Spear
) 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | spear |
| Appearance | spear |
| Damage vs. small | 1d6 |
| Damage vs. large | 1d8 |
| To-hit bonus | +0 |
| Weapon skill | spear |
| Size | one-handed |
| Base price | 3 zm (+10/positive enchant) |
| Weight | 30 |
| Material | iron |
A spear is a kind of weapon. It can be used in melee, or thrown.
Runed elven spears and stout dwarvish spears are superior to ordinary spears, while crude orcish spears are predictably inferior. Silver spears deal the same base damage as ordinary ones.
Contents
Spear skill
| Spear | |
|---|---|
| Max | Role |
| Basic | |
| Skilled | |
| Expert | |
The following weapons use spear skill:
Spears have an additional +2 to-hit bonus against all monsters when thrown.
Weapons in the spear class have a +2 to-hit bonus when hitting kebabable monster classes.
In versions of NetHack prior to 3.6.0, javelins had their own javelin skill that consisted solely of javelins, but it has since been merged into the spear skill. When unidentified, a javelin appears as a 'throwing spear'.
There are no artifact spears in vanilla NetHack.
Generation
Ordinary spears make up 5.0% of randomly generated weapons (on the ground, as death drops, and in shops). In addition, watchmen, soldiers in the Yendorian army,[1] salamanders,[2] and ice devils[3] may be generated with a spear.
Strategy
In the absence of dagger skills, a small stack of spears is a powerful ranged weapon for any Caveman or Priest lucky enough to find more than one. Generally you need to encounter a large antique weapons outlet to find them in any number. However, spears are quite heavy (three spears weigh almost as much as a pick-axe), so they have a tendency to cause encumbrance problems.
Spears can be multishot as of NetHack 3.6.0. Cavemen get a +1 multishot bonus for throwing spears.[4]
Variants
SLASH'EM
SLASH'EM introduces the #name-able artifact orcish spear Elfrist, the anti-elven counterpart to Orcrist, and the artifact silver spear Holy Spear of Light, which functions much like Sunsword.
In SLASH'EM the Valkyrie's starting +1 long sword has been replaced with a +1 spear.[5] For dwarvish Valkyries, the spear will be a dwarvish spear.[6]
Sporkhack
In SporkHack, Dragonbane is a dwarvish spear.
Origin
The spear is a weapon designed for thrusting. Chimpanzees use very rudimentary spears, so it is likely that humans used spears for an extremely long time.
The related lance is designed for jousting and the javelin for throwing.
Encyclopedia entry
- they come together with great random, and a spear is brast,
and one party brake his shield and the other one goes down,
horse and man, over his horse-tail and brake his neck, and
then the next candidate comes randoming in, and brast his
spear, and the other man brast his shield, and down he goes,
horse and man, over his horse-tail, and brake his neck, and
then there's another elected, and another and another and
still another, till the material is all used up; and when you
come to figure up results, you can't tell one fight from
another, nor who whipped; and as a picture of living, raging,
roaring battle, sho! why it's pale and noiseless - just
ghosts scuffling in a fog. Dear me, what would this barren
vocabulary get out of the mightiest spectacle? - the burning
of Rome in Nero's time, for instance? Why, it would merely
say 'Town burned down; no insurance; boy brast a window,
fireman brake his neck!' Why, that ain't a picture!
Twain ]
References
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.0, line 199: mercenary spears
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.0, line 436: salamander spears
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.0, line 694: ice devil spears
- ↑ src/dothrow.c in NetHack 3.6.0, line 138: Caveman multishot
- ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 229: Valkyrie spear
- ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 343: dwarvish Valkyrie spear
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It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.0. Information on this page may be out of date.
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