Helm

English

 • 中文（中国大陆）‎

A helm is a form of armor that appears in NetHack, and is one of seven armor slots available to the hero and certain monsters.

Description

Helms are worn on the head, and they cannot be used by heroes or monsters that lack a head or are tiny in size (and thus too small to wear armor at all). Flimsy helms are generally referred to as "hats". A worn helm that is metallic also interferes with the hero's spellcasting, raising their spell failure rate by a fixed value unless they are a Knight casting clerical spells.

If the hero polymorphs into a monster that is headless, tiny or else incapable of wearing armor, their helm will come off and fall to the ground—a hero that polymorphs into a monster with horns will also force their helm to fall off unless that helm is flimsy.

A worn helm of any type can reduce the amount of physical damage taken (before half physical damage is applied) from hitting the ceiling when the hero quaffs a cursed potion of levitation, with a helm that is made of a hard material reducing the damage from d10 to d3, while a hat only reduces it to d6. Helms that are made of a hard material can also reduce or even block damage from falling objects and monsters, which consists of the following:

• Rocks dropped by falling rock traps.
• Boulders or rocks dropped by a read scroll of earth.
• Objects thrown upward by the hero that land on their head.
• Falling piercers, including a hero in the form of one.

A worn helm of any type does not protect the hero from being splattered in the face by an egg that is thrown upward and then lands on them, which is especially important for cockatrice eggs. A worn helm also does not protect the hero if they threw a blessed item upward that landed on them and they are polymorphed into a form that takes extra damage from blessed items—similarly, a worn hard helm will not protect a hero if they threw a silver object upward that landed on them and they either have lycanthropy or they are polymorphed into a monster that hates silver (and the item will also sear them for extra silver damage as normal).

Worn helms have the opposite effect on some falling objects for a hero that is polymorphed into a xorn or earth elemental: these forms are protected from damage by thrown or flung objects hitting their head that are made of gemstone and mineral and are not rings, unless they are currently wearing a helm of any kind.

A greased helm can block the intelligence-draining tentacle attacks of a mind flayer or master mind flayer: a noncursed greased helm always blocks such an attack, while a cursed greased helm has only a ²⁄₃ chance, and the grease has a ¹⁄₂ chance of wearing off after each blocked attack in both cases. After checking for grease, any helm (including a cursed greased helm that fails to provide grease protection) then has a ⁷⁄₈ chance of blocking this attack.

Use by monsters

Any monster that is not tiny, has a head and can wear armor will wear a helm that they come across—monsters that generate with helms will have them worn if possible. A monster with a head and horns can only wear flimsy helms. If a monster wearing a helm is polymorphed into a headless or tiny form, the helm will fall to the ground, and if a monster that is wearing a rigid helm polymorphs into a form that has horns, the helm will also fall to the ground.

Aligned priests, high priests and minions will not wear a helm of opposite alignment.

List of helms

Name	Cost	Weight	AC	Material	Appearance	Effect
Fedora	1	3	0	cloth	(none given)	Flimsy. Archeologists wearing one gain a +1 luck bonus.
Dunce cap	1	4	0	cloth	conical hat	Flimsy. Magical. Autocursing. Sets INT and WIS to 6.
Cornuthaum	80	4	0	cloth	conical hat	Flimsy. Magical. MC1. Clairvoyance and other benefits for Wizards, and penalties for non-Wizards.
Elven leather helm	8	3	1	leather	leather hat	Flimsy. Can be safely enchanted to +7.
Orcish helm	10	30	1	iron	iron skull cap	Hard helm.
Dented pot	8	10	1	iron	(none given)	Hard helm. Takes one action to wear or remove.
Dwarvish iron helm	20	40	2	iron	hard hat	Hard helm.
Helm of brilliance	50	50	1	glass	crystal helm	Hard helm. Magical. Adds enchantment to INT and WIS.
Helmet (kabuto)	10	30	1	iron	(randomized)	Hard helm.
Helm of caution	50	50	1	iron	(randomized)	Hard helm. Magical. Grants warning.
Helm of opposite alignment	50	50	1	iron	(randomized)	Hard helm. Autocursing. Magical. Changes alignment of hero. No effect on a monster. Will not be worn by certain monsters.
Helm of telepathy	50	50	1	iron	(randomized)	Hard helm. Magical. Grants telepathy.

Randomized appearances

The four helms with randomized appearances share descriptions that are shuffled among them at the start of each game: "plumed helmet", "etched helmet", "crested helmet", and "visored helmet". Helms with the appearance of a "visored helmet" protect against the blinding claw attack of ravens and the blinding venom spit by cobras.

Strategy

Unidentified helms with randomized appearances are dangerous to wear, as two types of helms are autocursing and will become cursed when a hero puts them on, even if they are not already cursed. While you can use price identification to distinguish a dunce cap from a cornuthaum, three of the four helms with randomized appearances have the same cost, weight and AC, making it impossible to tell them apart this way.

In the early game, any metallic helm will protect against falling rock traps. In the later game, a greased helm protects against intelligence drain attacks; mind flayers and master mind flayers are common genocide targets, and removing them provides absolute protection.

For the ascension kit, popular choices are:

• A helm of telepathy, for detecting hostile monsters. The helm of caution may also be worthwhile for this purpose, since warning can detect hostile monsters that are mindless.
• A helm of brilliance, for improved spellcasting.
• A elven leather helm, for light weight and the ability to be safely enchanted to +7.
• A cornuthaum, which provides clairvoyance and can be safely enchanted to +7 if the hero is a Wizard.

A helm of opposite alignment has a niche use for mitigating the mysterious force on the ascension run, and is more popularly used for reducing the number of altars to visit on the Astral Plane.

History

The helmet first appears as a wearable item in Hack 1.0.

NetHack 3.0.0 establishes the helm as a armor subtype and adds various helms alongside the standard helmet: the orcish helm, fedora, helm of brilliance, helm of opposite alignment, and helm of telepathy are part of the default item list, while the elven leather helm and dwarvish iron helm appear only if the TOLKIEN compile-time option is defined. The helm of brilliance uses a randomized appearance in this version, and does not hinder spellcasting despite being made of iron—both of these traits are retained as late as NetHack 3.6.7.

NetHack 3.1.0 adds the dented pot to replace the "rusty pot", which is used as a randomized appearance for helms in previous versions.

NetHack 3.2.0 adds both the cornuthaum and dunce cap. From this version to NetHack 3.4.3, a worn cornuthaum grants MC2—NetHack 3.6.0 changes the cornuthaum so that it gives MC1.

NetHack 5.0.0 gives the helm of brilliance a fixed appearance and changes its material to glass, and adds the helm of caution as a "replacement" randomized helm.

Message

You hear a clank.

A monster's helmet fell off as a result of them polymorphing.

Variants

Many NetHack variants add new types of helms, and some variants have object materials systems which can affect an individual helm's ability to protect the wearer's head or its impact on spellcasting ability.

SLASH'EM

SLASH'EM retains the list of helms as they exist in NetHack 3.4.3 and older contemporary versions.

GruntHack

GruntHack retains the list of helms as they exist in NetHack 3.4.3. Helms cannot have the reflection object property.

SporkHack

SporkHack retains the list of helms as they exist in NetHack 3.4.3, and adds three new helms:

• The gnomish helm, which grants no base AC unless worn by gnomes and has the fixed appearance of a "little red hat";
• The helm of discovery, which grants 1 AC and automatic searching while worn and has a randomized appearance (default is "viking helmet"); and
• The helm of clarity, which grants 1 AC along with see invisible, infravision, protection from shape changers, blindness resistance and hallucination resistance, and has a randomized appearance (default is "tinfoil hat").

A helm with the randomized appearance of a "tinfoil hat" always blocks telepathy, including its own if it is randomized to a helm of telepathy, and protects the wearer from the psi bolt monster spell and the mind blast of a (master) mind flayer.

UnNetHack

UnNetHack retains the list of helms as they exist in NetHack 3.4.3 and adds a single new helm in the tinfoil hat, which is represented as a separate item rather than a randomized appearance as in SporkHack. This also applies to DynaHack, which is derived from earlier versions of UnNetHack.

dNetHack

dNetHack and notdNetHack remove the dented pot and splits the elven leather helm into two different items: the elven helm, which is the direct replacement for the original item and is significantly different, and the leather helm, which is closer to the original item but is no longer considered elven armor. It also adds many new helm types alongside the remaining ones that it retains from NetHack 3.4.3, and makes it possible for worn helms to fit various head shapes.

The following helms types are available in dNetHack:

• sedge hat
• wide hat
• leather helm
• gnomish pointy hat
• sunlight maggot
• tricorn
• top hat
• escoffion
• hennin
• witch hat
• war hat
• flack helmet
• archaic helm
• harmonium helm
• silverknight helm
• elven helm
• high-elven helm
• imperial elven helm
• droven helm
• plasteel helm
• crystal helm
• pontiff's crown
• shemagh
• faceless hood
• faceless helm
• helm of drain resistance

The band is a randomized appearance for helms that causes the helm randomized to appear as a band to give halved AC and DR while worn in exchange for an enchantment-based bonus to charisma.

SpliceHack

SpliceHack retains the list of helms as they exist in versions of NetHack prior to 5.0.0, and adds a single new helm in the tinfoil hat: it grants psychic resistance, making it somewhat different from the tinfoil hat of UnNetHack, and it is a randomized helm whose default appearance is a "fearsome helm".

EvilHack

EvilHack gives the helm of brilliance a non-randomized appearance as in NetHack 5.0.0 and also adopts the helm of caution. It additionally includes four new helm types:

• The toque, which grants no base AC but covers the wearer's ears and protects them from sound-based attacks;
• The dark elven helm, which grants 2 base AC and can only be safely enchanted to +7 by drow;
• The helm of speed, which grants 1 AC and very fast speed; and
• The helm of telekinesis, which either grants telekinesis to the wearer or enhances existing telekinetic abilities.

The "telepathy" object property cannot generate on helms of any type, due to the helm of telepathy existing.

SlashTHEM

SlashTHEM retains all the helms available in SLASH'EM, and adds the gnomish helm from SporkHack along with two other helms:

• The fire helmet, which grants 1 AC and fire resistance; and
• The plasteel helm from the incorporated Jedi patch, which grants 3 AC.

Hack'EM

Hack'EM retains the list of helms as they exist in NetHack 3.6.7, and adds some new helms from other variants:

• toque (from EvilHack)
• plasteel helm (from Jedi patch/SlashTHEM)
• helm of speed (randomized, from EvilHack)
• tinfoil hat (randomized, combined from UnNetHack and SpliceHack)
• helm of madness, a wholly new helm that has a randomized appearance, grants 1 AC and +3 charisma while worn, and autocurses when worn

notnotdNetHack

notnotdNetHack retains all the helms available in dNetHack and notdNetHack, and adds the striped hat.