Iron shoes

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[   iron shoes
Appearance	hard shoes
Slot	boots
AC	2
Special	(none)
Base price	16 zm
Weight	50
Material	iron

A pair of iron shoes is a set of boots that appear in NetHack. They are naturally made of iron, and appear as hard shoes when unidentified.

Generation

Barbarians, Knights, Monks, Samurai, and Valkyries start the game with knowledge of the pair of iron shoes' appearance.

Iron shoes make up ⁷⁄₁₀₀₀ (0.7%) of all armor that is randomly generated on the ground, in general shops or as death drops. Used armor dealerships and antique weapon outlets can also stock iron shoes.

Non-undead dwarves have a ⁶⁄₇ chance of being generated with iron shoes, and Uruk-hai have a ¹⁄₃ chance of generating with them. Orc-captains have a ¹⁄₂ chance of being generated with Uruk-hai armor, giving them an effective ¹⁄₆ chance of generating with the boots.

Player monsters on the Astral Plane have an effective ~4.68% chance of generating with iron shoes.

Description

While worn, a pair of iron shoes grants 2 base AC, and protects a hero against the xan's leg-wounding sting ²⁄₅ of the time.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.

Per commit b6df17f3, worn iron shoes grant at least partial protection against several floor-based traps:

• A hero or monster wearing iron shoes will not take damage or suffer wounded legs from being caught in beartraps.
• A hero or monster wearing iron shoes will not be damaged by the spikes in spiked pits, also preventing the spikes from causing poisoning.
• A hero or monster wearing iron shoes with a positive enchantment will be protected from anti-magic traps, which will instead drain one point of enchantment from those shoes.
• A hero or monster wearing iron shoes that steps on a polymorph trap will polymorph only their shoes, turning them into a pair of magical boots (with an equal probability for each type of magical boots to occur). Per commit 89473216, this is reworked so that they will only polymorph into kicking boots.
• A hero or monster wearing iron shoes that steps on a land mine will take reduced damage from the resulting explosion (min. 1), though they will still end up with wounded legs.

Strategy

Iron shoes are one of only two types of boots to grant 2 base AC, and are one of only two types of boots to be metallic: high boots also grant 2 AC, while kicking boots are also metallic. Iron boots are much easier to find compared to high boots, particularly in the Gnomish Mines, but have a higher weight in comparison. Being metallic, wearing them incurs a small spellcasting penalty and they are vulnerable to erosion by rusting and corrosion, which among other things can make encounters with rust monsters annoying.

In the early phases of the game, melee-focused heroes that have low interest in spells and spellcaster heroes that are looking to prioritize AC will likely grab one of the many pairs of iron shoes they encounter in the Mines, and may swap them for high boots or low boots as necessary. Their spellcasting penalty is low enough that a character can usually retain comfortably low spell failure rates if they are the only metallic armor worn.

History

Iron shoes first appear in NetHack 3.0.0.

Variants

Some variants rename the hard shoes used by dwarves to dwarvish boots, which may also grant an AC bonus to dwarves that wear them (including dwarven characters), and are otherwise the same as iron shoes; other variants may additionally repurpose the iron shoes given to Uruk-hai into orcish boots, which may also grant an AC bonus to orcs that wear them (including orcish characters).

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, the pair of iron shoes is simply known as a pair of shoes and retains its unidentified appearance.

A pair of shoes grants 1 base AC and 1 DR while worn, has a base object material of iron, and always displays its material when identified, even with the default material.

Drow Healers start each game with a blessed +1 blue-colored pair of cloth shoes.

Several monsters can generate with a pair of shoes:

• Storm giants are generated with a pair of iron shoes.
• Master Kaen is generated with a cursed +4 pair of iron shoes that have the holy, consecrated, unholy, and desecrated object properties.
• Eclavdra, the quest leader for the Drow Racial quest and Hedrow shared quest, is generated with a blessed and erosion-proofed +0 pair of silver shoes.
• Sister T'eirastra, the Drow Healer quest leader, is generated with a blue-colored blessed pair of cloth shoes.
• Pen'a mendicants are generated with a blue-colored blessed pair of cloth shoes.
• Neferet the Green is generated with a blessed and erosion-proofed +5 pair of silver shoes.
• Nurses that are generated in the Anachrononaut quest and Android quest are generated with a +7 white-colored pair of cloth shoes.

xNetHack

xNetHack renames iron shoes to "dwarvish boots" and retains the odds of Uruk-hai generating with them, with a comment in the relevant code suggesting that they stole their boots from dwarves.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, iron shoes are renamed to dwarvish boots and grant a +1 AC bonus to dwarves that wear them, while Uruk-hai and other orcs are instead given orcish boots, which grant a +1 AC bonus to orcs wearing them.

Croesus has a ¹⁄₂ chance of generating with a set of gold dwarvish boots.

A pair of dwarvish boots can be created at a forge by combining a dwarvish short sword and a pair of gauntlets.

SlashTHEM

In SlashTHEM, the militant cleric of the rebel party that serves as quest nemeses for the default Noble quest will generate with iron shoes.

Hack'EM

Hack'EM splits iron shoes into dwarvish and orcish boots, similar to EvilHack.

Upgrading a pair of high boots successfully will produce a pair of dwarvish boots. As in EvilHack, a pair of dwarvish boots can be created at a forge by combining a dwarvish short sword and a pair of gauntlets.