Ranger/SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, the Ranger, abbreviated as Ran, is one of the roles from NetHack that is available to the hero.

Rangers can be humans, doppelgangers, elves, drow, gnomes, orcs, lycanthropes, or hobbits. Human and doppelganger Rangers can be either neutral or chaotic; elven, gnomish and hobbit rangers are always neutral; and drow, lycanthrope and orcish Rangers are always chaotic.

Starting equipment

Each Ranger starts with the following equipment, depending on their starting race:

	Default (applies for humans and other races not listed)	Gnome	Elf	Orc	Drow
Melee weapon	+1 dagger	+1 dagger	+1 elven dagger	+1 orcish dagger	+1 dark elven dagger
Launcher	+1 bow	+1 crossbow	+1 elven bow	+1 orcish bow	+1 dark elven bow
Primary ammo	50-59 +2 arrows	50-59 +2 crossbow bolts	50-59 +2 elven arrows	50-59 +2 orcish arrows	50-59 +2 dark elven arrows
Secondary ammo	30-39 +0 arrows	30-39 +0 crossbow bolts	30-39 +0 elven arrows	30-39 +0 orcish arrows	30-39 +0 dark elven arrows
Cloak	+2 cloak of displacement	+2 cloak of displacement	+2 elven cloak	+2 cloak of displacement	+2 cloak of displacement
Food	4-8 cram rations	4-8 cram rations	4-8 lembas wafers	4-8 cram rations two stacks of 1-2 random comestibles	4-8 cram rations

Chaotic Rangers have a ¹⁄₁₀₀ chance of each starting stack of ammo being poisoned.

Rangers start with knowledge of any applicable racial equipment.

The Ranger's default starting pet is a little dog named Sirius.

Intrinsics

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

• XL 1: searching
• XL 7: stealth
• XL 15: see invisible

Attributes

The Ranger's starting attributes are distributed as follows:

Attributes	Strength	Dexterity	Constitution	Intelligence	Wisdom	Charisma	Remaining
Minimum attributes	13	9	13	13	13	7	7
Distribution percentages	30%	20%	20%	10%	10%	10%
Mean w/ standard deviation (human)	15.22±1.32	10.45±1.17	14.44±1.14	13.75±0.93	13.75±0.93	7.68±0.91

Skills

Rangers have the following skills available to them:

Ranger skills
Max	Skills
Basic	Weapons: pick-axe, short sword, morning star, hammer, quarterstaff, trident, whip Combat: bare hands, riding Spells: healing, body
Skilled	Weapons: knife, axe, flail, polearms, spear, shuriken
Expert	Weapons: dagger, javelin, bow, sling, crossbow, dart, boomerang Spells: divination

Rangers start with Basic skill in daggers as well as their starting launcher, i.e. crossbows for gnomes and bows otherwise. They use the intelligence stat to cast spells, and their special spell is invisibility.

Techniques

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

Level	Technique
1	Missile flurry

Special rules

Rangers gain a +1 bonus to multishot with all projectile weapons.

Rangers have a bonus to untrap floor traps.

Rangers have a -2 penalty to casting emergency spells.

Rank titles

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

• XL 1-2: Tenderfoot
• XL 3-5: Lookout
• XL 6-9: Trailblazer
• XL 10-13: Reconnoiterer/Reconnoiteress
• XL 14-17: Scout
• XL 18-21: Arbalester
• XL 22-25: Archer
• XL 26-29: Sharpshooter
• XL 30: Marksman/Markswoman

Gods

The Ranger pantheon is based on the classical pantheon of Roman mythology, particularly deities that also lend their names to planets.

• Lawful: Mercury
• Neutral: Venus
• Chaotic: Mars

Quest

The Ranger's quest sees them fighting Scorpius for The Longbow of Diana, an artifact bow. The Longbow of Diana grants telepathy while carried, and while wielded it grants reflection and applies a +1d5 to-hit bonus to fired arrows. Invoking The Longbow of Diana creates arrows with the same beatitude as the bow and places them in the hero's inventory, with a small chance of producing poisoned arrows.

Strategy

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As in Vanilla, Rangers are weak in melee but very strong in ranged combat. In the early game it is critical to acquire new missile weapons, enchant them, and max out your luck as quickly as possible so that you don't run out of ammunition. Arrows, darts, and daggers are all good candidates for an early ranger to invest in. Elven rangers will have a distinct advantage in the early game because SLASH'EM gives additional multishot benefits for the elven bow and elven arrows. An elven ranger can have a chance of firing a volley of up to six arrows at a time from his second turn (if he wields his bow on his first turn). Additionally, SLASH'EM gives additional multishot benefits for enchanted bows.

A chaotic ranger has an advantage in sacrifice weapons, having access to powerful gifts like Bat from Hell, Doomblade, Serpent's Tongue, and Stormbringer. A neutral ranger will have a more difficult time finding a decent melee weapon, as only Magicbane, Mjollnir, and Cleaver are worth their salt as a main melee weapon of the neutral sacrifice gifts. Thus, a ranger should focus on training bow and either dagger or dart skills and building up a stack of blessed, enchanted arrows and daggers/darts, and use them as his primary weapon until he gets a better alternative such as a crysknife (much improved over Vanilla). For these reasons it may be worth going straight for the luckstone at Mine's End before trying sokoban, and any clear potions costing 100 zorkmids should be altar-tested at Minetown and, if blessed, used to bless your main stack of arrows.

Once the ranger has a decent weapon from the midgame on, a ranger plays much like any other role but should continue to rely on ranged attacks. It is better to enchant a stack of (preferably elven) arrows to +7 than to spend the enchantment on a melee weapon, as you will be able to fire up to 6 shots per round with a +7 bow (9 if you are an elf firing elven arrows with a +7 elven bow), with an average damage of 10.5 per hit (double if firing silver arrows at silver-haters) plus any applicable strength and skill bonuses. To put this in perspective, an elven ranger, expert in bow, firing +7 elven arrows from a +7 elven bow will fire 4.3 arrows per round, for an average of 3.5 base damage + 7 enchantment bonus + 2 skill bonus = 54 damage per turn. If firing blessed +7 silver arrows from a +7 elven bow at Demogorgon will fire an average of 3.7 arrows per turn, for an average of 3.5 base damage + 7 enchantment bonus + 2 skill bonus + 2.5 blessed bonus + 10.5 silver damage = 93.5 damage per turn. This is comparable with the damage that can be achieved with firearms.