M2 ROCKTHROW

In NetHack, some monsters are capable of lifting and throwing boulders. This property is boolean (i.e., monsters either possess it or do not), and is governed by the M2_ROCKTHROW monster attribute flag.

List of monsters

All monsters that are capable of picking up and throwing boulders are giant humanoids:

• H giant
• H stone giant
• H hill giant
• H fire giant
• H frost giant
• H storm giant
• H titan
• quest nemeses
  • H Cyclops
  • H Lord Surtur

With the exception of the titan, all boulder-throwing monsters are a type of giant.

Description

A boulder-throwing monster will not have their movement impeded by the presence of a boulder, and a hostile one will actively pick it up and add it to their inventory for throwing at the hero.

A hero that is polymorphed into a boulder-throwing monster can do the same, either by using safe movement via the m prefix to move over a boulder or by attempting to push that boulder when it cannot be moved, after which they can pick up that boulder like a normal item and add it to their inventory. Boulders do not stack in the inventory, and if the hero has filled every letter of their inventory when picking up a boulder and they are not carrying one already, then it will be assigned to the overflow slot (i.e. a hash mark). Boulders are normally 6000 aum, but are treated as fully weightless for monsters and heroes that are capable of picking them up and throwing them.

In Sokoban, the hero cannot pick up boulders even if they are polymorphed into a monster that can do so, and moving onto a boulder's square while in that form will incur a -1 luck penalty.

A hero that is riding cannot move their steed onto squares containing boulders even if the hero themselves can lift and throw boulders, and they require Basic skill or higher to pick up boulders from a square they occupy while they are mounted. In practice, this requires the hero to be polymorphed into a monster that is incapable of riding, so this is highly unlikely to occur in normal play.

Messages

You try to move the boulder, but in vain.

However, you maneuver over it, and could pick it up.

You tried and failed to push a boulder while in the form of a boulder-throwing monster, causing you to move over it instead.

However, you easily pick it up.

As above, but you have an autopickup setting that causes you to automatically pick up boulders.

Variants

Some NetHack variants allow the hero to be played as giants or other races that can naturally pick up and throw boulders.

GruntHack

In GruntHack, giant heroes are naturally capable of picking up and throwing boulders.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, a hero that has the spirit Ymir bound can move over boulders and pick them up.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, giant heroes are naturally capable of picking up and throwing boulders similar to GruntHack.

References

This page is a stub. Should you wish to do so, you can contribute by expanding this page.