Lance

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Name	lance
Appearance	lance
Damage vs. small	1d6 (+2d10) [3-26]
Damage vs. large	1d8 (+2d10) [3-28]
To-hit bonus	+0
Weapon skill	lance
Size	one-handed
Base price	10 zm (+10/positive enchant)
Weight	180
Material	iron

A lance is a type of weapon that appears in NetHack. It is a one-handed weapon that is designed for combat while riding and uses the lance skill. It is made of iron.

Generation

Knights start each game with a +1]] lance.

Lances are quite rare and make up ¹⁄₂₅₀ (0.4%) of all weapons that are randomly generated on the ground, in general shops or as death drops. Used armor dealerships and antique weapon outlets can also stock lances.

Description

Lances behave similarly to polearms, only dealing full damage when the hero uses it to pound monsters or perform melee attacks while riding. The range at which a hero or monster can pound with a lance varies with their skill level in lances.

Jousting

When a mounted hero attacks an adjacent monster in melee with a lance, there is a skill-dependent chance of jousting the monster if they are not engulfed, caught in a trap, fumbling, or stunned: the base chance is ¹⁄₅, and increases by an additional ¹⁄₅ for each skill level (i.e. ²⁄₅ at Basic, ³⁄₅ at Skilled, and ⁴⁄₅ at Expert). If the hero jousts while performing two-weapon combat, the skill level used will be the lower one between the character's lance skill and their twoweapon skill, e.g. the chance of jousting with an offhand lance is ¹⁄₅ if the character is unskilled in two-weapon combat.

A monster that is jousted takes +2d10 damage (or +2d2 if the lance is two-weaponed in the offhand), loses all its movement points for that turn and becomes stunned, and if the monster is not currently immobilized (e.g. they are trapped, as opposed to being sessile) and they are of medium size or smaller, they are also pushed back one square in the direction of the melee attack unless the target square is occupied or deadly to that monster. Each joust that occurs against a monster which is not unsolid also has a luck-based chance of breaking the lance, with a hypothetical artifact lance resisting this chance completely):

Luck	Break chance
−13	1 in 18
−5	1 in 43
−1	1 in 126
0	1 in 250
+1	1 in 9550
+5	1 in 10500
+13	1 in 12500

Strategy

The following information pertains to a recently-released stable version (NetHack 5.0.0) and will be subject to revision as strategy is developed and bugs are discovered and/or fixed.

The removal of lances from watchmen and soldier starting inventories means that lances will be much more difficult to come by through regular means for most heroes.

The lance is an extremely heavy weapon that is only second in weight to the heavy iron ball, and as its base damage is quite low for that weight, a character seeking a weapon solely for pounding will prefer any polearm over it—the lance's primary perks lie in its jousting ability, which more than makes up for the lance's base damage and turns it into one of the most powerful non-artifact weapons.

Jousts can push monsters into pounding range, and with sufficient player skill it is possible to stay a knight's jump away from monsters with ranged attacks and pound at them without fear of retaliation. Lances are difficult to come by, meaning that most players only attempt this with Knights and their starting lance once they secure enough positive luck—until then, a lance is most safely applied at range, ideally with a backup weapon and/or space to retreat when opponents close in; even Knights with a lower lance skill in an open space can make particularly good use of this strategy with their role's jumping ability.

Barracks offer the best odds of finding a backup lance, particularly in the Castle and Fort Ludios, and dedicated lancers can wish up a spare or backup if all else fails. A light source is also worth carrying around to keep the character's pounding range illuminated. A deadly jousting tactic at high skill level is to pound at a monster that comes in range until it moves adjacent to the character, then melee with the lance to push it back into pounding range: this potentially stunlocks monsters to death without them getting a chance to attack, and with enough movement speed even covetous monsters like many of the demon lords and princes are unlikely to get a single turn in.

History

The lance first appears in NetHack 1.3d.

In versions up to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, watchmen and soldiers may be generated with lances, due to the item being within the range of polearms that they can receive as weapons. This is changed in NetHack 5.0.0 via commit da859c5e so that polearms are reorganized and mercenaries cannot be generated with lances (or dwarvish mattocks, which were treated similarly in previous versions).

Origin

A lance is a long thrusting spear designed to be used by a mounted warrior or cavalry soldier (called a lancer). In ancient and medieval warfare, it evolved into the leading weapon in cavalry charges, and was unsuited for throwing or for repeated thrusting unlike similar weapons typically used by infantry. Lances were often equipped with a vamplate, a small circular plate to prevent the hand sliding up the shaft upon impact; beginning in the late 14th century, they were used in conjunction with a lance rest attached to the breastplate.

Though best known as a military and sporting weapon carried by European knights and men-at-arms, the use of lances was widespread throughout Eastern Asia, the Middle East, and Northern Africa wherever suitable mounts were available. Lancers of the medieval period also carried secondary weapons such as swords, battle axes, war hammers, maces and daggers for use in hand-to-hand combat, since the lance was often a one-use-per-engagement weapon; assuming the lance survived the initial impact without breaking, it was often too long, heavy, and/or slow to be effective in a melee.

Variants

Some NetHack variants add artifact lances, which will not break when jousting as explained prior.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, the range of pounding is unrestricted, allowing lances to hit any square that is two squares away from the wielder.

SporkHack

SporkHack changes the additional jousting damage for lances from 2d10 to 2d(5 + ^XL⁄₃).

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, the lance's weight is reduced to 80 aum.

Iron golems may be generated with an iron lance.

There are several artifact lances:

• Dragonlance (unaligned lance)
• Rhongomyniad (lawful Knight-favoring lance; unlocks lance skill when gifted)
• The Lance of Uriel (lawful, large and intelligent silver lance)
• The Rod of Lordly Might can be invoked to take on the form of a lance.

FIQHack

In FIQHack, Dragonbane has its base item changed from a broadsword to a lance.

SpliceHack

SpliceHack adds Bradamante's Fury is a neutral artifact lance that has +1d5 to-hit and +1d10 damage bonuses versus all monsters. It has a ¹⁄₁₀ chance of stunning a monster on each hit, and instantly dismounts any mounted monsters it hits and stuns them.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, Elven Dark Knights start with a lance made of copper rather than iron.

A lance can be created at a forge by combining a glaive and a javelin.

The ability to forge lances of a desired (usually lighter) material and/or object property makes them much more attractive propositions for most EvilHack heroes compared to vanilla NetHack.

Hack'EM

Hack'EM adds Bradamante's Fury from SpliceHack, improving the damage bonus to +1d12 and changing its alignment to lawful to better reflect the source material.

Forging recipes for lances are the same as in EvilHack.

Encyclopedia entry

With this the wind increased, and the mill sails began to turn
about; which Don Quixote espying, said, 'Although thou movest
more arms than the giant Briareus thou shalt stoop to me.'
And, after saying this, and commending himself most devoutly
to his Lady Dulcinea, desiring her to succor him in that trance,
covering himself well with his buckler, and setting his lance
on his rest, he spurred on Rozinante, and encountered with the
first mill that was before him, and, striking his lance into
the sail, the wind swung it about with such fury, that it broke
his lance into shivers, carrying him and his horse after it,
and finally tumbled him a good way off from it on the field in
evil plight.

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