Gloves
Gloves are one portion of a player's armor. They provide a small bonus to armor class, and can be enchanted further reducing your armor class. Furthermore, all gloves protect the player from the stoning effects of touching cockatrice corpses.
Types
They come in four forms: simple leather gloves (yugake), gauntlets of power (often abbreviated GoP), gauntlets of dexterity (GoD), and gauntlets of fumbling (GoF):
| Name | Cost | Weight | AC | Material | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gauntlets of dexterity | 50 | 10 | 1 | Leather | Dexterity bonus (+/- Enchantment) |
| Gauntlets of fumbling | 50 | 10 | 1 | Leather | Fumbling, usually generated cursed |
| Gauntlets of power | 50 | 30 | 1 | Iron | Strength=25, interfere with spellcasting |
| Leather gloves | 8 | 10 | 1 | Leather | None |
Wearing a cursed pair of gloves prevents you from putting on or removing any rings. However, if you are wearing an uncursed pair of gloves, you can still put on or remove rings without removing your gloves, and wearing gloves does not increase the number of in-game turns required to switch rings.
Gloves can be generated with the following appearances: old gloves, padded gloves, riding gloves, fencing gloves.
Strategy
As a general rule, spellcasters will want GoD, and melee fighters will want GoP. Most especially, Valkyries will want GoP, as it will allow them to throw Mjollnir and have it return to them. (Whether or not throwing Mjollnir is desirable is an open question of strategy among strong players; see the Mjollnir article. Your opinion on this topic may influence your choice to wish or not wish for gauntlets of power.) Spellcasters may still want GoP in case their strength is reduced below 4 and they have no other way to restore it.
Because the to-hit bonus from extra dexterity becomes less beneficial later in the game, and some races may not benefit as much from 25 strength (such as non-Valkyrie humans and dwarves with 18/** strength), leather gloves are a viable choice for an ascension kit. They possess the same weight as the GoD (lighter than the GoP), but since they are far more common than either it is much easier to enchant them up to +7. This gives an extra -2 AC over the GoD or GoP.
Any gloves with the randomized appearance of "riding gloves" will give a bonus when saddling a steed. This is an extra factor when choosing gloves for classes capable of the riding skill.
SLASH'EM
SLASH'EM adds one new pair of gloves, the gauntlets of swimming, and black gloves as a new possible randomized appearance for all types of magical gloves. SLASH'EM also adds The Gauntlets of Defense, a neutral pair of artifact gauntlets of dexterity that are the guaranteed first sacrifice gift for a monk.
SLASH'EM additionally changes the behavior of gauntlets of power; instead of automatically increasing your strength to 25, your strength is set to 18/** if it was lower, and then increased by the enchantment of the gloves, much like gauntlets of dexterity. Valkyries alone are able to safely enchant the gauntlets of power to +7, while other roles are limited to +5 - thus only valkyries can reliably obtain 25 strength through the gauntlets of power.
SLASH'EM does not change the effect of gauntlets of dexterity directly, but since dexterity bonuses will also decrease AC, a highly enchanted pair of gauntlets of dexterity will greatly decrease your AC once your race's maximum dexterity is reached.
This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.
It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.0. Information on this page may be out of date.
Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-360}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.
