Human (starting race)

This article is about the playable race in NetHack and its variants. For other uses of the term, see human.

Humans are one of the five playable races available to a hero in NetHack. A human hero will appear as @ if the showrace option is set on, and is part of the human or elf monster class. According to the guidebook:

Humans are by far the most common race of the surface world, and are thus the norm by which other races are often compared. Although they have no special abilities, they can succeed in any role.

Humans can be played as all valid combinations of any role and one of the three alignments.

Racial benefits and restrictions

As indicated by the guidebook, humanity serves as the standard by which the benefits and restrictions of other playable races are measured: though they lack infravision and do not start with any intrinsics from their race, they have incredibly solid attribute caps.

All monsters with the human monster attribute are considered the same race as a human hero for purposes such as cannibalism and same-race sacrifice—this notably includes player monsters and quest guardians. Gnomes and orcs that are not undead will always generate as hostile towards a human hero. Human heroes that die and leave bones where they arise from the dead will resurrect as human mummies and human zombies, depending on their killer—in practice, there is no means of killing any hero that causes them to rise as a zombie.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.

Per commit aeb0ea65, if the hero is killed by a zombie or a lich, they will rise from the grave as a zombie of their race's type, and will be present as a zombie if a bones file is created. Per commit 3c421da7, the zombie will have the same intrinsics as the former hero.

Attributes

Attribute	Strength	Dexterity	Constitution	Intelligence	Wisdom	Charisma
Minimum	3	3	3	3	3	3
Maximum	18/**	18	18	18	18	18

Level bonuses	Starting	Pre-cutoff	Post-cutoff
HP gain	2	d2	1
Energy gain	1	2	2

Though they are regarded as a "jack of all trades" race, humans are tied for the highest strength caps of all playable races with dwarves, and can reach the maximum carrying capacity of 1000 aum with relative ease. They are second to dwarves in caps for other physical attributes alongside orcs and gnomes, while elves (and gnomes to a much lesser extent) outperform humans in terms of mental attribute caps.

After dwarves, human heroes have the second-best HP gains overall when gaining experience levels, with +2 to the starting HP for their role, a +d2 bonus to HP for each level gained while they are below their role's "cutoff" level, and +1 to HP for each level gained while at or above the "cutoff". For energy, human heroes get +1 to their role's starting energy, +2 for each level gained while below their role's "cutoff" level, and +2 for each level gained while at or above the "cutoff" level.

Racial items

Human heroes always start with the default equipment for each role.

Strategy

While human heroes are not standouts in any aspect and have a tougher early game compared to dwarven and gnomish heroes, they are also not without comparative advantages: their average-to-good stats compared to other races make them the most adaptable type of hero by far—their ability to reach 18/** strength makes them one of the best races for utilizing melee weapons and projectiles, and their mental abilities are also decent enough that they can make good spellcasters as well, depending on the role.

The lack of infravision is a significant drawback for human heroes that generally necessitates the use of telepathy or a light source for dealing with dark areas, especially when traversing the Gnomish Mines early on. The Gnomish Mines are also somewhat perilous for humans: most dwarves and their kin will usually leave lawful humans alone, but will attack humans of other alignments, and hostile gnomes are a constant for any human hero.

One relevant wrinkle in the mid- and late game stages often involves the use of tins that contain nurse meat: eating nurse meat fully restores HP, but constitutes cannibalism for a human hero, and has to be weighed against potions of full healing, which can restore a maximum of 400 HP and also increases maximum HP if non-cursed. Tins are unaffected by the elements, but in addition to cannibalism granting the aggravate monster property and taking 2-5 points of luck, tins take multiple actions to open unless they are blessed and/or the hero is using a blessed tin opener—potions have more weight than tins are and vulnerable to freezing or boiling while in the open inventory, and can pose problems if they are smoky or milky potions, but can be quaffed in a single turn without any risk of penalties.

History

The human starting race has been present in the game since Jay Fenlason's Hack, as the game assumes the hero to be a human adventurer by default—this assumption is carried forward into Hack 1.0, and persists all the way to NetHack 3.2.3. NetHack 3.3.0 is the first to introduce separate playable races, naturally including humans.

Variants

Humans are retained as a playable race in every variant of NetHack, typically with access to all valid role and alignment combinations, and some variants add playable offshoots of humans as well. This section will focus only on any changes that make humans substantially different from other playable races, or from their presentation in NetHack.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, human and orcish heroes are the only ones to not unlock any techniques from gaining experience levels.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, human heroes have significant differences from NetHack.

Human heroes can be played as any alignment and role as in NetHack. Their attribute caps and vision are the same as in NetHack, and their special spell is abjuration.

Human heroes have 75 points to distribute among their starting attributes, which is raised to 85 for human Valkyries, lowered to 65 for humans with an inheritance, or lowered to 55 for human Binders. The HP and energy growth rates of humans are changed from NetHack:

Level bonuses	Starting	Pre-cutoff	Post-cutoff
HP gain	2	d4	1
Energy gain	1	2	2

Humans in dNetHack have slightly-increased HP growth for pre-cutoff levels, and their overall HP and energy growth remains roughly average among the playable races.

Encyclopedia entry

These strange creatures live mostly on the surface of the earth, gathering together in societies of various forms, but occasionally a stray will descend into the depths and commit mayhem among the dungeon residents who, naturally, often resent the intrusion of such beasts. They are capable of using weapons and magic, and it is even rumored that the Wizard of Yendor is a member of this species.