Talk:Master Kaen

Disintegration

Won't the quest artifact be disintegrated along with Master Kaen? Astral vision and slotless magic resistance are quite handy, so perhaps this strategy is more of a last-resort method. Tjr 22:25, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

Just tried it in wiz mode. He dropped the silver bell and eyes of the overworld when disintegrated. Only took 3 tries as well, so as long as you have enough power it's a fine strategy. -- Qazmlpok 23:22, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

Melee with conflict

While wearing a ring of conflict, I only took 18hp damage from Master Kaen over ~10 turns of melee without sleep/paralysis/regeneration, but I didn't check the battle spam and can't see any longer if that was thanks to conflict encouraging him to hit other monsters instead or RNG favor and -27 AC. Maybe conflict should be suggested for meleeing him? --207.244.66.70 11:03, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Polymorph

Master Kaen is easy to beat: take down a wand of polymorph and polymorph him. He drops his stuff and is done; even better, read a scroll or zap a spell of charm monster and he'll even become your pet .... — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrRTFM (talk • contribs)

That's kind of a swingy method. You might get a newt, or you might get a titan or arch-lich who fills the level with nasties and has too much MR to be polymorphed again. --Darth l33t (talk) 14:38, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

In which a guy named RTFM thinks he's the first person to consider polymorphing a quest nemesis. --Umbire the Phantom (talk) 16:47, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

The worst results of polymorph are preferable to Master Kaen. There isn't a more damaging monster, I don't see the need to be rude. It's currently not documented on the page.

In any case, it should be included. The worst results of polymorph are still easier to kill than Master Kaen. For example, you can kill a lich with genocide, and titans are far less damaging. Note that polymorphing him before he picks up the Eyes risks polymorphing them into a random tool. --Luxidream (talk) 07:35, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Mm, fair. --Umbire the Phantom (talk) 20:59, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Teleport

Is it worth mentioning that Master Kaen can teleport and attack in the same round? His speed of 12 doesn't matter if he can teleport right next to you and hit you for 80. --Zippy (talk) 19:58, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I think it is worth mentioning somewhere on the covetous page. However it is going to take some research to get the information right. If this happened on a public server, can you link to the dumplog? Furey (talk) 20:14, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Personal computer, Vulture's Eye with NetHack 3.4.3 from Fedora 40. No clue if that has dumplog, or how to tell if it does. I am savescumming (without post-death ID, etc.), so if just going and getting myself killed again will help, I can do that. --Zippy (talk) 00:58, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I have a note to look into it when I visit covetous, but that is going to take a long time. It would help if Vulture's Eye would upgrade from NetHack 3.4.3 to NetHack 3.6.7 or any NetHack 3.6. NetHack 3.6.0 came out in December 2015 with a lot of changes and bug fixes, including some changes in the speed system. For now, I think you're stuck with a very strong Master Kaen. I usually fight him with a boulder fort, a cursed potion of invisibility, and then throw dozens of darts through the boulders. Furey (talk) 01:27, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Actually, should covetous be broken into two attributes, thief and warp-attack? Thief for those creatures that steal from you: nymph, leprechaun, Master Kaen, and etc. Warp-attack for those that warp & attack: arch-lich, Master Kaen, and etc. "Covetous" just implies they want something from you, and since most monsters want your life, really applies to any creature encountered in the game.--Zippy (talk) 18:24, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

No, because covetous is a very specific monster attribute that both confers warping abilities and describes what important artifact they want from the hero. --Umbire the Phantom (talk) 18:26, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Depends on whether you want this site to be a NetHack Programmer's Reference, or a Player's Reference. A programmer needs to know that NetHack uses "covetous" to indicate this behavior. A player sees "covetous" on this page and says, "so what? Covetous literally just means they want something." The player reads further and sees that Kaen will take the artifact. The player now knows what Kaen wants, so doesn't see a reason to click the Covetous link, and thus won't learn that the Programmer massively changed the meaning of the word "covetous". --Zippy (talk) 23:28, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

...which is why the link is provided in the first place. I really don't think the wiki should have to account for a hypothetical reader's worst habits. --Umbire the Phantom (talk) 23:33, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Also, the idea of "a NetHack Programmer's Reference, or a Player's Reference" is a false dichotomy that assumes the two are mutually exclusive, as opposed to how it plays out in reality where developers for NetHack and its variants very often play each others' games as well as their own. Considering there's also partially-annotated source code hosted on here (because this is very much open source), there's no real reason it needs to be either/or. --Umbire the Phantom (talk) 23:43, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Just confirming: did you read every page to verify that a sword is still a sword, an axe is still an axe, and etc.? Or did you think, "Ok, swords are available as weapons, and I know what a sword is, so I don't need to spend time reading that page."? Even better, are you able to look at the wiki's access stats, to see how many unique IP addresses load every available page as new players read everything before playing? You are correct that the wiki could be both a programmer's reference and a player's reference. However, since there will be many more players than programmers, the focus should be on the player. To that end, the wiki could still list Master Kaen as having the "thief" and "warp attack" behaviors, but on those associated pages, note that those behaviors are enabled by the covetous monster field.--Zippy (talk) 13:40, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

The former, easily.

Again: Theft and warping are both covered by the covetous article. And to clarify this "warp attack" deal: all monsters can move and attack in the same turn, not even just covetous ones. It's a fairly known quirk of NetHack that if anything should probably be covered on articles like speed that deal with monster movement (which I'm currently renovating right now, incidentally). The most that could be said for Master Kaen is that it's particularly deadly in his case, which is fine to note in the strategy section. --Umbire the Phantom (talk) 13:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Just confirming. "thief" is not enabled by the covetous monster field, so adding text to "thief", "warp attack", or "covetous" to that effect would be incorrect. Demon lords, for example, are covetous, but do not have a thief attack.

I see that Umbire is planning to handle the move/attack documentation.

Also this discussion has wandered quite far from the specific topic of Master Kaen. https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Forum:Watercooler is a better place for discussions about the general organization of NetHackWiki.

Furey (talk) 14:03, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't disagree that this is going a bit beyond scope and that things like info organization can be better addressed on, say, the talk page for the Style Guide, but I also don't think the discussion is "out of control" otherwise - my admin hat's been off this entire exchange, and I doubt it needs to be put on (which is to say, just try to keep it civil). --Umbire the Phantom (talk) 14:10, 21 June 2024 (UTC)