Body armor
Body armor, sometimes referred to as a suit of armor, is a type of armor that appears in NetHack. It is one of three armor types worn on the torso, along with the shirt and cloak - as a result, body armor may also refer collectively to all three slots, with torso armor referring to this slot specifically.
Description
Body armor is generally the primary source of AC for the player character and monsters in the dungeon, and the more AC a piece of body armor provides, the more rare or heavy it usually is. Body armor is also one of two armor types to have any form of magic cancellation, with the other being cloaks.
List of body armor
| Name | Cost | Weight | AC | Weight/AC | Material | MC | Appearance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| leather jacket | 10 | 30 | 1 | 30 | leather | 0 | — |
| leather armor | 5 | 150 | 2 | 75 | leather | 1 | — |
| orcish ring mail | 80 | 250 | 2 | 125 | iron | 1 | crude ring mail |
| studded leather armor | 15 | 200 | 3 | 66.7 | leather | 1 | — |
| ring mail | 100 | 250 | 3 | 83.3 | iron | 1 | — |
| scale mail | 45 | 250 | 4 | 62.5 | iron | 1 | — |
| orcish chain mail | 75 | 300 | 4 | 75 | iron | 1 | crude chain mail |
| chain mail | 75 | 300 | 5 | 60 | iron | 1 | — |
| elven mithril-coat | 240 | 150 | 5 | 30 | mithril | 2 | — |
| splint mail | 80 | 400 | 6 | 66.7 | iron | 1 | — |
| banded mail | 90 | 350 | 6 | 58.3 | iron | 1 | — |
| dwarvish mithril-coat | 240 | 150 | 6 | 25 | mithril | 2 | — |
| bronze plate mail | 400 | 450 | 6 | 75 | bronze | 1 | — |
| plate mail | 600 | 450 | 7 | 64.3 | iron | 2 | — |
| crystal plate mail | 820 | 450 | 7 | 64.3 | glass | 2 | — |
| dragon scales | 500 | 40 | 3 | 13.3 | dragon hide | 0 | — |
| dragon scale mail | 900 | 40 | 9 | 4.4 | dragon hide | 0 | — |
Strategy
While body armor is often heavy, it can provide a significant boost to your AC. The two most valued varieties of body armor are: the mithril-coats, which provide stellar AC but interfere with spellcasting and see use up to the mid-game at latest; and dragon scale mail, which all characters eventually seek out as soon as possible and is almost always part of an ascension kit. Both of these body armor types are immune to erosion and provide an excellent AC reduction for their weight.
History
Body armor is present as an armor slot in Jay Fenlason's Hack, as well as Hack 1.21 and Hack for PDP-11, and appears in Hack 1.0.
In NetHack 3.4.3 and previous versions, including some variants based on those versions, some types of body armor have different MC values:
Variants
Variants of NetHack often add new types of body armor.
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