Necromancer

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This article is about the role in variants of NetHack. For the Wizard rank of the same name in vanilla NetHack, see Wizard#Rank_titles.
For the Elvish Racial quest nemesis, see Necromancer (Quest Nemesis).

The Necromancer is one of the roles available to the hero in SLASH'EM, SlashTHEM and Hack'EM. From the guidebook:

Necromancers have delved into the darkest of the magical lore, and mastered some of the most forbidden of the magical lore. Many have fallen to the armies of the undead that they are capable of bringing forth and controlling.


Necromancers in SLASH'EM can be humans, orc, doppelganger, drow, or vampires, and are always chaotic.

Starting inventory

Each Necromancer starts with the following equipment:[1]

Any ring that is generated with an enchantment of +0 or lower is given a random enchantment from +1 to +3.[3] Duplicates of rings and spellbooks are not possible.[4] A Necromancer will never be given an amulet of drain resistance, though in practice no role can start the game with random amulets.[5]

Orcish Necromancers are not given extra food like orcish heroes in other roles.[6]

Necromancers start with knowledge of any applicable racial equipment.

The Necromancer's default starting pet is a ghoul.[7]

List of unobtainable starting items

The random items generated in a Necromancer's starting inventory will never be any of the following:[8]

Intrinsics

Necromancers gain the following intrinsic properties upon reaching the given experience levels:[9]

Skills

Necromancers have the following skills available to them:[10]

Necromancer skills
Max Skills
Basic
Skilled
Expert

Necromancers start with Basic skill in quarterstaves and matter spells.[11] They use the intelligence stat to cast spells, and their special spell is summon undead.[12]

Techniques

Necromancers can learn the disarm technique by reaching Skilled in any weapon, and also gain the following techniques at the listed experience levels:[13]

Level Technique
1 Reinforce memory
1 Raise zombies
10 Power surge
15 Sigil of tempest

Special rules

Necromancers have inherent knowledge of an item's beatitude, whether or not they can see or even touch it. (The implicit_uncursed option is set by default, so an item with no shown beatitude is uncursed - setting !implicit_uncursed in your options will display uncursed beatitude for items.)

Necromancers only take 1⁄5 damage from breaking wands by applying them.[14]

The starting inventory lacks both food and armor. You may need use prayer to delay starvation.

Rank titles

The status line displays one of the following ranks for the corresponding experience levels:[15]

  • XL 1-2: Gravedigger
  • XL 3-5: Embalmer
  • XL 6-9: Mortician
  • XL 10-13: Zombie Lord
  • XL 14-17: Ghoul Master
  • XL 18-25: Necromancer
  • XL 26-29: Undead Master
  • XL 30: Lich Lord

Gods

Main article: Religion

The Necromancer pantheon is original to the role, and takes some elements from the Cthulhu Mythos. Their first sacrifice gift is Serpent's Tongue.

Quest

Main article: Necromancer quest

The Necromancer's quest sees them fighting Maugneshaagar for The Great Dagger of Glaurgnaa, an artifact great dagger. The Great Dagger of Glaurgnaa grants magic resistance while carried, and as a weapon it has +8 to-hit and +4 damage bonuses against monsters without drain resistance, inflicting level drain upon those targets on each hit. Invoking The Great Dagger of Glaurgnaa restores energy, similar to The Mitre of Holiness.

Strategy

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

"Structure and fill out similar to other SLASH'EM role strategy sections, and differentiate accordingly."

Necromancers are one of the more difficult roles to play: they are relatively poor fighters with low HP and strength, but most of the role's spells, skills and techniques that matter don't make a big difference until late in the game—until then, you are playing a weak fighter or subpar Wizard who can eat old corpses and make weak zombie pets in the mines.

Your starting spells of summon undead and command undead are unhelpful in the beginning as you will likely a 100% failure rate for all of the early game and most of the midgame. Play the early game like a tank, putting on all armor that isn't cursed and training dagger skill to get the bonus to-hit and multishot benefit. A Drow, by contrast, should train daggers by throwing them, but fight bare-handed in melee to take advantage of the sleep attack. You will frequently need to run away from fights and use Elbereth to survive at the beginning. Use your wand of draining in emergencies, but be judicious; once it's used up, you're on your own. Also, save fortune cookies and the like to tame dogs and cats, and keep a lichen corpse around to pacify them in an emergency.

Head first for the mall and buy or steal any decent weapons, armor, rings (200/300 cost), and wands you find. If you find any potions of gain level, dip your pick-axe to get a dwarvish mattock. Go ahead and train skill in this until you find an altar to get your first sacrifice gift, the inimitable Serpent's Tongue. Once you have cleared out the mall of goodies, head for the mines.

The raise zombies technique can help marginally in the mines, mostly by distracting foes and providing something to dodge behind when tough enemies come your way. If you find yourself surrounded by dead humanoids and satiated, place one in each square around you and activate the technique. Zombies can be created from kobolds, gnomes, dwarves, elves, orcs (including goblins), humans, ettins, and giants, although by the time you see the latter two they are probably not going to be much help to you. In general, all other humanoids will become ghouls or ghasts. Ghouls and ghasts are stronger than most early zombies, which means hobbit corpses are particularly good for raising. Vampire necromancers can raise drained corpses, but will likely find them too slow to keep up with the frenetic pace of the vampire's early game without a magic whistle.

If you're lucky enough to find an altar to Gothuulbe in the mines, camp out and sacrifice for Serpent's Tongue. Look for scrolls of enchant weapon and get this up to +6/+7 as soon as possible, as it will do double damage on the enchantment bonus. If not, head back up to the main dungeon and make your way to sokoban. Be sure to fully explore every level until you find an altar. If you haven't found one by level 19, you can always use the guaranteed co-aligned altar in the Lawful Quest, but it may be difficult to survive against the killer rations, piles of killer coins, and werecreatures you'll meet there if the altar ends up far from the entry portal. Don't attempt your role quest yet; Maugneshaagar is a powerful foe, and the Great Dagger of Glaurgnaa is not as good a weapon as a well-enchanted Serpent's Tongue. After you get your artifact weapon, head to One-Eyed Sam's black market and clear it out. By the time you have done that, and used all the scrolls of enchant weapon and enchant armor, you should be strong enough to try some of the other branches, including Grund's Stronghold (don't attempt without fire resistance), the Chaotic Quest (don't go without a wand of fire or lightning), the Wyrm Caves, and the Necromancer quest.

The Necromancer quest will yield the Great Dagger of Glaurgnaa, which drains enemies just as Stormbringer does, grants magic resistance when carried, and most importantly provides a magic power boost when #invoked, much like The Mitre of Holiness. If you have managed to get DSM by this time, you may switch to spellcasting mode, and the Great Dagger will be a huge boon as you will find yourself running out of magic power frequently due to the Necromancer's low power growth. The Great Dagger will also make a good weapon against poison-resistant foes, however, you should try to sacrifice for a better weapon such as Doomblade, Bat from Hell, Frost Brand, or Fire Brand. Whichever you make your primary weapon, do advance the relevant skill to max.

By the endgame, the Necromancer will have become quite formidable. The class's natural immunity to sickness takes the sting away from usually fearsome opponents such as Demogorgon and Pestilence. Innate drain resistance means you don't have to waste a valuable armor, amulet, or weapon slot on it, not to mention making the Guild of Disgruntled Adventurers, the Wyrm Caves, and The Lost Tomb significantly easier. By the time you have gotten your spellcasting mojo on, your starting spells of command undead and summon undead become extremely useful, and can net you an army of powerful pets. Your sigil of tempest technique will make ordinary ray attacks such as magic missile and cone of cold into powerful area attacks. Necromancers can eventually become extremely powerful offensive magicians, attaining expert in both attack and matter spells.

A good ascension kit for a Necromancer is:

References

  1. Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 132
  2. Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1120
  3. Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1567
  4. Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1588
  5. Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1535
  6. Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1375: food is intended to be compensation for inferior equipment, and orcish Wizards are not subject to racial armor and weapon replacements
  7. Jump up ↑ role.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 274
  8. Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1514
  9. Jump up ↑ attrib.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 74
  10. Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 574
  11. Jump up ↑ weapon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1667: initial spellcasting skills are hardcoded, so starting spells are not a factor
  12. Jump up ↑ role.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 289
  13. Jump up ↑ tech.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 126
  14. Jump up ↑ explode.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 247
  15. Jump up ↑ role.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 263
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