Long saw

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Name	long saw
Appearance	long saw
Damage vs. small	1d8
Damage vs. large	1d6
Damage type	slashing
To-hit bonus	+1
Weapon skill	farm implements
Expert traits	bleed
Primary attribute	strength
Magical item?	no
Properties	apply to turn into saw spear
Base size	medium
Base price	15 zm (+10/positive enchant)
Default weight	75
Base material	iron

)
Name	saw spear
Appearance	saw spear
Damage vs. small	1d8
Damage vs. large	1d10
Damage type	slashing, piercing
To-hit bonus	+0
Weapon skill	spear
Expert traits	stop thrust, bleed, puncture
Primary attribute	strength
Magical item?	no
Properties	apply to turn into long saw
Base size	medium
Base price	15 zm (+10/positive enchant)
Default weight	75
Base material	iron

A long saw is a type of weapon that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. The long saw is a medium-sized melee weapon, making it one-handed for a medium-sized wielder, and uses the farm implements skill. It has a base material of iron.

The long saw can be transformed it into a saw spear, which is a large-sized melee weapon that can also be thrown. It is also one-handed for a medium sized wielder, and uses the spear skill.

Generation

Long saws are very rare and make up ¹⁄₁₀₀₀ of all weapons that are randomly generated on the ground, in general shops or as death drops. the dungeon. Long saws are not normally generated in saw spear form, but saw spears can be wished for or found in bones.

The artifacts Fire Brand and Frost Brand can only be wished for in the form of a long saw or saw spear by an Undead Hunter, and only Undead Hunters can reshape the Brands into long saws or saw spears by dipping the chosen artifact into a forge or fountain respectively—this reshaping requires the hero to either have a long saw or saw spear in their inventory, or be at least Skilled in either farm implements or spears respectively.

A long saw has a ⁹⁄₁₀ chance of being generated on the Undead Hunter quest home level, where it is placed in the chest near the forge of the northwestern-most room during level creation.

Deminymphs that are given "undead hunter" kits have a ¹⁄₁₁ chance of being generated with a saw spear as their primary weapon, which has a ¹⁄₁₀₀ chance of being made of mercurial material and will be given an enchantment ranging from +2 to +4.

Description

The long saw is a serrated trick weapon that inflicts slashing damage, dealing 1d8 damage to small monsters and 1d6 to large monsters, and has a +1 to-hit bonus—as a serrated weapon, it also grants a ¹⁄₅ bonus to various types of damage that it inflicts against monsters with a DR of 7 or less and are not wearing torso armor (i.e. a cloak, suit or shirt). A hero wielding a long saw while they are at Skilled or better in farm implements gains the "bleed" expert trait.

Applying a long saw will open the weapon and transform it into a saw spear: the saw spear is serrated like the long saw and it inflicts slashing and piercing damage, dealing 1d8 damage to small monsters and 1d10 to large monsters. An atlatl can be used to shoot saw spears. A hero wielding a saw spear while they are at Skilled or better in spears gains the "stop thrust", "lunge" and "bleed" expert traits.

In terms of monster weapon preference, monsters will favor a long saw over the hunter's axe, and they will prefer a khopesh, a bec de corbin (if they can use polearms in melee) or better to the long saw. For a saw spear, monsters will favor it over the bow-blade and will prefer a hunter's long-axe (the alternate form of the hunter's axe) or better to the saw spear.

Strategy

Undead Hunters that have already spent skill points in spears by the time they reach their Quest will benefit from using the long saw's saw spear form and the consistent extra bleed and puncture damage it inflicts with its expert traits. In contrast, the long saw itself uses a very niche skill and only has the bleed expert trait, making it much harder to accommodate for, and it also suffers greatly from its low base damage. The weapon's serrated damage bonus in both forms is well suited to the Undead Hunter quest with its many unarmored enemies, and will perform best with an elemental imbuement from smithing.

For other roles, the weapon will be hard to come across and cannot be reliably obtained outside of wishing. As such, it is not particularly worth the effort seeking out, and there are many spear artifacts that are much better wish candidates.

Origin

The long saw and saw spear are based on the saw spear 'trick weapon' from the 2015 video game Bloodborne, where it can be found early on in the story. Its in-game item description reads: "One of the trick weapons of the workshop, commonly used by those who dedicate themselves to the hunt. This saw, effective at drawing the blood of beasts, transforms into a medium-range spear. The saw, with its set of blood-letting teeth, has become a symbol of the hunt, and only grows in effectiveness the more grotesquely transformed the beast."

Messages

You open the long saw.

You applied a long saw and turned it into a saw spear.

You close the saw spear.

You applied a saw spear and turned it into a long saw.

Encyclopedia entry

This saw, effective at drawing the blood of beasts,
transforms into a medium-range spear.

[ Bloodborne, by FromSoftware ]