Monk/dNetHack

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In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, the Monk is one of the roles from NetHack that is available to the hero.

Monks can be humans, incantifiers, clockwork automatons, chiropterans, half-dragons, or yuki-onna, and can be of any appropriate alignment.

Starting equipment

Each Monk starts with the following equipment:

Incantifier Monks have food rations and oranges replaced with scrolls of food detection, and are given a spellbook of healing if they do not start with one; an incantifier monk that starts with the spellbook is instead given a random spellbook from a spell school that they can train. Clockwork Monks have food rations and oranges replaced with potions of oil. Half-dragon Monks have apples replaced with tripe rations.

Monks start with knowledge of several weapons in addition to any applicable racial equipment: the quarterstaff, the khakkhara, the double sword, the chakram, the set of crow talons, the nunchaku, the bestial claw, the shuriken, and the katar.

Intrinsics

Monks gain the following intrinsic properties upon reaching the given experience levels:

Attributes

The Monk's starting attributes are distributed as follows:

Attributes Strength Dexterity Constitution Intelligence Wisdom Charisma Remaining
Minimum attributes 10 8 7 7 8 7 28
Distribution percentages 25% 20% 15% 10% 20% 10%
Mean w/ standard deviation 17.34±2.37 13.63±2.10 11.26±1.95 9.86±1.66 13.63±2.10 9.57±1.59

Skills

Monks have the following skills available to them before racial adjustments:

Monk skills
Max Skills
Basic
Skilled
Expert
Grand Master

Monks start with Basic skill in martial arts and healing spells before racial adjustments. They use the wisdom stat to cast spells, and their special spell is restore ability.

Special rules

Monks only take 1⁄5 damage from breaking wands by applying them.

Monks are expected to maintain at least a vegetarian diet, and are penalized every time they consume non-vegetarian food. This is enforced more stringently than in NetHack: actions that violate a hero's code of conduct incur a penalty to current alignment record, as well as a permanent penalty to maximum alignment record (which is referred to as "sin"). Violations of personal conduct for all roles are also the domain of the Hod Sephirah, and each violation makes it possible for them to appear via random monster generation.

Monks wearing armor that restricts the upper body incur a -20 to-hit penalty—this applies to all body armor with the exception of Hawaiian shorts and waistcloths, as well as Victorian underwear. Monks that are in normal form and not wearing restrictive armor, using a shield, or wielding and using a weapon gain a to-hit bonus equal to XL⁄3 + 2 for melee attacks.

Monks that are not wearing restrictive armor also have halved penalties to AC from low dexterity, and gain two further bonuses to AC: the first is based on their wisdom and is equal to WIS-1⁄2 - 5 (with a floor of 0), and the second bonus is level-based and equal to XL⁄6 + 1. A Monk that meets these conditions, has drunk at least one potion of booze per experience level, and is also currently confused gains an AC bonus equal to 1 + (booze drunken/9).

Monks incur spellcasting penalties for wearing gloves made of any rigid materials, rather than specifically for metallic gloves as with other roles.

Resting via . causes a Monk to "meditate": meditation improves energy regeneration while resting to slightly more than twice the normal rate, and slows hunger to half the normal rate.

A Monk exercises wisdom while they are weak from hunger, and abuses wisdom while they are satiated - this is applied in addition to the normal stat abuse for both conditions, and occurs on every game turn whose number is a multiple of 10. A Monk that is hungry or worse burns nutrition at half the normal rate, which stacks with the reduction in hunger from meditation.

Monks have access to special abilities through their monk weapons and role fighting techniques.

Monk weapons

The following weapons are considered "monk weapons": the quarterstaff, the khakkhara, the double sword, the chakram, the set of crow talons, the nunchaku, the bestial claw, the shuriken, the katar, and wind and fire wheels. Some of these weapons are required to use certain monk techniques listed in the section below.

Monks can jump while wielding a quarterstaff or khakkhara: this has the same valid landing range as a jumping spell of the same skill level as the lower between their quarterstaff skill and their martial arts skill; expert skill in quarterstaff combined with Master or Grand Master skill in martial arts grants additional range. The khakkhara also acts as a spellcasting focus for Monks.

Monks that make contact with a hostile monster while hurtling through the air (including jumping) make a full attack against that monster. If the attack displaces, kills or otherwise moves the target out of the way, the Monk will continue hurtling in that direction if they have not used a free action this turn, and will otherwise stop adjacent to the target.

Monks can throw shuriken and use the nunchaku's disarming ability as a free action once per turn, using the same free act as the stethoscope. Shuriken thrown by Monks do not mulch.

Fighting moves

Monks have access to special fighting moves that are triggered by certain combinations of movements and/or attacks, with different movesets available for chiropteran Monks compared to others:

  • ⇒⇒ or ⇘⇘: Dive kick
    • The hero kicks a single target directly in front of them twice - this has the standard chance of failure from high encumbrance.
  • ⇒⇒ or ⇘⇘: Swoop (chiropteran only)
    • The hero attacks a target directly in front of them with their main weapon, off-hand weapon (if two-weaponing), and the chiropteran bite attack in order.
    • The mainhand and off-hand attacks require the monk to be unarmed or wielding a monk weapon in order to be used.
  • ⇗⇒ or ⇒⇘: Aura bolt
    • If the hero is unarmed or is wielding a monk weapon, they fire a ray in front of them that can hit multiple targets, but does not bounce off walls; the ray will not be fired if it could hit a peaceful or tame monster, and also cannot be used if the hero's alignment record is within a range of 3 to -3 inclusively.
    • An aura bolt deals ((XL + 2)/3)d4 damage, or 1d4 for every three experience levels (with a maximum of 10d4 damage at level 28 or higher), and has different damage bonuses depending on the hero's alignment record:
      • If the PC's alignment record is 4 or greater, the aura bolt emits holy energy that deals double damage against holy-hating targets such as demons and the undead.
      • If the PC's alignment record is -4 or lower, the aura bolt emits unholy energy that deals double damage against unholy-hating targets such as angels.
  • ⇑⇒ or ⇗⇘: Bird kick
    • The hero kicks all adjacent targets once - this has the standard chance of failure from high encumbrance.
  • ⇑⇒ or ⇗⇘: Wing storm (chiropteran only)
    • The hero knocks all adjacent targets back up to 4 squares, which deals no direct damage but stuns and slows the targets.
  • ⇖⇒ or ⇑⇘: Meteor drive
    • The hero throws a single target in front of them downwards - if the target is standing on ordinary room terrain, corridor, soil, sand, grass, or a doorway, they take size- and strength-dependent damage.
  • ⇐⇒ or ⇖⇘: Flurry/Pummel
    • The hero strikes a single target in front of them twice with their normal attack - the hero must be unarmed or wielding a monk weapon.

Any action that is not movement or a melee attack breaks the current chain of inputs.

Rank titles

The status line displays one of the following ranks for the corresponding experience levels:

  • XL 1-2: Candidate
  • XL 3-5: Novice
  • XL 6-9: Initiate
  • XL 10-13: Student of Stones
  • XL 14-17: Student of Waters
  • XL 18-21: Student of Metals
  • XL 22-25: Student of Winds
  • XL 26-29: Student of Fire
  • XL 30: Master

Gods

Main article: Religion

Unlike NetHack and other variants, the Monk pantheon of dNetHack is based on characters from the 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West.

Quest

Main article: Monk quest/dNetHack

The Monk's redesigned quest sees them fighting Master Kaen for The Eye of the Overworld, an artifact morganite soul-lens. The Eye of the Overworld grants magic resistance while carried, and while worn it grants x-ray vision and fully protects the wearer from blindness and gaze attacks, in addition to the normal effects of soul-lenses. Monks wearing the Eye gain a spellcasting bonus equal to their armor modifier (24) if they have an alignment record of at least 20 and the artifact is non-cursed, compared to half the bonus from regular soul-lenses - this bonus becomes a penalty if the Monk's alignment is negative, or else if The Eye is cursed.

Strategy

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

"Detail to match the layout of other NetHack and dNetHack role strategy sections if possible."

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