Knight

The Knight, abbreviated as Kni, is one of the roles available for a hero in NetHack. Their corresponding player monster is the @ knight. The guidebook has relatively little to say about Knights:

Knights are distinguished from the common skirmisher by their devotion to the ideals of chivalry and by the surpassing excellence of their armor.

Knights are always humans, and always start as lawful.

Starting equipment

Each Knight starts with the following equipment:

• a +1 long sword (wielded)
• a +1 lance (alternate weapon)
• a +1 ring mail
• a +0 helmet
• a +0 small shield
• a +0 pair of leather gloves
• 10-20 uncursed apples
• 10-20 uncursed carrots

Knights start with knowledge of all non-magical weapons and armor.

The Knight's default starting pet is a saddled pony.

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 96787441 and commit 1acc2727, a pauper Knight that starts with their default pony pet will not have a saddle on that pony.

Intrinsics

Knights gain the following intrinsic properties upon reaching the given experience levels:

• Level 7: Speed

Attributes

The Knight's starting attributes are distributed as follows:

Attributes	Strength	Dexterity	Constitution	Intelligence	Wisdom	Charisma	Remaining
Minimum attributes	13	8	10	7	14	17	6
Distribution percentages	30%	10%	20%	15%	15%	10%
Mean w/ standard deviation	14.95±1.24	8.66±0.89	11.27±1.10	7.97±1.01	14.96±0.97	17.43±0.53

Knights start with 16 HP and 3-6 Pw.

Skills

Knights have the following skills available to them:

Knight skills
Max	Skills
Basic	Weapons: dagger, knife, pick-axe, club, flail, hammer, trident, bow
Skilled	Weapons: axe, short sword, broadsword, two-handed sword, saber, mace, morning star, polearms, spear, crossbow Combat: two weapon combat Spells: attack, healing, clerical
Expert	Weapons: long sword, lance Combat: bare hands, riding

Knights start with Basic skill in long sword, lances, and riding. They use the wisdom stat to cast spells, and their special spell is turn undead.

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 296a3ac2, the scimitar skill is merged into the saber skill.

Special rules

Knights have an inherent ability to jump like the knight piece in chess, which requires no power and lets them jump to destinations two squares horizontally and one square vertically away (or vice versa). Jumping from other sources (i.e. jumping boots or the jumping spell) function as normal.

Knights only take ¹⁄₂ damage from breaking wands by applying them.

Knights have a +2 bonus to casting emergency spells.

Knights can utilize the #turn extended command to turn away undead, with a chance of pacifying them for chaotic Knights (which are only possible via alignment conversion), and a chance of destroying them otherwise. The command will immobilize the Knight for a few turns afterward.

Knights do not reduce the tameness of a steed when mounting them.

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 f057ef57, Knights ignore penalties for metal body armor when casting clerical spells, which is adapted from SporkHack.

Per commit e8212743, Knights are the only lawful role to retain a ¹⁄₆ chance of creating Excalibur by dipping a long sword in a fountain—all other lawful roles have a lowered ¹⁄₃₀ chance.

Knightly conduct

Knights follow a code of conduct that incurs a -1 penalty to alignment record for the following actions, with the accompanying messages being printed:

• Attacking a sleeping, paralyzed or fleeing monster in melee, even if the monster continues to attack while fleeing—a fleeing monster that stole an item(s) from the hero is not counted for this purpose unless they stole the item under conflict, started fleeing after charming the hero into handing over their armor, or else started fleeing after ending the hero's punishment by stealing a heavy iron ball from them. Monsters putting on armor or items (e.g., "the soldier puts on a crested helmet") are considered to be paralyzed. Projectiles, wands and spells do not incur a penalty.

You caitiff!

• Eating while satiated.

You feel like a glutton!

• Digging down in a shop, if the shopkeeper is alive.

You feel like a common thief.

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 cd14456b, caitiff penalties are not applied when attacking undead monsters.

Rank titles

The status line displays one of the following ranks for the corresponding experience levels:

• XL 1–2: Gallant
• XL 3–5: Esquire
• XL 6–9: Bachelor
• XL 10–13: Sergeant
• XL 14–17: Knight
• XL 18–21: Banneret
• XL 22–25: Chevalier/Chevaliere
• XL 26–29: Seignieur/Dame
• XL 30: Paladin

Gods

The Knight pantheon is based on the mythology of Celtic peoples.

• Lawful: Lugh
• Neutral: Brigit
• Chaotic: Manannan Mac Lir

Quest

The Knight's quest sees them fighting Ixoth for The Magic Mirror of Merlin, an artifact mirror. It grants magic resistance and telepathy while carried, and a Knight carrying it also deals doubled damage to their enemies with offensive magic (i.e. some wands and most spells). Applying or wielding the Mirror causes it to speak a random rumor that is true if the Mirror is blessed, false if it is cursed and either if it is uncursed.

Strategy

In terms of role difficulty, Knights are relatively balanced, if somewhat more difficult than average: their attributes lean towards higher strength, though their other attributes and general HP growth are lacking in comparison. The enchanted long sword is easily one of the best starting melee weapons, even before the ease of access to Excalibur it grants. A Knight's affinity for mounted combat lets them get more out of polearms and their starting lance - said lance is also quite heavy, to the point that many players will drop or stash it at the first opportunity. Conversely, maximizing luck and then mastering combat with lances as soon as possible can give Knights a significant edge over otherwise-difficult monsters in combat, up to and including their quest nemesis.

Players who habitually set pettype to none should be aware that doing so is significantly more limiting for Knights than other roles: without the starting pony, they will need to find a saddle before they can ride anything. As saddles are quite rare, this is likely to necessitate a wish.

Early game

The Knight's special jump can be a handy escape tool early in the game, providing an extra opportunity to engrave Elbereth or escape to a stairway, though it does cost nutrition for each jump. Between this and the lack of food outside of the fruits and vegetables intended for the starting pony, the hero's first priority should be stocking up on permafood in general. The starting pony is likely your best asset for getting around quickly—it is a strong and fast pet and can finish off fleeing monsters in order to avoid early alignment record penalties.

A natural early game goal for a Knight is to transform their +1 long sword into Excalibur once they hit experience level 5: more cautious Knights may choose to wait until they train up their strength and constitution and/or gain intrinsic speed at XL 7. The starting pony can also provide enough speed to make an escape if necessary, especially if they are given intrinsic speed of their own (e.g. via wand of speed monster), or else if they can grow up into a horse or warhorse. See the dedicated section about steeds for more information.

Attacking from range with the lance works as with polearms, requiring that the hero be able to see the target square - see the article on pounding for details. Attacking with the lance in melee can joust opponents, stunning them and pushing them one square away (which is the perfect range for another round of pounding), but a starting Knight will rarely succeed in jousting, and runs a low-but-notable risk of breaking the lance at a stage when it is hard to replace. Additionally, Knights do not start with high STR and CON as consistently as other roles like the Samurai and Valkyrie, and can easily become encumbered early on: as discussed above, stashing the starting lance may be a good idea, especially if you find more reliable and lightweight ranged attack options.

The Knight starts with a relatively full set of armor that grants them the best starting AC of all roles at 3, notably including leather gloves: while finding lighter and better-quality armor, Knights should seek out a cloak to protect their body armor from rusting, as well as a set of boots. Plumbing the Gnomish Mines for a dwarvish mithril-coat, iron shoes and/or dwarvish iron helm is risky, since unlit levels rob Knights of most of their mobility and combat advantages—as they are always human and lack infravision, a Knight will ideally want a light source as soon as possible if they plan to brave the Mines.

Knights looking to start casting early will have to play more carefully than usual: their starting intelligence is typically low, making it dangerous to read non-blessed spellbooks, and metallic armor generally makes casting more difficult. Outside of an early wish for silver dragon scale mail (or a different color of preference), the next best option is crystal plate mail, which is both rare and incredibly heavy—studded leather armor is the most accessible spellcasting-friendly armor, though it has the same base AC as ring mail.

Your steed

For Knights planning to make extensive use of their steed, be sure to bless the saddle as soon as possible with spare potions of holy water. At minimum, raising the starting pony into a 20-base speed horse is worthwhile, as riding sets the hero's movement speed to that of their mount - remember that all horses are vegetarian, and gain more nutrition from veggy food such as the starting apples and oranges unless they are starving. A horse close to starvation will also accept "people food" such as food rations, or even meat in a pinch - remember to heal them as soon as possible afterward, since starving pets have their maximum HP cut to ¹⁄₃ of their normal value.

As a result, while a Knight will not potentially have to compete with their starting pet for food like many other roles, finding suitable food for a pony can be generally more difficult: rationing the starting food is likely vital to maintaining the starting steed's nutrition in the long term. A player can #chat to a steed regularly (using > if riding it) in order to monitor its status. One good early strategy is to feed the starting pony 9 apples as soon as it drops an item: this increases its tameness enough that a Knight can reliably mount it to avoid slipping—slipping while trying to mount a steed deals 10-14 damage and may spell doom for a Knight (sometimes even instantly!) if they are just starting a game. Feeding the pony treats also increases apport for liberating items from shops, and a horse will also gladly eat the corpses of lichens, red molds and brown molds.

Another strategy is to avoid mounting the pony until it has gained enough HP, usually enough to become a horse: by that point, the hero will likely have gained a few levels as well. Steeds in general will not attack monsters as often while the hero is mounted, and will only counterattack if a monster attack targeting you falls upon them instead—it is sometimes best to dismount and let them handle weaker monsters, such as the aforementioned fungi and molds. For a hero short on food in general, one unorthodox method is to leave a level just before the horse becomes confused from hunger, let it go feral, and then wait until after the point where it would have starved to return with food—taming a monster always sets its hunger level to satiated, and requires only a single apple or carrot in this instance.

Unknown rings present a greater danger than normal for Knights that are aspiring riders: putting on an unknown ring of conflict will cause the steed to buck its rider off immediately, resulting in wounded legs and a possible severe beating before the hero can get their next turn! Additionally, when descending past Mine Town or below DL 7, be especially careful of polymorph traps; a source of magic resistance will protect both the hero and steed from transformation.

Mid game

Excalibur is more than sufficient to carry most Knights throughout the entire game once the artifact is decently enchanted. Some Knights may also decide to joust long-term with their lance after gaining sufficient skill and luck, obtaining a luckstone if they haven't already, and may even twoweapon their lance in the offhand with Excalibur; improving carrying capacity is also highly recommended due to the lance's weight. Alignment record is more easily recovered by this point, so violations of conduct are often considered an annoyance at worst—taking fewer penalties (or even none) is still ideal, but there is much more room for error. Similarly, Knights that seek to start spellcasting at this juncture should be able to build up a cache of holy water for use on spellbooks, and may be more capable of adjusting their worn armor without sacrificing as much AC (provided item generation is in their favor).

The stun inflicted from a joust can keep monsters off-balance as well, usually knocking them into pounding range; invisibility or displacement can aid in keeping hostile monsters wandering aimlessly and staying (or straying) into range of further pounds. Even once a Knight has secured enough luck, they may want to reserve their lance for stronger opponents in order to further minimize the odds of it breaking, while using their primary weapon to handle weaker hostiles. Soldiers are sometimes generated with lances, making barracks such as those in Fort Ludios and the Castle good places to look for a replacement or spare lance.

Whether or not the hero commits to using a lance or even riding a steed, stashing any treasure and other excess items is an especially good idea for Knights in particular: maximizing speed is extremely important for combat from this point forward, both to keep jumping available as an option and to either evade foes or run them down before they can deal too much damage. A bag of holding can easily do most of the work in that regard. If you opt to press on while encumbered, be prepared to shed excess items (e.g. stashing them in a sack that can be dropped at a moment's notice) when dealing with particularly troublesome enemies. The quest nemesis Ixoth is easily among the tougher hostiles a Knight will face in general—although he can be dealt with using Elbereth, paralysis or jousting, his spellcasting ability is annoying to handle without magic resistance, and may warrant heading to the Castle first.

For dedicated Knight riders, black dragons are likely the worst threat they can encounter—even if a hero has disintegration resistance or reflection for the dragons' disintegration breath weapons, the vast majority of mounts cannot obtain either property, and losing a steed to disintegration often means losing the saddle as well. Among the very few exceptions, centaurs can be given an amulet of reflection or shield of reflection, while silver dragons are naturally reflective owing to their scales. Depending on the circumstances, it may be most prudent to dismount your steed temporarily in order to get ahead of such threats to their well being.

One of the better tactics for riding Knights to avoid breath weapons in general is to have a means of detecting the dragon beforehand (e.g. via Dragonbane or monster detection), then using your mount's speed to close in while avoiding their line of fire, and then defeat them in melee using jousting, Excalibur or your other main weapon of choice. This can also be used to deal with Ixoth by drawing him to your position (typically via the cursed potion of invisibility) and then repeatedly jousting him, which is most effective on a warhorse or faster steed with Expert in lances.

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.

As mentioned earlier in commit f057ef5, clerical spells for Knights do not apply any spellcasting penalties from body armor, allowing them to more flexibly cast the protection, create monster and remove curse spells.

Per commit da859c5e, soldiers will not generate with lances.

Per commit a1d5464f, the Knight quest's home level will often generate one or more peaceful saddled warhoses, which can serve as backup steeds should something happen to the hero's steed.

Per commit 8d2407f1, monsters can gain intrinsics from eating corpses, so Knights can feed their mounts intrinsic-granting corpses to shore up their general odds of survival—giving disintegration resistance in particular to a mount will prove difficult (especially if they are not meat-eating), since this all but requires it to survive at least a few black dragon encounters.

Late game

There are many routes for offense that a late game Knight can take, some of which can overlap with enough savvy or foresight from the player:

• Excalibur remains as stellar of a weapon as ever, with it only potentially being outperformed by Frost Brand and Grayswandir—as mentioned earlier, it can also be paired for two-weapon combat with weapons such as a lance, a silver saber or a silver spear. Knights planning to bribe their way past Asmodeus and/or Baalzebub should unwield them before potentially entering their lairs—a demon prince that is generated or warps to demand a bribe while the hero wields Excalibur will immediately turn hostile.
• Knights with Expert in lances and a very fast mount can deal severe damage to monsters such as minotaurs, dragons and high-level demons through jousting and pounding, possibly without losing a single hit point in the process.
• Knights seeking to maintain steeds throughout the entire game will find Gehennom to be the most difficult challenge in that regard. Ki-rin are among the most likely candidates to last through Gehennom, and may perhaps be the only ones that can survive the branch consistently: they do not require feeding, have stellar AC, can haste and heal themselves, and Knights will not lower their tameness by mounting one. Unfortunately, they are very hard to obtain, with the best option to do so being a wish for a blessed ki-rin figurine that has a ⁴⁄₅ chance of turning into a tamed ki-rin—they are also not immune to death rays and disintegration, and their lack of poison resistance will likely spell their doom on levels such as the Plane of Fire (where the hero must avoid poison cloud plumes).
• Knights that begin investing in spellcasting in the mid-game can amass a formidable array of spells, and their high wisdom means that most late-game knights will have a large energy pool. The Magic Mirror allows a Knight with a well-trained magic missile to deal massive damage at a distance. However, their energy regeneration is on the slower side compared to Priests and Wizards (especially those that have obtained their quest artifacts)—spellcasting Knights should conserve their spells for the moments when they are most effective. Additionally, the Wizard of Yendor can steal quest artifacts and will gain magic resistance from the Mirror, so stashing it may usually be the safer option when fighting him. One potential means to alleviate this is obtaining The Mitre of Holiness, the Priest quest artifact, though this often requires an artifact wish.

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.

Ki-rins have poison resistance, and are not considered animals—they can also cure status ailments for themselves by using their horns, similar to unicorns and their horns.

As mentioned prior, mounts that are given intrinsic-granting corpses can survive much longer on average, e.g. with poison and fire resistance.

History

The Knight first appears in Hack 1.0

Origin

The Knight as a role is based on historical and fictional stereotypes of medieval knights.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, Knights are given plate mail and a large shield alongside their helm and gloves, which gives even better starting AC but is far heavier, and necessitates finding lighter armor sooner to free up inventory space. Fortunately, it also ensures much better carrying capacity, consistently producing a starting strength of at least 18 and a constitution of at least 12—this often means more tolerable starting HP and valuable damage bonuses, though their HP growth is still somewhat lackluster.

In addition to early bonuses from strength, Knights retain the starting long sword and ease of access to Excalibur, and the starting steed is also more easily fed with the corpses of fungi and molds that grow from other old corpses.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, a Knight can also be a lawful dwarf. Knights wearing any body armor heavier than studded leather armor receive a weight reduction for it equal to half the difference; this allows them to carry more while wearing heavy armor before becoming burdened.

FIQHack

In FIQHack, Knights can be dwarves as well as humans. Knights are always warned before violating their honor code, and Dragonbane is the guaranteed first sacrifice gift for them.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, Knights are given plate mail, large shields and iron gauntlets as part of their starting inventory. Knights can also be chaotic, which allows for more starting races and functions differently from lawful Knights: these Dark Knights have less stringent standards for personal conduct, have a saddled lesser nightmare as their default starting pet (before racial considerations), and instead of Excalibur they can create Dirge by wielding a long sword, elven long sword, orcish long sword, or dark elven long sword and performing same-race sacrifice. No Knight can tame a dragon unless they are of the same alignment.

Encyclopedia entry

Here lies the noble fearless knight,
Whose valour rose to such a height;
When Death at last had struck him down,
His was the victory and renown.
He reck'd the world of little prize,
And was a bugbear in men's eyes;
But had the fortune in his age
To live a fool and die a sage.

[ Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ]