Gauntlets of dexterity

From NetHackWiki
Revision as of 21:51, 24 October 2021 by Umbire the Phantom (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
[ Leather gloves.png[ Padded gloves.png[ Riding gloves.png[ Fencing gloves.png
gauntlets of dexterity
Appearance random
Slot gloves
AC 1
Special
Base price 50 zm
Weight 10
Material leather

Gauntlets of dexterity, often abbreviated to GoD, are a type of gloves that appear in NetHack. They are made of leather, and wearing them provides 1 point of AC and modifies the wearer's dexterity based on its enchantment, up to a maximum of 25. Wearing gauntlets of dexterity of any non-zero enchantment auto-identifies them.

Generation

Player monsters on the Astral Plane that do not generate with a war hammer have a 78 chance of generating wearing a random pair of gloves, with a 14 chance for those gloves to be gauntlets of dexterity - effectively, there is a 732 or ~21.9% chance for a player monster to carry these gauntlets.[1]

Strategy

Higher dexterity improves a player's chances of hitting with spells and attacks, but most players can maximize their chances to hit successfully through other means, particularly weapon skill and Luck. As such, gauntlets of dexterity are somewhat fairly uncommon, especially in ascension kits where leather gloves often suffice. Gauntlets of dexterity can still be of use to spellcasters seeking to improve their hit rates on attack spells such as magic missile and finger of death - Monks may prefer them both for general use with martial arts and to help offset the -20 to-hit penalty should they choose to wear body armor.

Other uses for these gauntlets include hitting with a thrown cockatrice egg or a potion of paralysis, whose odds of hitting cannot be improved by anything but a high dexterity score - even with 23 Dexterity, however, there is a 12% chance of missing, and hitting with a wielded egg or potion in melee is still more reliable, if you can afford it.

History

Gauntlets of dexterity first appear in NetHack 3.0.0.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, dexterity improves your AC at higher values, making gauntlets of dexterity much more attractive to the point that they may feature in ascension kits. It is debatable whether they are worth spending a wish on, since you can obtain them by upgrading leather gloves (which will become either these or gauntlets of swimming).

The Gauntlets of Defense are a pair of artifact gauntlets of dexterity that provide half physical damage when worn and can be invoked to toggle invisibility.

NetHack brass

In NetHack brass, gauntlets of dexterity set the wearer's dexterity to their race or role's maximum similar to gauntlets of power, and they will always auto-identify when worn.

dNetHack

dNetHack also has SLASH'EM-styled bonuses to AC, and female droven Anachrononauts start with a +1 pair of gauntlets of dexterity. dNetHack also contains two sets of artifact gauntlets of dexterity:

SlashTHEM

In addition to SLASH'EM changes, SlashTHEM adds The Pickpocket's Gloves, another pair of artifact gauntlets of dexterity - they confer stealth and searching while worn, and additionally provide a +20 bonus to stealing from monsters via the borrow extended command.

EvilHack

In Evilhack, thees gauntlets are somewhat more desirable compared to NetHack - dexterity functions similarly to SLASH'EM, though the bonuses only apply while unburdened.

Gauntlets of dexterity are generated as part of various kits for player monsters, including centaurs and monks.[2][3][4][5][6]

References