Mental edge
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, mental edges are fighting styles that are granted by some gith weapons. Currently, only The Silver Sky and The Amalgamated Skies artifacts grant access to mental edges.
Description
There are five mental edges that a character can learn, which can broadly be divided into either low or high sanity mental edges. A mental edge can be selected through either the #abilities or #style extended commands. Any mental edge which the character has enough insight and levels to know can always be selected, but will only have any effect while the necessary requirements are met. All mental edges require being at least level 14 to even be selectable, with the sole exception of the resonant edge, which requires being at level 30. The cold edge and resonant edge also have insight requirements. Previously learned mental edges that are restricted by lost insight, levels or sanity are still remembered. The style menu allows choosing the following mental edges:
Low sanity mental edges:
| Name | Insight and sanity requirements | Sanity scaling effects | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Penetrating Edge of Hatred | Below 50 sanity | 50-24: Nd(X-1) + N*1 base damage dice. | Alters base damage. N: number of dice rolled. X: die faces. Functions mechanically identical to the great weapon fighting style. Using this mental edge at 10-0 sanity is identical to using great weapon fighting at expert. Stacks with great weapon fighting. Using only amalgamated skies' base damage – and excluding insight and mercurial bonuses – it deals 1d14/3d8 damage which the mental edge alters to be 1d13+1/3d7+1, then 1d12+2/3d6+6 and 1d11+3/3d5+9 at lower sanity scores. Scales best with kinstealing for 3d11+9/9d5+27 at most for this example. Cumulative with bonuses for mercurial weapons. |
| 25-10: Nd(X-2) + N*2 base damage dice. | |||
| 10-0: Nd(X-3) + N*3 base damage dice. See notes. | |||
| Cold Edge of Wrath | Below 50 sanity and at least 81 insight | 50-24: +2d6 cold and d9 unholy damage per hit. | Cold damage negated by cold resistance. |
| 25-10: 4d6 cold and 2d9 unholy damage per hit. | |||
| 10-0: 6d6 cold and 3d9 unholy damage per hit. |
High sanity mental edges:
| Name | Insight and sanity requirements | Sanity scaling effects | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Defensive Edge of Leadership | Above 50 sanity | 50-74: +(enchantment/2) to AC. | Minimum bonus AC of 0. While the weapon is wielded in your hand, pets benefit from the bonus but with a 3+(enchantment/2) cap. |
| 75-89: 1+(enchantment/2) to AC. | |||
| 90-100: 5+(enchantment/2) to AC. | |||
| Anti-magic Edge of Serenity | Above 50 sanity | 50-74: 1/20 to cancel stuck monster. | The cancellation is not subject to monster magic resistance. On hit, increase any spellcasting monster's spellcasting cooldown or special ability cooldown (such as a dragon's breath attack) by d(1/10th of your sanity). Reduces your current energy if used against you (by up to 400 – more likely at higher sanity, and scales identically to the cancellation effect). |
| 75-89: 1/10 to cancel stuck monster. | |||
| 90-100: 1/4 to cancel stuck monster. | |||
| Resonant Edge of Fellowship | Above 50 sanity and at least 81 insight | 50-74: set encouragement of nearby monster to -2 and subtract 12 movement points. Your nearby pets instead gain 12 movement points and 2 encouragement. | Only on criticals from the gith-silver sword property. Subject to monster magic resistance. See below for more on the odds. |
| 75-89: set encouragement of nearby monster to -5 and subtract 12 movement points. Your nearby pets instead gain 12 movement points and 5 encouragement. | |||
| 90-100: set encouragement of nearby monster to -8 and subtract 12 movement points. Your nearby pets instead gain 12 movement points and 8 encouragement. |
For the resonant edge the odds of landing a critical to trigger the effects are dependent on insight and sanity and it will always take the lesser of the two. For the best odds at least 50 insight and sanity are required.
| Lesser of sanity & insight | Odds |
|---|---|
| 0-24 | 1/20 |
| 25-49 | 1/10 |
| 50-100. | 3/20 (15%) |
Zerthimon's focus increases the odds of a critical and scales purely on sanity.
| Sanity | Zerthimon's focus |
|---|---|
| 86-90 | 1/5 |
| 91-95 | 1/4 |
| 96-100 | 6/20 (30%) |
Strategy
The main bottleneck in making use of the gith fighting styles is obtaining the artifacts that grant them, and unlike with the zerth mantras there is no nameable artifact that grants gith styles and only the silver sky has any chance of naturally generating. If a character is lucky enough to find the silver sky, it is very advisable to spend one of their artifact wishes on the sky reflected or to turn a mercurial weapon into it via naming to create the amalgamated skies.
For most characters that aren't madpeople, the main draw of the mental edges are the high sanity edges. Since the resonant edge has a high entry requirement, most characters will benefit the most from the increase to AC at high sanity over the cancellation. However, it may prove to be circumstantially beneficial to use it against aligned priests and other spellcasters. Note that most high-level casters do not have cooldowns between castings (eg. Chaos), but will still be affected by the cancellation. This makes it ideal to counter their spellcasting and is one of the only sources of cancellation not subject to monster magic resistance. Once a character hits level 30 and 81 insight they may benefit more from the discouragement since it affects monster to-hit and damage and is even more-so useful to pet mongers. For madpeople this comes with the caveat that they also are uniquely exempt from the drawbacks from using the mental edges scaling on low sanity the moment they obtain their quest artifact, the star of Hypernotus which is one of only two sources of permanent clear thoughts (the other also being the neutral madpeople crowning gift). Other characters may still make temporary use of clear thoughts by purchasing clear thinking dolls from a living doll but will otherwise have to deal with the effects of low sanity to make effective use of them.
As a general note, since Amalgamated Skies/Silver Sky will ideally be either streaming or chained, it is advisable to pass the threshold of XL 18 to gain the +6 base die bonus to boost overall damage and to maximize insight. Every 10 points of insight add (1/10th insight) to damage versus small and (1/10th insight * 2) dice faces to damage versus large. In essence, the bonus is applied as: NdX+bonus/Ndx*bonus. For madpeople and Ose binders this is also cumulative with the bonus they gain from wielding insight weapons.
