Yeoman

The Yeoman is a role specific to the game SLASH'EM. Yeomen are based primarily around the Yeoman Warders of the Tower of London; in the game, they are primary melee combatants with particular skill in riding and polearm use. Yeomen must be generated male and lawful. According to the guidebook:

Yeomen are sturdy fighters. They are famed for their ability
         to stand doing nothing for hours. It is said that this is because
         they  are  none  too bright. Yeomen can both take a lot of damage
         and inflict it on others.

Starting Inventory

• a +2 short sword
• a +1 partisan
• +1 leather armor
• +0 high boots
• +0 leather gloves
• 10-20 apples
• 10-20 carrots
• 3 uncursed potions of water
• a fishing pole

A Yeoman's starting pet is always a pony with a saddle.

Abilities

Yeomen can identify all non-magical weapons and armor from the beginning. Yeomen begin the game with the calm steed technique, which increases the level of tameness of the creature they are riding. This is a particularly useful skill for players who wish to ride exotic beasts like the ki-rin.

However, Yeomen also start the game intrinsically slow, making 4 moves for every 5 units of time.

• At experience level 7 Yeomen gain intrinsic speed.
• At experience level 15 Yeomen gain the intrinsic ability to swim.

Skills

Yeoman skills
Max	Skills
Basic	Weapons: knife, broadsword, hammer, spear, sling, dart, whip, unicorn horn Spells: body
Skilled	Weapons: dagger, axe, long sword, saber, paddle, quarterstaff, javelin, trident, lance, firearms, crossbow Spells: enchantment, protection Combat: bare hands, two weapon combat
Expert	Weapons: short sword, polearms, bow Combat: riding

Yeomen vs. Knights

There are quite a few similarities between Yeomen and Knights. Both can become expert riders, and start with a saddled pony. Both start with apples and carrots to keep their ponies fed and to train apport. Yeomen cannot intrinsically jump, but can easily gain that ability with boots, without being restricted to a knights move. Yeomen get the calm steed skill, but miss out on the healing hands and turn undead. Yeomen can become expert at polearms, but only skilled at lance, where it is the opposite for Knights. Another similarity is their quest artifact, the Crown of Saint Edward is a Lawful Helm of telepathy, it confers magic resistance and half spell damage when carried. The Knight's Magic Mirror of Merlin also confers magic resistance and telepathy, and doubles some spell damage.

Polearms

Yeomen are the only class that can gain expert at polearms. Unlike lances, you cannot joust an enemy with a polearm (they won't break either). However, polearms have a few distinct advantages over lances. They are much more common. They are lighter, ranging from ranseurs and spetums weighing 50, halberds and lucern hammers at 150. Compare to lances at 180. The better polearms do more damage, though your starting partisan is equal to the knight's starting lance. Lances do 1d6 vs small and 1d8 vs large or 3.5 to 4.5 on average. Halberds do 1d10 vs small and 2d6 vs large or 5.5 to 7 on average. There are no artifact lances, but the Yeoman's second sacrifice gift is the fantastic Reaper with +5 to hit and +20 to damage when pounding. You can do average base damage pounding a large monster with Reaper of 27, with a follow-up melee average of 7 for about 34 points of damage. The same scenario with a lance would pound at 5.5, and (have a 20-80% chance of a) joust for 15.5 for a total of 21 points. If you have jump boots, you can do massive damage just pounding with Reaper. An expert rider who is expert at polearm, using a +7 Reaper will pound with an average of 38 points of uncountered damage against large opponents.

Swords

Although you start with a pretty well enchanted short sword, and can gain expert in the skill, if you can find a longsword, you should consider switching. Yeomen can become skilled at longsword have relatively easy access to Excalibur. The first sacrifice gift for Yeomen is the very good Sword of Justice, a longsword with +5 to hit and +12 to damage against neutral and chaotic monsters. Since Yeomen can become skilled at two weapon, and in Slash'em you can two weapon with two artifacts, this is a very easy and very effective combination. If you must go short sword, there are a couple of artifact short swords in SLASH'EM.

See also: Yeoman quest

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