Trollsbane

)   Trollsbane
Base item	Morning star
Damage vs. small	2d4 ×2
Damage vs. large	1d6+1 ×2
To-hit bonus	+1d5
Bonus versus	trolls
Weapon skill	Morning star
Size	one-handed
Affiliation	unaligned
When carried	(none)
When wielded	(none)
When invoked	(none)
Base price	200 zm
Weight	120
Material	iron

Trollsbane is an artifact weapon that appears in NetHack. It is unaligned, and its base item is a morning star.

Generation

A randomly generated morning star has a base ¹⁄₂₀ chance of being made into an artifact, which will always be Trollsbane if no artifacts have already been generated. Trollsbane can be given as a sacrifice gift to characters of any role, though it will never be the first one given.

Player monsters on the Astral Plane that generate with a morning star have a ¹⁄₂ chance of it being made into Trollsbane if it has not been generated.

Description

Trollsane has +1d5 to-hit and deals double damage against trolls. While wielded, Trollsbane prevents troll corpses from reviving.

Strategy

Like most of the Banes, Trollsbane is of limited use - though trolls are often troublesome, they make up a very small portion of the total monsters a character encounters. Trollsbane is also further hampered by its base item—morning stars are heavy and very rarely used, and lack any incentive to train the skill over using a more accessible artifact weapon. Excalibur in particular also exemplary of Trollsbane's limited damage against its target monsters: at +0, and accounting for doubled damage, Excalibur deals 14 damage on average versus Trollsbane's 9.

One potential use case for Trollsbane is the Barbarian quest, which pits Barbarians against trolls of all types.

History

Trollsbane first appears in NetHack 3.0.0. From NetHack 3.0.3 to NetHack 3.1.2, Trollsbane is a lawful artifact, while from NetHack 3.1.3 to Nethack 3.2.3, Trollsbane is chaotic - it is made unaligned in NetHack 3.3.0.

The ability to prevent troll corpses from reviving was added in NetHack 3.6.1.

Variants

NetHack: The Next Generation

In NetHack: The Next Generation, Trollsbane is one of the many artifacts that can be requested at The Forge.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, Trollsbane has a flat +5 to-hit bonus and retains its double damage against trolls, with a ³⁄₂₀ chance of cancelling any troll it hits.

SporkHack

In SporkHack, Trollsbane grants hungerless regeneration while wielded; it deals +d4 bonus damage to all monsters and has a 50% chance of instantly destroying trolls on a successful hit.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, Trollsbane grants hungerless regeneration while wielded, warns of trolls and prevents them from leaving corpses - it also has a ¹⁄₅ chance of instantly killing any trolls it hits.

dNetHack

In dNetHack and notdNetHack, Trollsbane is made of silver, and morning stars are somewhat buffed.

Trollsbane has +1d10 to-hit and +1d20 damage against trolls and monsters with enhanced regeneration, with a ¹⁄₁₀ chance of canceling one that it hits. It also has a secondary damage bonus of 2d20 + 2x enchantment against covetous monsters, which can stack with the primary damage bonus. It does not resist being held second to other weapons when twoweaponing, but is too heavy to use it in the off-hand by almost all characters without a −20 to-hit penalty. Trollsbane is also a sunlight-emitting artifact: gremlins and hunting horrors are reduced to dust, and trolls without stoning resistance are petrified.

FIQHack

In FIQHack, Trollsbane deals +1d20 damage against trolls and grants hungerless regeneration while wielded.

SpliceHack

In SpliceHack, Trollsbane can be combined with Werebane at a furnace to create Mortality Dial.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, Trollsbane warns of trolls and has a chance of instakilling any troll it hits, and wielding the artifact will make trolls that see it hostile. Trolls that are killed directly by Trollsbane, or else die while in proximity of the wielded artifact will not leave corpses.

Trollsbane can be combined with Ogresmasher at a forge to create Ashmar, an artifact dwarvish roundshield.

SlashTHEM

In addition to SLASH'EM details, SlashTHEM reinstates The Forge from NetHack: The Next Generation, and Trollsbane is one of the many artifacts that can be requested.