Shield
A shield is a form of armor that appears in NetHack, and is one of seven armor slots available to the hero and certain monsters.
Description
Wearing a shield requires hands, and is incompatible with wielding a two-handed weapon or performing two weapon combat—wearing a shield also prevents the hero from dealing staggering blows, prevents a Monk from receiving a to-hit bonus for martial arts, and prevents a Samurai from performing shattering blows with a katana.[1][2][3] While the shield is not designed to be used as a weapon or projectile, there is code that specifies feedback for hitting a monster with a shield.[4]
Wearing any shield reduces the hero's spellcasting success rate—the small shield has the lowest reduction.
Any monster with hands that can wear armor and is not wielding a two-handed weapon can wear a shield.[5]
If the hero or a monster is subject to a blast of disintegration and they do not have reflection, any shield they are wearing will be destroyed first without affecting them or their worn body armor.
Player monsters may receive shields when generated, but will never be given a small shield.[6] Additionally, barbarians and wizards will never be generated with a shield at all;[7][8] healers, priests (and priestesses) and monks have a 56% chance of not getting a shield.[9][10][11]
List of shields
| Shield | Unidentified description | Cost | Weight | AC | Material | Special properties |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small shield | 3 | 30 | 1 | wood | Lower spellcasting penalty than other shields. | |
| Elven shield | blue and green shield | 7 | 40 | 2 | wood | Can be enchanted to +7. |
| Orcish shield | red-eyed shield | 7 | 50 | 1 | iron | |
| Uruk-hai shield | white-handed shield | 7 | 50 | 1 | iron | |
| Large shield | 10 | 100 | 2 | iron | ||
| Dwarvish roundshield | large round shield | 10 | 100 | 2 | iron | |
| Shield of reflection | polished silver shield | 50 | 50 | 2 | silver | Provides reflection. |
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 5d3a1e68, the shield of shock resistance and shield of drain resistance are added: both shields are magical items with a base price of 50zm, provide their named resistances while worn, and appear as a "wooden shield" when unidentified (which they share with the small shield). Also similar to the small shield, both shields have a lower penalty to spellcasting than other shields while worn.Strategy
Any shield that is non-cursed is safe to try on. In the early game, obtaining armor class is a priority, and most shields are useful to that end: the starting +3 small shield of a Valkyrie is a significant advantage over other roles, to the point that a hero who desires a shield and finds a small shield Valkyrie bones often benefits from wearing it, even if the shield is cursed. On the other hands, Monks have more than a few advantages from not wearing shields, including better to-hit and staggering blows.
In the mid-game, the relative value of armor class declines enough that most players in roles that can two-weapon (including Valkyries) will gladly give up a few points of AC from their shield for the damage increase - spellcasters focused on constant combat or utility spells may also forgo shields as well.
Popular shield choices from the mid-game to the ascension run are:
- The shield of reflection covers an important property for heroes that do not plan to utilize two-weapon combat (or else lack the ability) and are not concerned about reliable spellcasting during combat situations.
- The small shield has the lowest spellcasting hindrance, and is the shield of choice for some heroes that plan to rely heavily on spellcasting in combat while maximizing their AC.
- The elven shield has some niche uses for its ability to be safely enchanted to +7, and is sought out by heroes that do not or cannot two-weapon and seek to maximize AC—they can also polypile it into a different shield, ideally either a small shield of shield of reflection.
Heroes who keep a strong pet often give them a shield of reflection.
History
The shield is available as a form of protection as early as Hack 1.21, which is based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, and it is formally made into an armor slot in Hack 1.0.
Variants
Many NetHack variants add new types of shield, and some also add a shield skill that increases the AC gained from a worn shield and can sometimes even enable shield bashing.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, the pummel, chained blitz, ground slam, and spirit bomb techniques cannot be performed with a worn shield.
SporkHack
SporkHack adds several new types of shield:
dNetHack
dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack add several new types of shield:
- buckler (replaces the small shield)
- kite shield (replaces the large shield)
- tower shield
- roundshield
- crystal shield
- dragon scale shields
- stone dragon shield
Unlike other types of armor, shields gain no bonus to DR from their enchantment, but add their full enchantment to their AC.
Shields can occur in multiple sizes like other types of armor, hence the small shield and large shield being 'replaced' with the buckler and kite shield. As a result, the size of a shield for purposes such as spellcasting penalties is determined by its weight relative to the physical size of the hero: the weight threshold for distinguishing a "small" shield versus a "large" one is 25 for medium-sized and smaller heroes, 50 for large heroes, 75 for huge heroes, and 100 for gigantic ones—shields weighing more than this threshold are "large" while shields of a weight equal to or below the threshold are "small".
The shield skill grants bonuses to AC from worn shields, which depend on the hero's skill level and the size of the shield. The "shield bashing" knightly stance partially decreases this bonus in exchange for enabling shield bash attacks that deal damage based on the shield's size and also lower the target's morale.
In notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, shields are the only type of armor that etherealoid heroes can wear, and they can also receive artifact shields as sacrifice gifts.
EvilHack
EvilHack adds a few new types of shield, including a couple from SporkHack:
The shield skill grants cumulative bonuses to AC from worn shields dependent on the hero's skill level, and worn non-bracer shields can be randomly used to shield bash when attacking in melee.
Bracers do not gain as significant of a bonus from the shield skill and cannot be used to shield bash, but do not impede two weapon combat or the use of two-handed weapons—they also behave as non-bulky shields for spellcasting purposes, preserving extra attacks from sufficient skill in martial arts and allowing a Monk to retain their to-hit bonuses for attacking while unarmed.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, a worn shield is required to use the shield block technique.
References
- ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 297
- ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 691
- ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 784
- ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1241
- ↑ src/worn.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 497
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 161
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 172
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 222
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 196
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 209
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 255
