Vlad the Impaler
V Vlad the Impaler 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 32 |
| Attacks |
Weapon 2d10, bite 1d12 drain life |
| Base level | 28 |
| Base experience | 1087 |
| Speed | 26 |
| Base AC | -6 |
| Base MR | 80 |
| Alignment | -10 (chaotic) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | Unique |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 1450 |
| Nutritional value | 400 (human corpse) |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | Sleep, poison |
| Resistances conveyed |
None |
|
Vlad the Impaler:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line1869 |
Vlad the Impaler, V, is a unique vampire that appears in NetHack. He holds the Candelabrum of Invocation, and resides at the top of his tower in Gehennom.
Like his weaker brethren he possesses the abilities of flight and magical breathing. He is also covetous, which means he will warp to the upstairs - or, in his tower, the ladder down - to heal.
Contents
Generation
Vlad the Impaler is always generated with a two-handed sword, a battle-axe, a bow and 3-14 arrows, or, with a 21% chance, nothing.
Strategy
Vlad is the second fastest monster in the game, faster than a player with speed boots. His speed allows him to warp to you, hit you, bite you, and sometimes warp away again in a single turn before you get a chance to retaliate. Unlike other covetous monsters, if you are standing on the ladder yourself, he will warp away a few steps when hurt instead of staying next to the ladder. If you take the bait and follow, he may then escape down. This, combined with his high 130 HP, makes fighting him quite frustrating, especially for low-damage characters.
He hits hard, and often gets multiple hits for each of yours. Above all, he deals double damage during the midnight hour (0:00-0:59 server time) due to being undead, and he has all the powers of his subordinate vampires including drain life attacks. He is also immune to sleep, death rays, slowness, and polymorph. The quickest way to deal with him is to use a footrice corpse or a potion of paralysis. If neither of the two is available, you need decent AC and a well enchanted silver weapon to take him down quickly. Failing that, you can let him escape the tower into the main area of Gehennom, and stand on an upstair to fight him.
Be careful not to confuse Vlad: if he levelports by a confused scroll of teleportation, you get to look for him in his Tower, all of Gehennom above it, and the entire Dungeons of Doom, which is very annoying. This also makes Magicbane an impractical choice.
History
Prior to 3.6.1, Vlad used to be significantly slower, weaker and wouldn't teleport away. He was widely regarded as being quite a feeble enemy to be a mandatory fight at the stage of the game when he is faced; he was not significantly stronger than the vampire lords which appear as normal enemies.
Jokes abounded of fighting him with food rations, magic markers, thoroughly rusty thoroughly corroded tin openers (which could still rust back then) or orcish daggers, not moving every second turn while fighting him, or a variety of other absurd scenarios which would normally result in YASDs, and still easily defeating Vlad. The items used for such exploits had become known as Vladsbanes (or Vladbanes or Vladsmashers, in a mockery of the Banes) and on the occasions when such an item is used it is often so #named in tribute (see link below). The danger of confused levelport by Vlad even gave you a legitimate reason to use a Vladbane-type weapon instead of Magicbane.
A variety of patches had been written before 3.6.1 to address this issue by altering Vlad in some way. One of the better known ones was the aptly-named Vlad Balance patch. The Dudley's dungeon strip for 30 November 2006 (via Wayback Machine) featured several humorous attempts to remake Vlad; see also the comments for the 30 November and 1 December strips.
Origin
Vlad is a major vampire based mostly on the fictional Count Dracula, who is in turn based on the non-fictional Vlad Drăculea, a 15th century Romanian prince.
Variants
SporkHack
In SporkHack he's been beefed up significantly, most notably by arming him with an artifact two-handed sword named Lifestealer that has similar properties to Stormbringer.
GruntHack
GruntHack enhances Vlad's vital statistics (base level 28, base speed 24, stunning and confusion attacks) and give him a guaranteed thirsty spetum and a stack of cursed scrolls of teleportation.
SLASH'EM
Strangely, in SLASH'EM there is also the distinct Count Dracula as a quest nemesis. So they are two monsters, derived from the same non-fictional Vlad Drăculea.
Encyclopedia entry
Vlad Dracula the Impaler was a 15th-Century monarch of the
Birgau region of the Carpathian Mountains, in what is now
Romania. In Romanian history he is best known for two things.
One was his skilled handling of the Ottoman Turks, which kept
them from making further inroads into Christian Europe. The
other was the ruthless manner in which he ran his fiefdom.
He dealt with perceived challengers to his rule by impaling
them upright on wooden stakes. Visiting dignitaries who
failed to doff their hats had them nailed to their head.
External links
This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.
It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.4. Information on this page may be out of date.
Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-364}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.
