than that, the starting bullwhip should be discarded as soon as a real weapon appears, and the zookeeper also needs to find some armor if he wants to survive.

Zyborgs are an easy to play role suitable for beginners, with good armor and access to all skills, including martial arts at grand master skill level. They even get random techniques from leveling up, and they are also metallivores, greatly reducing the risk of early starvation. Zyborgs are moderately slow though, and they also have a very hard quest to beat. The quest artifact has a chance of beheading monsters with a head, and it can also be picked up by intelligent monsters and used against the player.