Maid

@ maid
Difficulty	13
Attacks	Weapon 1d6 physical, offhand weapon 1d6 physical, kick 1d6 physical (level 14+), kick 1d6 physical (level 21+)

@ maid
Difficulty	13
Attacks	Weapon 1d6 physical, offhand weapon 1d6 physical, kick 1d6 physical (level 14+), kick 1d6 physical (level 21+)
Base level	11
Base experience	374
Speed	12
Base AC	0
Base MR	0
Alignment	5 (lawful)
Frequency (by normal means)	3 (Rare)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	1450
Nutritional value	400
Size	medium
Resistances	none
Resistances conveyed	none
A maid: has a head, a couple of arms, and a torso. is omnivorous. is not a valid polymorphable form. is a human. is female. is nasty. likes gold. likes gems. can pick up weapons and food. can pick up magical items. can be seen through infravision.
Reference	dNetHack 3.26.0 - src/monst.c, line 6377

A maid, @ is a type of monster that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. The maid is a type of lawful, always-female human that is fairly unique among the human monsters encountered in the dungeon: a maid will 'tidy up' the dungeon by picking up several types of loose items off the floor and may repair those items or even recharge them. For this reason, maids are gold lovers that will collect items such as gems, magical items and food, and will also perform this behavior regardless of any hostility towards the hero. Maids can be seen via infravision, are capable of tracking the hero and other monsters, and can reach level 30.

A maid has a weapon attack and an offhand weapon attack that each deal standard physical damage, with the ability to perform sneak attacks, and she gains a kick attack at a minimum level of 14 along with a second kick attack at level 21. Maids boast expert prowess in martial combat and a full base attack bonus of +1 to-hit per level.

Potions of a maid's blood can be substituted for a potion of full healing in alchemy: mixing it with a potion of gain level, a potion of gain energy, or the blood of a newt or deep dragon can produce a potion of gain ability.

Generation

Randomly-generated maids may be created as peaceful towards lawful heroes, and maids generated within the Noble quest will always be considered part of the quest friendlies' faction and created as peaceful.

Crystal skulls generated in the main dungeon may contain a maid within.

Hostile maids can be summoned by a hostile spellcaster that casts the summon nasties monster spell.

Maids may appear among the prisoners placed on each floor of the Convict quest during level creation.

A maid is always generated with four separate daggers. She also has a ¹⁄₄ chance of being given a stack of shuriken, with a ¹⁄₂ chance of a stack of darts if the shuriken are not given, and has an independent ¹⁄₁₀₀ chance of being given a dagger with an object material of silver. Maids also generate with different additional armor and weapons, dependent on the role of the hero:

• For Samurai, the maid has a chance of being given one of the following primary weapons.
  • A ¹⁄₂₀ chance of a naginata, otherwise;
  • A ¹⁄₄ chance of a katana, otherwise;
  • A ¹⁄₂ chance of a ninja-to, otherwise;
  • An effective ¹⁄₅ chance of a wakizashi, if none of the above are generated.
• For heroes other than Samurai, maids will be generated with either a katana (⁷⁄₁₀ chance) or a stiletto (³⁄₁₀ chance) as their weapon.

Cleaning up

When a maid picks up certain kinds of item, she may mend it if has any erosion or clean it up, unless it is a unique item or an artifact. The possible kinds of cleaning are as follows:

• A maid that picks up a rusty item has a 21 - X20 chance of repairing the rust, where X is the number of levels of rust, and will otherwise destroy it (i.e. she will always repair items that are only "rusty").
• A maid that picks up a burnt item has a 21 - 4*X20 chance of repairing the burns, where X is the number of levels of burns, and will otherwise destroy it.
• A maid that picks up a corroded item has a 13 - X12 chance of repairing the corrosion, where X is the number of levels of corrosion, and will otherwise destroy it (i.e. she will always repair items that are only "corroded").
• A maid that picks up a rotted item has a 13 - 4*X12 chance of repairing the rot, where X is the number of levels of rotting, and will otherwise destroy it.
• A maid that picks up a lockable container with a broken lock will mend the lock.
• A maid that picks up a cursed item has a ⁴⁄₅ chance of uncursing it, and will otherwise banish it to the vibrating square level in Gehennom by drawing a semi-permanent pentagram ward on its square in ink.
• If a maid picks up a dwarvish helm, an oil lamp, a lantern, or a lantern plate mail, and it has less than 750 turns of light remaining, then she will recharge it to add another 750 turns.
• If a maid picks up an expensive camera with less than 50 charges remaining, then she will replace the film, which leaves the camera with 60-75 charges.

A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:

"Elaborate on maid movement AI in monmove.c including includes searches_for_item() function, which will be tricky to summarize."

Strategy

A player who does not yet know the pentagram can learn the ward by leaving cursed items near a peaceful or pacified maid.

Origin

The maid's starting equipment is an allusion to the "ninja maid" trope that appears in contemporary media.

Of note is that maid clothing such as the maid dress, frilled apron, and katyusha can be found in an unrelated variant, NetHack brass, but maids themselves do not appear in it.