Aleax

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An Aleax, A, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is a medium-sized humanoid angelic being that can see invisible, picks up weapons and food, has infravision, can be seen via infravision, and can follow a player character to other levels if they are adjacent.

An Aleax has two weapon attacks and a kick attack, and possesses cold resistance, sleep resistance, shock resistance, and poison resistance.

Chatting to an Aleax causes it to imitate you.

Generation

Randomly generated Aleaxes will be peaceful towards lawful characters with good alignment record, and hostile Aleaxes may also appear as minions of a lawful god. Aleaxes are never randomly generated in Gehennom.

An Aleax is generated with an uncursed erodeproof large shield 34 of the time, and an uncursed shield of reflection otherwise, and their weapon will be a blessed erodeproof long sword, with a 15 chance of the sword being either Demonbane or Sunsword if neither artifact has been generated.[1]

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.

Aleaxes can only receive Sunsword, as Demonbane's base item is changed to a mace.

Strategy

Aleaxes possess a decent AC of 0 and their long swords are often enchanted, and their MR score of 30 confers significant resistance to some spells and wands - however, they move at a slow 8 speed, and usually are not too dangerous for a character deep enough in the dungeon to encounter one. Even so, an Aleax should be handled with some caution, especially if a hostile one generates with a shield of reflection.

Of note is that the Aleax is the only humanoid angelic being to be a valid form for polymorph.

History

The Aleax first appears in NetHack 3.1.0.

Origin

In Dungeons & Dragons, an Aleax is an avatar of a deity sent to punish a specific mortal. Dungeons & Dragons pluralizes the being's name as Aleaxi[2] - NetHack instead pluralizes their name as Aleaxes.[3]

The Aleax takes on the target's exact appearance and carries identical equipment, which is why the Aleax of NetHack imitates you when spoken to.

Messages

<The Aleax> imitates you.
You chatted to an Aleax.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, the Aleax's difficulty is raised to 15, and requires a +2 weapon or better to be hit, while implicitly hitting as a +2 weapon.

Aleaxes and Angels are the only angelic beings that cannot be gifted as minions to lawful characters via sacrifice or prayer.

All of the above information also applies to SlashTHEM.

GruntHack

In GruntHack, the Aleax's difficulty is lowered to 11.

SporkHack

In SporkHack, the Aleax's weapon attacks are buffed to 2d6.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, the Aleax uses the A glyph. A randomly generated Aleax is created with erodeproof +0 copies of all of the player's equipment and weapons being worn at the time of its generation, with any artifacts converted to their base items. This behavior is adapted from Dungeons & Dragons, as described above.

dNetHack

In dNetHack and notdNetHack, the Aleax uses the 7 glyph. Their difficulty is raised to 13, their 10 points of AC are all from divine protection, and they are made invalid forms for polymorph - their two weapon attacks are changed to "mirror" attacks with the same dice that use a copy of your current weapon.

Three hostile Aleaxes appear within one of the rooms in Demogorgon's lair if his dwelling appears as the third Abyss level.

Encyclopedia entry

Said to be a doppelganger sent to inflict divine punishment for alignment violations.

References

  1. src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 326
  2. David "Zeb" Cook (1994). Planescape Campaign Setting, Monstrous Supplement. Edited by David Wise. (TSR, Inc), pp. 2–3. ISBN 978-1560768340.
  3. src/mondata.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 760