Shield

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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. 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.

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.

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. Additionally, barbarians and wizards will never be generated with a shield at all; healers, priests (and priestesses) and monks have a 56% chance of not getting a shield.

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.

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 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:

• flame shield
• ice shield
• lightning shield
• venom shield
• shield of light
• shield of mobility

dNetHack

dNetHack renames the small shield to the "buckler", and adds several new types of shield:

• kite shield (replaces the large shield)
• tower shield
• roundshield
• crystal shield
• dragon scale shields
• stone dragon shield

Shields can occur in multiple sizes like other types of armor, hence the renaming of the small shield and the replacement of the large shield with the kite shield. Unlike other types of armor, they get no bonus to DR from enchantment, but add their full enchantment to AC.

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 style partially decreases this bonus in exchange for allowing shield bashes that deal damage based on the shield's size and lower the target's morale.

EvilHack

EvilHack adds a few new types of shield, including a couple from SporkHack:

• shield of light
• shield of mobility
• bracers
  • plain bracers
  • dark elven bracers

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 interfere with two weapon combat and use of two-handed weapons—they also behave as non-bulky shields for spellcasting purposes, preserve extra attacks from sufficient skill in martial arts and allow a Monk to retain to-hit bonuses for attacking while unarmed.

notdNetHack

In notdNetHack, in addition to dNetHack details, shields are the only type of armor that etherealoids can wear.

SlashTHEM

In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, a worn shield is required to use the shield block technique.

notnotdNetHack

In notnotdNetHack, in addition to notdNetHack details, etherealoids can receive shields as sacrifice gifts.