Twoweapon

In NetHack, twoweaponing is the act of wielding two weapons simultaneously, and is only available to certain roles. Twoweaponing deals significantly more damage in exchange for overall accuracy, skill investment, and time spent training the ability.

Beginning two-weapon combat

To begin two-weapon combat, you must have your main-hand weapon wielded and your off-hand weapon in your secondary weapon slot. The easiest way to achieve this is usually to wield w your off-hand weapon, use x to swap your weapons, and then wield w your main-hand weapon. Finally, use shift + x to bring your intended off-hand weapon into your off-hand and start dual-wielding. If successful, you have a DEX/20 chance of not using a turn.

Restrictions and prerequisites

Two weapon combat
Max	Role
Basic	Archeologist, Barbarian
Skilled	Knight, Tourist, Valkyrie
Expert	Rogue, Samurai

If you are not polymorphed, your role must be one that can reach at least Basic in the two weapon combat skill. If you are polymorphed, it must be into a form that can fight with two weapons.

The two items you try to wield must both be weapons or weapon-tools, and they must both be one-handed. You cannot wield two weapons while wearing a shield.

If your secondary weapon is cursed or you have greasy hands, it will slip to the floor when you try to dual-wield. If your secondary weapon becomes cursed while you are dual-wielding it, it will slip from your hand instead of being welded to it.

If you wield an artifact weapon as a secondary weapon and attempt to twoweapon, you will not be able to engage in two-weapon combat in vanilla NetHack. A message will appear saying “Your <artifact weapon> resists being held second to another weapon!”

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.

You can no longer dual-wield launchers (bows, crossbows, slings), ammo (arrows, crossbow bolts) or missiles (darts, shuriken, boomerangs).

Polymorph

A hero can twoweapon while polymorphed if their monster form has two or more weapon attacks, regardless of any role restrictions. The polymorph-valid monsters that can twoweapon are:

• h dwarf lord
• h dwarf king
• o orc-captain
• A Aleax
• H ettin
• @ elf-lord
• @ Elvenking
• & marilith
• & pit fiend
• & balrog

Fighting with two weapons

To-hit bonus
Skill level	One weapon	Two weapons
Unskilled	−4	−9
Basic	0	−7
Skilled	+2	−5
Expert	+3	−3

Damage bonus
Skill level	One weapon	Two weapons
Unskilled	−2	−3
Basic	0	−1
Skilled	+1	0
Expert	+2	+1

You will always attempt to hit with each weapon independently, starting with the primary weapon, then the secondary. You will not attempt to hit with the secondary weapon if the target is killed or knocked to another location by the primary weapon attack, or if the primary weapon is Stormbringer overriding the confirmation to attack peaceful or tame monsters.

The skill level used by twoweapon is chosen from the lesser between your two weapon combat skill and your skill in the weapon used. While twoweaponing, only your twoweapon skill is trained, rather than the skills of your primary or secondary weapons. Twoweaponing skill bonuses for both to-hit and damage differ from single-weaponing skill bonuses - see the article on skills for details.

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.

When both weapons hit, the strength damage bonus is reduced to ³⁄₄ of its value.

Two weapon combat skill

Two weapon combat
Max	Role
Basic	Archeologist, Barbarian
Skilled	Knight, Tourist, Valkyrie
Expert	Rogue, Samurai

When fighting with two weapons, your effective two-weapon skill level for each hand is the lesser of your two-weapon combat skill level and the relevant weapon skill level.

The two-weapon combat skill is considered a weapon skill, in that it costs two skill slots to advance it from Basic to Skilled, and three more skill slots to advance to Expert.

Only roles able to reach at least Basic can engage in two weapon combat.

Skill strategy

Because the two-weapon to-hit bonus and damage bonus calculations always use the lesser of the two-weapon combat skill level and the appropriate weapon skill level, there is no point raising your two-weapon skill higher than those of the weapons you actually intend to use. In particular, Rogues should not advance to Expert if they intend to use long swords or sabers, and Tourists should consider not advancing to Skilled if they intend to use long swords.

Similarly, there is little benefit in raising your weapon skills higher than your two-weapon skill if you intend to dual-wield. Knights and Valkyries can reach Expert in long swords, for example, but only Samurai can actually wield two of them at that skill level.

When wielding two weapons, to-hit calculations are only performed for the main-hand weapon. This means that off-hand weapon skill level is only used to determine the two-weapon bonus damage inflicted by your off-hand weapon. Raising your secondary weapon's skill level to Basic gives you +2 damage for one skill slot, but spending another two slots to reach Skilled's further +1 damage is often not worthwhile.

Strategy

As a general rule, most roles capable of two-weapon combat should switch to it eventually. Only rogues benefit from wielding a single one-handed weapon, and even they often prefer dual-wielding over backstab damage. Unlike two-handed weapons, a cursed off-hand weapon will slip from your hand instead of being welded to it.

Choosing a secondary weapon

When fighting with two weapons, an obvious choice for the first weapon is your favorite artifact weapon. For the second weapon, popular choices include:

Weapon	Class	Damage (Small/Large)	Comment
Silver saber (Saber)	Expert: Archeologist Skilled: Knight, Rogue, Tourist Basic: Barbarian, Samurai, Valkyrie	1d8+(1d20) 1d8+(1d20)	Very useful for fighting demons in Gehennom
Silver spear (Spear)	Expert: None Skilled: Barbarian, Knight, Samurai, Valkyrie Basic: Rogue, Tourist	1d6+(1d20) 1d8+(1d20)	Very useful for fighting demons in Gehennom
Trident (Trident)	Expert: None Skilled: Barbarian Basic: Knight, Tourist, Valkyrie	1d6+1 3d4	High damage versus large monsters
Crysknife (Knife)	Expert: Rogue Skilled: Samurai, Tourist Basic: Archeologist, Knight	1d10 1d10	Good damage versus small monsters, but hard to make and keep
Katana (Long sword)	Expert: Knight, Samurai, Valkyrie Skilled: Barbarian, Rogue Basic: Tourist	1d10 1d12	High damage, and uses the long sword skill
Elven broadsword (Broadsword)	Expert: None Skilled: Barbarian, Rogue, Samurai, Knight, Valkyrie Basic: Tourist	1d6+1d4 1d6+1	Easy to find and hits small monsters hard

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, the commands to activate the two-handed combat skill are #twoweapon or #2weapon.

SLASH'EM implements several two-weapon related changes:

• Artifacts will not prevent the hero from two-weaponing when in the offhand, and two-weapon combat with two artifacts is possible, though only the primary weapon's on-wield properties are applied.
• Only human, elven and dwarven heroes can perform two-weapon combat—annoyingly heroes of other races may still see "two-handed combat" as an skill that can be enhanced even if they cannot use it.
• Of the roles added in SLASH'EM roles, the Flame Mage, Ice Mage and Yeoman can all reach Skilled in two-weapon combat.

Of the several new monsters added to SLASH'EM, only the duergar and bearded devil are valid forms for polymorph that can also perform two-weapon combat.

SporkHack

SporkHack introduces a number of significant changes to two-weapon fighting, particularly restrictions on what weapons can be wielded in the offhand: these restrictions are based on the weapon's weight and the hero's two-weapon combat skill, and several weapons have had their weights adjusted to fit into this scheme. Additionally, Cavemen and Rangers can reach Basic skill in two-weapon combat.

At Basic or lower skill, the hero can only use daggers, knives or any weapon that has a maximum weight of 10 aum in the offhand; at Skilled, the hero can off-hand maces, short swords, spears, and any weapon weighing at most 20 aum, or less, and at expert, long swords, broadswords, and sabers become available. Attempting to perform two-weapon combat with a weapon that is too heavy for the off-hand incurs a -20 to-hit penalty.

This significantly alters weapon selection, particularly for roles that can only reach Basic skill—for example, the silver saber is among the strongest off-hand weapons in vanilla NetHack, but in SporkHack it is more restricted to roles such as Rogues and Samurai. Fortunately, Spork also adds weapons such as the silver short sword that partially compensate for the shift in weapon viability.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, all roles and races are capable of twoweaponing, as is any monster that has a weapon attack and a specified offhand weapon attack (which extends to heroes polymorphed into those monsters).

Two-weapon combat has off-hand weight restrictions similar to those of SporkHack, with a -1 to-hit penalty per each unit of weight over the limit (minimum -5, maximum -40) for overweight offhand weapons, and a -1 damage penalty per every 2 units of weight over the limit (maximum -10). Cavemen get a +1 size bonus for the purposes of offhand weight limits, as do any heroes that bind Ymir, and both of these bonuses stack. The exact weight limits used are shown in the table below:

dNetHack offhand weight limits
Skill level	Medium (or smaller)	Large	Huge	Huge+1	Huge+2	Gigantic	Gigantic+1	Gigantic+2
Unskilled	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80
Basic	20	40	60	80	100	120	140	160
Skilled	30	60	90	120	150	180	210	240
Expert	40	80	120	160	200	240	280	320
Master	50	100	150	200	250	300	350	400
Grandmaster	60	120	180	240	300	360	420	480

The wind and fire wheels and stiletto heels are boots that can be used as paired weapons for twoweaponing: the same item is used for both attacks, which ignores the offhand weapon and any skill-based weight limits and uses the twoweapon skill for all other purposes.

notdNetHack

In notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, in addition to all dNetHack changes, any Treant hero of a species with a powerful build (Bluegum, Chestnut, Ginkgo, Locust, Magnolia, Oak, Redwood) gets a +1 size bonus for the purposes of wielding offhand weapons: Bluegum Treants gain an additional +1 size bonus, for a total of +2 sizes; Redwood Treants gain an additional +2 bonus, for a total of +3 (gigantic); Dogwood Treants get a -1 penalty. This stacks with the Caveman and Ymir bonuses, making it possible to reach the gigantic+2 column of the above table without self-polymorph (albeit limited to unskilled). Unlike the Caveman and Ymir bonuses, it does not apply while polymorphed.

References

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It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.1. Information on this page may be out of date.

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