Talk:Knight

I need to check the source code but it looks like there is no alignment penalty if you attack the monster with spells, wands or missile weapons. Same thing if you bash the monster with your lance. (Unsigned)

I have cleaned up this page a bit, and I have a few questions:

"At the beginning use it only for bashing not for close combat" - I'm not clear what this means. If "bashing" means walking into a monster while wielding your lance and getting "You begin bashing monsters with your lance", I don't think it's terribly useful because it doesn't do much damage or train any skills.

New moons have NO effect on Luck, so I don't think they affect the chance of a lance breaking, and I changed the reference to Friday the 13th which does reduce your base Luck.

A reference for the statement that an apple/carrot will keep your horse fed as long as a full ration will keep you fed would be nice.

If you have reflection and are riding your horse, will this protect it from blasts of disintegration or not?

Please be consistent about whether the horse is referred to as "he" or "it" - I changed it to "it" throughout. Ekaterin 15:03, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Bashing was used as a contraction from the very cumbersome "apply the lance on an opponent" (the long rande capability of the lance). I wanted to use the same word than used in the Knight's FAQ but I cannot access it from home (is my ISP banned?) and can't remember the tem used in it. I will check what term is used, replace "Bashing" with the term from the Knight's FAQ and create a page who will be pointed by both the Knight, the lance and perhaps the pole arm pages in order to avoid redundancy

For carrots feeding horses for a long time, it is from obesrvation. I will try to skim the source code however.

Reflection will protect only you: if spellcaster or dargon aims low it will strike your horse, at least when source of reflection is dragon armor. I need to check if amulets or shields protect also the horse or not.

Forgive me for the lack of consistency in he or it. There is no neutral gender in either of my two mother languages and I feel uncomfortable on using it for sentient beings.

If you agree I would like to rebolden the IF in the sentence about Knight being an easy class if using proper tactics. Nethack's Knights don't have the destructive power and hit points of barbarians so closing with monsters and trading blows with them will get you killed fast (cf my own experience and some disparaging comments on the web eg "Naturs abhors vacuum and that is why Knights get killed because Knights suck"). It is the jousting, their long range lance attack and their mobility who makes them deadly. So deadly that in fact if it were not for monsters who create other monsters and for magical traps you could nearly go in Gehennom without any armor because very few monsters will be able to attack you at all. (Don't get me wrong: I strongly advise against it). That is why to emphasize the need of proper tactics (My feeling is that they are a much greater multiplier of force than for other classes).

About mobility: a knight on warhorse is 20% faster than a human with boots of speed. That plus its jumping ability means it will be esier for him than for other characters to reach a better defensive position (eg in a corridor if facing multiple monsters) or to disengagage when combat is going badly. Also when a non-Knight is surrounded by multiple monsters (eg he stepped in a magical trap) he will not be able to get an avenue of retreat/reduce the number of blows he is receiving in every round until he has killed one of his opponents. A knight needs only a joust and at Expert level he will be getting one four times out of five.

I have changed "bashing" to "pounding", which is the term used in the Knight FAQ. As you say, this term needs to be defined.

Ekaterin 16:24, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Bulls?

"Bulls and cows can be tamed by throwing them food and in game terms are just more powerful horses: they can be saddled and ridden but a bull can reach level 15 and 120Hp while a (war)horse will only reach level 10 and 80Hp. Info is required about relative speed of bulls and horses: a knight on a warhorse is faster than a character on foot wearing boots of speed."

I don't think there are bulls in Vanilla. Maybe they're in SLASH'EM or some other variant, in which case the article should say so.

Apologies about that.

Stuff

Shouldn't all that crap be moved to Riding?

Identifying

The article says that "Knights can identify all weapons and non-magical armor from the beginning." How can I do that?

It's done automatically, so for example if you find an orcish dagger you'll automatically see it as an orcish dagger, rather than a crude dagger. If you (the player) already know that a crude dagger is an orcish dagger, then this is not an especially helpful ability.

Oh. I hoped that the Knight is able to fully identify pieces of weapon and armour. Like crude dagger would be, for example, a cursed -2 orcish dagger... But that would be an enormous advantage I suppose :) Thanks for the answer!