Mirrorblade
| ) | |
|---|---|
| Name | mirrorblade |
| Appearance | polished shard-sword |
| Damage vs. small | 1d6 |
| Damage vs. large | 1d8 |
| Damage type | piercing |
| To-hit bonus | +0 |
| Weapon skill | short sword |
| Primary attribute | strength |
| Magical item? | no |
| Properties |
|
| Base size | small |
| Base price | 100 zm (+10/positive enchant) |
| Default weight | 40 |
| Base material | silver |
- Not to be confused with Mirror Brand in the same variant (or in other variants).
A mirrorblade is a type of weapon that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. The mirrorblade is a small melee weapon that is one-handed for a medium-size wielder, and uses the short sword skill. It has a base material of silver, and appears as a polished shard-sword while unidentified.
The mirrorblade is the base item for two artifacts: Ansermee and The Sansara Mirror. It cannot occur randomly as the base item for either Fire Brand or Frost Brand.
Contents
Generation
Mirrorblades are not randomly generated, though they can be wished for or found in bones.
Shadowsmiths are the only smiths capable of forging mirrorblades, and a mirrorblade requested from one will always be made of shadowsteel.
The Kamerel tower map inclusion has an effective 1⁄21 chance of containing a +1 mirrorblade in a 3x3 room, and a 1⁄5 chance of containing a mirrorblade in a 1x1 room.
Amm Kamerel that are warriors and fighter drivers are always generated with mirrorblades, and the mirrorblade of a fighter driver Amm Kamerel will always have a minimum enchantment of +1.
Description
The mirrorblade deals piercing damage, with base damage of 1d6 against small monsters and 1d8 against large monsters (the inverse of the normal short sword item). A mirrorblade can be poisoned by dipping it in an appropriate potion. A hero that wields a mirrorblade while they are at Skilled or better in short swords gains the "focus fire" and "create opening" expert traits.
If a hero or monster wielding a mirrorblade attacks, and the defender is wielding a weapon whose full damage–including enchantment, material bonuses, and beatitude bonuses, but excluding strength and skill bonuses–is higher than the base damage of the mirrorblade, the mirrorblade will use that weapon's full weapon damage as its base damage when calculating damage for that round of attacks. However, if the defender is also wielding a mirrorblade, then the attacker's mirrorblade will instead deal two dice of base damage (2d6/2d8) and use exploding dice: each die that explodes adds bonus damage equal to the total enchantments of those mirrorblades divided by 2 (rounded down).
In terms of monster weapon preference, monsters will favor a mirrorblade over a tooth, and will prefer a lightsaber or better to the mirrorblade.
Strategy
Mirrorblades make fighter Amm Kamerels into more unique threats, being more dangerous to fight if the hero has a good and well-enchanted weapon. This is especially true for silver-sensitive heroes such as vampires that will take additional silver damage from the mirrorblade itself, and they will have it further amplified if they are wielding a silver weapon themselves (which also significantly cuts into their natural HP regeneration, unless they are wearing gloves).
History
The mirrorblade first appears in dNetHack 3.16.0. From this version to dNetHack 3.24.0, and in versions of notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack that are derived from them, the unidentified appearance of the mirrorblade is a polished short sword.
