Knightly styles
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, certain heroes are capable of employing knightly combat styles (or knightly stances) to enhance their combat abilities - there are three basic styles and three advanced styles, and only one style can be active at a time.
List of styles
The six knightly combat styles are as follows:
- Shield bashing, which utilizes a worn shield as a weapon alongside the primary weapon for additional damage and debuffs
- Great-weapon fighting, which improves consistency in damage with two-handed weapons based on skill level in that weapon
- Half-sword style, which enables armor-piercing damage by using the free off-hand to aim thrusting attacks with a wielded long sword
- The three advanced styles available at experience level 14:
- Sacred style, which channels energy into a blessed or cursed weapon to inflict holy or unholy damage, based on alignment and alignment record
- Runic style, which grants magic resistance while wielding a long sword with at least Basic skill in long swords
- Eldritch style, which adds elemental damage from attack spells to a weapon, dependent on the hero's ability to cast the spell
Description
Knightly styles all use separate skills, and are only accessible to a hero that is either in the role of a Knight (including a Dwarf Knight) or has bound the spirit Naberius (which causes all restricted and untrained skills to be treated as Basic). Knights can reach Expert level in the four styles that can be trained - the two un-trainable ones are automatically applied when their conditions are met, i.e. wielding a long sword for runic style combat, or wielding a long sword without an offhand weapon or shield for half-sword style combat. Each skill must be active and have its conditions met in order to train it.
The advanced knightly styles are automatically unrestricted at experience level 14: they will become restricted and disabled if the hero is drained or otherwise loses levels so that they end up below XL 14, but will not be unselected; upon regaining enough levels to reach XL 14, the style will be re-enabled immediately, allowing the hero to resume its usage.
Shield bashing
The shield bashing style allows the hero to make offhand attacks with a worn shield, which adds bonuses from enchantment or properties like a normal weapon attack. Shield bashing uses a base die of d2 at Unskilled, which increases in size by 2 for each skill level (up to d8 at expert) - the die size is modified by size as normal for weapons, so a shield size that is any amount of steps above or below medium will increase or decrease the die size by 2 per step.
A successful shield bash hit trains the skill and also lowers the target's morale by one point for each skill level past Basic, decreasing their accuracy and damage; the minimum floor on morale loss that is applied this way is further lowered by 5 damage for each skill level the hero has. The table below lists the damage, morale and penalty caps for each skill level:
| Skill level | Damage | Morale | Morale cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unskilled | d2 | 1 | 0 |
| Basic | d4 | 1 | −5 |
| Skilled | d6 | 2 | −10 |
| Expert | d8 | 3 | −15 |
Great-weapon fighting
The great-weapon fighting style increases the minimum roll for the base damage dice of a weapon wielded with both hands (including normally one-handed weapons) by 1 per level of skill in that weapon, i.e. 1 for Basic, 2 for Skilled, and 3 for Expert. This can be expressed with the equation Nd(X - i) + (N * i): i represents the value of the minimum roll increase, N is the number of hit dice, and X is the original die size - for example, a two-handed sword against large monsters has base damage of 3d6; using the great-weapon fighting style, this becomes 3d(6 - 3) + (3 * 3), or 3d3 + 9.
Great-weapon fighting is trained by attacking with any non-cursed weapon wielded in both hands while the style is active, and stacks with one of exploding dice or lucky dice, but not exploding lucky dice.
Half-sword style
The half-sword style is unlocked by default, and requires the hero to use both hands when wielding a long sword, treating it as a two-handed weapon while the style is active and granting relevant bonuses, e.g. from strength. A long sword wielded with the half-sword style solely inflicts piercing damage with its attacks, as opposed to piercing and slashing damage from wielding one normally - these attacks also ignore AC and DR from the target's worn armor.
Sacred style
The sacred advanced style expends 5 power on each hit to add further skill-based bonuses to holy or unholy damage that is inflicted with a blessed or cursed weapon: it will not activate if the hero lacks the necessary power, and stacks with existing holy or unholy damage bonuses for that weapon (e.g. when wielding and attacking with Excalibur). The power is only subtracted and the skill is only trained if the bonus damage is actually being applied against an affected target, i.e. if holy damage is being used against a holy-hater, the hero will expend power and train the skill. The hero's skill level in the sacred style determines the bonus damage added to any holy or unholy damage inflicted: they gain +1d8 damage at Basic, +3d8 damage at Skilled, and +6d8 damage at Expert.
When attacking using weapons in the sacred style, the weapon's beatitude must match their alignment record and the holiness of the god that they serve in order for bonus damage to be applicable: a Knight serving a god of holy or neutral holiness gains bonuses to holy damage with a blessed weapon if their alignment record is non-negative, and gains bonuses to unholy damage with a cursed weapon if their alignment record is negative. A Knight serving a god of unholy holiness instead gains bonuses to unholy damage with a cursed weapon if their alignment record is non-negative, and gains bonuses to holy damage with a blessed weapon if their alignment record is negative.
As all of the gods in the Knight pantheon are of holy holiness, the former condition above applies by default, barring a conversion to an unholy god of another pantheon from an altar in the dungeon. While the lawful god of the Dwarf Knight pantheon, Mahal, is also holy, the neutral god Holashner and the chaotic god Armok are unholy, resulting in the latter condition applying if a Dwarf Knight changes alignments.
Runic style
The runic advanced style grants the hero magic resistance while wielding a long sword with a minimum of Basic skill in long swords as long as the style is active.
Eldritch style
The eldritch advanced style adds extra damage of an elemental type from a known attack spell to any wielded weapon, dependent on the hero's ability to reliably cast the spell, and costing power for each successful hit. The following attack spells are eligible to be used with the eldritch style:
- fireball and fire storm
- cone of cold and blizzard
- lightning bolt and lightning storm
- acid splash
- poison spray
- finger of death
The eldritch style is trained on every hit landed while the style is active, but only if the extra damage is actually applied (i.e. you successfully 'cast' the spell and it was not resisted). The spell used is chosen when you first activate the style, and can be changed to any other known eligible spell by attempting to activate the skill again. Spells must be still have memory remaining to select them, but forgetting the spell while it's already active will not disable the bonus damage - however if you switch off you won't be able to re-enable it until your memory improves. Successful hits will cost power equal to the level of the spell - if you lack enough power, it will not subtract any and nothing will happen. The bonus damage uses the level of the spell to determine the die size, and the hero's skill level in the eldritch style to determine the number of dice rolled: 1 die is used for Basic, 3 dice are used for Skilled, and 6 dice are used for Expert. The table below lists the damage dice used for each spell at each skill level:
| Attack spells | Skill damage bonus | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | Skilled | Expert | |
| Fireball (deals fire damage) |
+1d6 | +3d6 | +6d6 |
| Fire storm (deals fire damage) |
+1d8 | +3d8 | +6d8 |
| Cone of cold (deals cold damage) |
+1d6 | +3d6 | +6d6 |
| Blizzard (deals cold damage) |
+1d8 | +3d8 | +6d8 |
| Lightning bolt (deals shock damage) |
+1d6 | +3d6 | +6d6 |
| Lightning storm (deals shock damage) |
+1d8 | +3d8 | +6d8 |
| Acid splash (deals acid damage) |
+1d6 | +3d6 | +6d6 |
| Poison spray (deals standard poison damage) |
+1d6 | +3d6 | +6d6 |
| Finger of death (deals damage to living creatures) |
+1d13 | +3d13 | +6d13 |
Elemental damage is applied with the same odds of the hero successfully casting the equivalent spell: a Knight that has a 75% spell failure rate for the finger of death spell while at Expert skill in attack spells has a 25% chance (or 1⁄4) of adding +6d13 dark damage on each hit. The skill for attack spells is only checked whenever it would be required to cast the spell at all - this allows the eldritch style to work with artifacts that reduce the failure rate for casting certain attack spells to 0%.
The damage dealt by finger of death mimics the effects of the spell itself, dealing damage to anything that isn't an angel, demon, Keter Sephiroth, or otherwise nonliving. Poison spray & acid splash also cause the weapon to be treated as if it is poisoned (with acidic poison, for the latter) - this will add the corresponding effects of those poisons, including minor damage, potential for a poison instakill, and alignment penalties if used by a lawful Knight.
Strategy
- To be written.
