Spear (skill)

The spear is a weapon skill that appears in NetHack.

Available roles

The following roles can reach the listed skill levels in spears:

Spear
Max	Role
Basic	Healer, Monk, Rogue, Tourist, Wizard
Skilled	Barbarian, Knight, Priest, Samurai
Expert	Caveman, Ranger, Valkyrie

List of weapons

The following weapons use the spear skill:

• spear
• dwarvish spear
• elven spear
• orcish spear
• silver spear
• javelin

There are no artifact weapons that use the spear skill.

Spears of all kinds make up 9.7% of all weapons that are randomly generated on the ground, in general shops or as death drops.

Description

Spear weapons have an additional +2 to-hit bonus when thrown and can be multishot, and have a separate +2 to-hit bonus against kebabable monster classes. Cave Dwellers get a +1 multishot bonus for throwing spears of any kind.

History

The spear skill is introduced with many other weapon skills in NetHack 3.2.0. From this version up to NetHack 3.4.3, including some variants based on those versions, spears and javelins cannot be multishot—additionally, the javelin uses the spear skill from NetHack 3.2.0 to NetHack 3.3.0, while from NetHack 3.3.1 to NetHack 3.4.3 it instead has its own separate skill. NetHack 3.6.0 merges the javelin skill back into the spear skill via commit 54bbb38e, and additionally makes all spear weapons including the javelin eligible for multishot via commit 21262396.

From NetHack 3.2.0 to NetHack 3.6.7, Valkyries can reach Skilled in spears. NetHack 5.0.0 raises their skill cap in spears to Expert via commit c09ae332, which also changes their starting weapon to a spear.

Variants

Many NetHack variants add new artifacts and weapons that use the spear skill, and some of them also enable monsters that generate with spears of any type to generate with a stack of them. Some NetHack variants created prior to the release of NetHack 3.6.0 also choose to retain the javelin as a separate weapon skill, while others merge the javelin skill into the spear skill class themselves.

SLASH'EM

SLASH'EM retains the separate javelin and spear skills as in NetHack 3.4.3 and previous contemporary versions.

The Holy Spear of Light is an intelligent artifact silver spear.

SporkHack

In SporkHack, Dragonbane has its base item changed from a broadsword to a dwarvish spear.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, Dragonbane has its base item changed to a dwarvish spear as in SporkHack.

dNetHack

dNetHack merges the javelin skill into the spear skill, and adds the atgeir, droven spear, saw spear, and silverknight spear as weapons that use the spear skill. dNetHack also adds the atlatl, which serves as a launcher for spear wepaons.

The Water Crystal increases a hero's skill cap in spears by one level while carried.

Huginn and Muninn are a spirit that grants skill in spears while bound.

Many artifacts use the spear skill in some manner:

• The Rod of Lordly Might, The Rod of the Elvish Lords and The Sceptre of Lolth are artifacts that can take on the form of a spear, elven spear or droven spear, respectively.
• The Lance of Longinus is a lawful artifact silver spear.
• The Spear of Peace is a neutral, intelligent and Madmen-favoring wooden spear.
• Gungnir is a lawful, intelligent and Valkyrie-favoring artifact whose default base item is an atgeir. It can be created by successfully praying as a piously aligned lawful or neutral Valkyrie while wielding a non-artifact weapon that uses the spear skill and has a minimum enchantment of +5—creating Gungnir this way will retain the form of the spear weapon used as the base item.
• The Death-Spear of Vhaerun is a neutral, intelligent and drow Noble-favoring silvered obsidian droven spear.
• Yorshka's Spear is a lawful Noble-favoring spear.
• The Rod of Seven Parts is a lawful intelligent platinum spear.
• Amhimitl is a neutral artifact javelin made of bone that acts as the crowning gift for neutral Archeologists. It has +1d5 to-hit and deals +1d8 fire damage against monsters without fire resistance, along with +3d4 holy or unholy damage when blessed or cursed respectively. Amhimitl returns to the quiver when fired and can be multishot, which causes it to be thrown immediately after returning multiple times in quick succession—the artifact does not return if it misfires, and any multishot is aborted if this occurs.

SpliceHack

In SpliceHack, merfolk heroes in any role that starts with a spear will be given a trident instead.

notdNetHack

In notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, in addition to dNetHack details, Salamander heroes can always reach Expert in spears.

EvilHack

EvilHack adds the atlatl and dark elven spear as weapons that use the spear skill. Wizards are restricted in the spear skill, while Archeologists can train to Expert in spears.

Monsters that randomly generate with spears of any type will generate with a stack of them.

SlashTHEM

In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, kobold heroes can always reach at least Basic in spears.

Hack'EM

Hack'EM adds the atgeir from dNetHack as a weapon that uses the spear skill. Hack'EM also adds some artifacts that use the spear skill from other variants: Elfrist and the Holy Spear of Light (known simply as the Spear of Light) from SLASH'EM, and Gungnir from dNetHack.