A Practical Guide to Nethack: The Whole Dungeon Catalog: Armor Version 2 by R2 Last updated 9-24-07 ========================================================================== ========================================================================== Contents Section I: About This Guide Section II: Armor List Section III: A Short Note on Item Damage Section IV: EoD/Copyright Notice ========================================================================== ========================================================================== Section I: About This Guide So you're going into the Dungeons of Doom to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor. Good for you! But there are a lot of monsters in those dungeons that want to kill you and feast on your delicious flesh, so you'll want some gear that protects your tenderest bits before you go. This guide assumes you're already familiar with Nethack, and written for NetHack 3.4 for Windows. If you're hardcore enough to use Unix, you're probably hardcore enough to figure out what, from this guide, applies to you and what does not. In this guide, when I'm talking about specific commands, I'll wrap the keystrokes in square brackets. For instance, [t] means to press the "t" key (to throw an item). [T] means to hold Shift and press the "t" key, just like you were typing a capital letter (to Take off armor). There are some long commands that are preceded by pound signs in the game, and will be transcribed as such. If I say to #name something, that means to use that command to give an item a unique descriptor. If a given item has its own name, then the word isn't used with the pound sign. ========================================================================== ========================================================================== Section II: Armor List Armor has the following descriptors: Armor Name: What the armor is called after it's identified. If the item has a different name for Samurai, that's given after a slash. AC Bonus: How much the armor will reduce your armor class when worn. Material: What the armor is made of. Bronze and copper corrode; cloth, leather, and wood burn and rot; and iron rusts and corrodes. Any armor made of metal, except for the Helm of Brilliance, will increase your chance of failure when casting a spell. The amount of failure chance increase depends on the item. Cancel: The chance, if any, that some incoming attacks are negated. The attacks in question are level drain, paralysis, lycanthropy, theft of speed, energy drain, sleep, and poison. Appearance: What the armor is called before it's identified. Miscellaneous notes come after the chart. Armor is sorted by type, then by armor class bonus. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Armor Type: Shirts Holy shirt! These look useless at a glance, but they can be enchanted and hidden under armor for some extra protection. While wearing any kind of regular shirt not hidden a suit of armor or cloak, the prices of items in shops is increased by a third. Wearing one of these makes you look like a rube, after all. Hawaiian Shirt AC Bonus: 0 Material: Cloth T-Shirt AC Bonus: 0 Material: Cloth -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Armor Type: Suits Suits may be worn over shirts (hiding the shirt), but underneath cloaks. Leather Jacket AC Bonus: 1 Material: Leather Archeologists start with one. Leather Armor AC Bonus: 2 Material: Leather Orcish Ring Mail AC Bonus: 2 Material: Iron Cancel: About 33% Appearance: Crude Ring Mail You'll find a trend: anything with "orcish" in the name is of inferior construction. In the case of armor, orcish items are worth one point of AC less than regular items, but often have a little more magic cancellation than regular items, too. Studded Leather Armor AC Bonus: 3 Material: Leather The metal bits bolted onto the armor help it turn away hits, but are not susceptible to rusting or corrosion. Ring Mail AC Bonus: 3 Material: Iron Historically a precursor to chain mail, ring mail is basically leather armor with metal rings strapped onto the outside. Gray Dragon Scales AC Bonus: 3 Material: Dragon Hide Sometimes after you battle and slay a dragon, enough of the hide is left undamaged that you can wear it as armor. If you read a Scroll of Enchant Armor while wearing any suit of dragon scales, they will fuse into Dragon Scale Mail of the same color. If you are hit with a polymorph effect while wearing Dragon Scales, you'll always polymorph into a dragon of the same color as the scales you're wearing. Wearing a set of Gray Dragon Scales grants you magic resistance. Silver Dragon Scales AC Bonus: 3 Material: Dragon Hide Wearing a set of Silver Dragon Scales grants you magic reflection. Red Dragon Scales AC Bonus: 3 Material: Dragon Hide Wearing a set of Red Dragon Scales grant fire resistance. By the time you get Red Dragon Scales, you've already come across a Red Dragon corpse that you can eat to get fire resistance, so that's not as great as you might be led to believe. White Dragon Scales AC Bonus: 3 Material: Dragon Hide Wearing a set of White Dragon Scales grant cold resistance. Again, the same intrinsic you can get from eating the corpse of the white dragon you peeled the scales from. Orange Dragon Scales AC Bonus: 3 Material: Dragon Hide Wearing a set of Orange Dragon Scales grant sleep resistance. Eating the orange dragon or one of the dozen-or-so elves you've surely met already has likely given you sleep resistance, so eh. Black Dragon Scales AC Bonus: 3 Material: Dragon Hide Wearing a set of Black Dragon Scales grant disintegration resistance. Same as eating a corpse, as you've heard before. Blue Dragon Scales AC Bonus: 3 Material: Dragon Hide Wearing a set of Blue Dragon Scales grant electricity resistance. Resistance to electricity is kind of hard to find, but again -- you had to kill a blue dragon to get these scales, and eating the corpse of said dragon probably gave you electricity resistance already. Green Dragon Scales AC Bonus: 3 Material: Dragon Hide Wearing a set of Green Dragon Scales grant poison resistance. Every damn monster and its grandmother gives you poison resistance and it's gained automatically by a couple roles, so this is probably the least helpful set of scales to own. Yellow Dragon Scales AC Bonus: 3 Material: Dragon Hide Wearing a set of Yellow Dragon Scales grant acid resistance. Acid resistance isn't granted by eating the yellow dragon corpse and is hard to come by elsewhere, so Yellow Scales aren't bad to keep on your person. Scale Mail AC Bonus: 4 Material: Iron These scales in this case are little discs of iron or steel that fit over one another, not the hide of a reptilian creature. Orcish Chain Mail AC Bonus: 4 Material: Iron Cancel: About 33% Appearance: Crude Chain Mail Again, inferior construction costs you a point of AC. Chain Mail AC Bonus: 5 Material: Iron Cancel: About 33% That's more like it. Elven Mithril-Coat AC Bonus: 5 Material: Mithril Cancel: 98% Not too shabby! Splint Mail AC Bonus: 6 Material: Iron Cancel: About 33% Samurai start wearing a suit of rustproof splint mail. Banded Mail AC Bonus: 6 Material: Iron Dwarvish Mithril-Coat AC Bonus: 6 Material: Mithril Cancel: 98% Now we're talkin'! Until you can find a suit of Dragon Scale mail, your characters capable of acting in heavy armor can't do any better than this. Well, they can do better by way of straight AC, but plate mail weighs three times as much as a dwarfish mithril-coat and doesn't give near the same amount of cancellation. Bronze Plate Mail AC Bonus: 6 Material: Bronze Inferior in every way to both the dwarfish mithril-coat and actual plate mail. Keep away. Plate Mail/Tanko AC Bonus: 7 Material: Iron Cancel: About 67% Not bad. You won't get any more AC out of a normal suit of armor, but man alive, is it heavy. You'll be almost constantly burdened or worse while wearing this, so let it go the instant you find a lighter piece of armor that doesn't completely screw over your armor class. Crystal Plate Mail AC Bonus: 7 Material: Glass Cancel: About 67% Don't let the material fool you, this stuff is as sturdy as regular plate mail and won't rust or corrode. Superior to regular plate mail in that aspect, but still really freakin' heavy. Gray Dragon Scale Mail AC Bonus: 9 Material: Dragon Hide Yes! Dragon Scale Mail is awesome stuff, Gray Dragon Scale Mail doubly so. All Dragon Scale Mail gives 9 to armor class, more than even plate mail can offer. Furthermore, it weighs less than one-tenth what plate mail does! It's great for spellcasting characters, too, because dragon hide doesn't interfere with spellcasting. And finally, each color of Dragon Scale Mail grants an intrinsic ability to the character wearing it; in the case of Gray Dragon Scale Mail, you're granted magic resistance. Most players wish for blessed +2 Gray Dragon Scale Mail with the very first wish they're granted in any game. That's because with its awesome AC, light construction, undamageable material, and magic resistance, Gray Dragon Scale is as good as it gets. Silver Dragon Scale Mail AC Bonus: 9 Material: Dragon Hide Players who don't wish for Gray Dragon Scale Mail usually wish for this instead. Silver Dragon Scale Mail has all the advantages of Gray, except that it grants magic reflection instead of magic resistance. One or the other is more or less necessary by the end of the game, so it's up to you which one you like. Red Dragon Scale Mail AC Bonus: 9 Material: Dragon Hide Red Dragon Scale Mail grants fire resistance. The AC, weight, and lack of interference when spellcasting are nice, but you probably already have fire resistance before you get the suit of mail. White Dragon Scale Mail AC Bonus: 9 Material: Dragon Hide White Dragon Scale Mail grants cold resistance. Blah. Orange Dragon Scale Mail AC Bonus: 9 Material: Dragon Hide Orange Dragon Scale Mail grants sleep resistance. Which you probably have already. Black Dragon Scale Mail AC Bonus: 9 Material: Dragon Hide Black Dragon Scale Mail grants disintegration resistance. No surprise. Blue Dragon Scale Mail AC Bonus: 9 Material: Dragon Hide Blue Dragon Scale Mail grants electricity resistance. Like the corpse of the dragon you killed to get it. Green Dragon Scale Mail AC Bonus: 9 Material: Dragon Hide Green Dragon Scale Mail grants poison resistance. Like about a third of the monster's corpses in the game. Yellow Dragon Scale Mail AC Bonus: 9 Material: Dragon Hide Yellow Dragon Scale Mail grants acid resistance, making it one of the more helpful suits of Dragon Scale Mail to have. It just can't compete with Gray or Silver, is all. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Armor Type: Shields Shields always take up space in your hand, so you can't use a two-handed weapon or tool while you're wearing a shield. Shields also interfere with spellcasting, no matter what their size or material. Small Shield AC Bonus: 1 Material: Wood Valkyries start the game with a +3 Small Shield. Orcish Shield AC Bonus: 1 Material: Iron Appearance: Red-eyed Shield Shoddy construction, as usual. Uruk-Hai Shield AC Bonus: 1 Material: Iron Appearance: White-handled shield Uruk-Hai are orcs, so this is just another orcish shield. Elven Shield AC Bonus: 2 Material: Wood Appearance: Blue and green shield Usually and not surprisingly carried by elves. Lighter and therefore preferable than the large shield or dwarfish roundshield. Large Shield AC Bonus: 2 Material: Iron It's a shield, and it's big. Not much else to say. Dwarfish Roundshield AC Bonus: 2 Material: Iron Appearance: Large round shield Preferred by dwarves. Shield of Reflection AC Bonus: 2 Material: Silver Appearance: Polished silver shield If your character is one who carries a shield, this is the one to look for. It grants you magic reflection, an ability you'll need by endgame. In a pinch, you can bash undead, lycanthropes, and demons with it to do damage like any silver weapon. And if you carry it into the fight against Medusa, she might catch her own gaze attack in the sheen of your shield and petrify herself. The statue of Perseus on Medusa's level has a chance of having a cursed Shield of Reflection (guess it didn't work for him), if you can get it turned back from stone and get it from him. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Armor Type: Helmets Helmets are for protecting your noggin. Metal helmets will protect you from falling rock traps and the brain-sucking attacks of mind flayers, but interfere with spellcasting. Helmets have many different appearances. The Helmet/Kabuto, Helmet of Opposite Alignment, Helm of Telepathy, and Helm of Brilliance are each assigned a random appearance when the game begins; each one is either a Plumed Helmet, Etched Helmet, Crested Helmet, or Visored Helmet. Whichever helmet has an appearance of "Visored" helps to protect against the blinding attack of Ravens and the blinding venom spat by Cobras. Fedora AC Bonus: 0 Material: Cloth It's ripe for enchantment, because otherwise it's useless. Archeologists start with one. Dunce Cap AC Bonus: 0 Material: Cloth Appearance: Conical hat There are two hats that are described as conical, the dunce cap and the cornuthaum. Only Wizards get any benefit from wearing a cornuthaum, so only Wizards should care about which is which (other classes may safely ignore the conical conundrum). When the dunce cap is donned, it automatically curses itself so that it cannot be removed. Furthermore, it sets your character's Intelligence and Wisdom to 6 until you can get rid of it. Shopkeepers will notice your drooling idiocy, and take advantage of you by raising their prices by about a third. Cornuthaum AC Bonus: 0 Material: Cloth Cancel: About 67% Appearance: Conical hat The other conical hat, this is the one that Wizards want to get. If donned by a Wizard, it grants them Clairvoyance intrinsic and +1 to Charisma. If donned by any other role, any Clairvoyance they have is blocked and they suffer -1 Charisma. Dented Pot AC Bonus: 1 Material: Iron A piece of cookware pressed into service as armor. About as effective as you'd expect. Usually worn by Soldiers. Elven Leather Helm AC Bonus: 1 Material: Leather Appearance: Leather hat It delivers what it advertises: it's a helm made of leather. Helmet/Kabuto AC Bonus: 1 Material: Iron Appearance: Either Plumed, Etched, Crested, or Visored Your basic garden-variety helmet. Orcish Helm AC Bonus: 1 Material: Iron Appearance: Iron skull cap Looks like those orcish smiths can get something right now and then. Helm of Brilliance AC Bonus: 1 Material: Iron Appearance: Either Plumed, Etched, Crested, or Visored This helmet will give you a bonus to your Intelligence and Wisdom equal to its numerical enchantment. If it's not enchanted, it acts as a regular helmet; keep it safe until you find a couple Scrolls of Enchant Armor. Despite being made of iron, the helm of brilliance has no spell failure associated with it and doesn't interfere with spellcasting. Helm of Opposite Alignment AC Bonus: 1 Material: Iron Appearance: Either Plumed, Etched, Crested, or Visored When donned, this helmet automatically curses itself to make it difficult to remove. If Lawful, your alignment changes to Chaotic. If Chaotic, your alignment changes to Lawful. If Neutral, your alignment changes to either Lawful or Chaotic. This makes things generally difficult for you, because you worship a different god, lose any previous divine protection, and can no longer go on your role's quest. Helm of Telepathy AC Bonus: 1 Material: Iron Appearance: Either Plumed, Etched, Crested, or Visored This helmet gives your character telepathy as long as it's worn. Dwarvish Iron Helm AC Bonus: 2 Material: Iron Appearance: Hard Hat The dwarves make sturdy helmets, worth an extra point of AC. It's better to have one of the special helms listed above, but dwarvish helms will be easier to find early in the game. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Armor Type: Cloaks Cloaks are worn above any armor or shirts you have on, except for the mummy wrapping, which goes underneath. If you're told you can't put on a suit of armor but you're not wearing one already, you probably have a cloak on. Take the cloak off, put on your armor, and then don your cloak once more. Cloaks have many different appearances. The Cloak of Displacement, Cloak of Invisibility, Cloak of Magic Resistance, and Cloak of Protection are each assigned a random appearance when the game begins; each one is either an Opera Cloak, Piece of Cloth, Ornamental Cape, or Tattered Cape. Mummy Wrapping AC Bonus: 0 Material: Cloth Cancel: About 33% You know how, in all of the movies about The Invisible Man, he wraps himself in gauze or bandages when he wants to hide that he's invisible? Because people are less likely to notice a guy wrapped in bandages, or something? Well, if you're invisible and you don a mummy wrapping, you're considered visible again. You're easily seen by other creatures and can freely enter shops. The best place to get a mummy wrapping is off of a mummy you've destroyed, but be careful -- as you might imagine, such garb is often cursed. Orcish Cloak AC Bonus: 0 Material: Cloth Cancel: About 67% Appearance: Coarse mantelet Dwarvish Cloak AC Bonus: 0 Material: Cloth Cancel: About 67% Appearance: Hooded cloak Leather Cloak AC Bonus: 1 Material: Leather Cancel: About 33% Cloak of Displacement AC Bonus: 1 Material: Cloth Cancel: About 67% Appearance: Either Opera cloak, Piece of cloth, Ornamental cape, or Tattered cape When you wear this cloak, you'll appear to be in other spaces than the one you're actually in (to other creatures; your location on the computer screen remains accurate). Hostile creatures will aim at those other squares when they attempt to hit you, missing automatically. Cloak of Invisibility AC Bonus: 1 Material: Cloth Cancel: About 67% Appearance: Either Opera cloak, Piece of cloth, Ornamental cape, or Tattered cape When you put on this cloak, you're invisible. Cloak of Magic Resistance AC Bonus: 1 Material: Cloth Cancel: About 67% Appearance: Either Opera cloak, Piece of cloth, Ornamental cape, or Tattered cape With good magic cancellation and the eponymous magic resistance you're granted by wearing this doodad, it makes a fine piece of equipment to sling across your back until you finish the game. Wizards start with one. Oilskin Cloak AC Bonus: 1 Material: Cloth Cancel: 98% Appearance: Slippery cloak The oilskin cloak fits around you tightly, protecting your metal items from rusting. Furthermore, you can more easily slip out of grabbing, hugging, and constriction attacks. Alchemy Smock AC Bonus: 1 Material: Cloth Cancel: About 33% Appearance: Apron The alchemy smock grants resistance to acid and poison. Elven Cloak AC Bonus: 1 Material: Cloth Cancel: 98% Appearance: Faded pall Characters wearing elven cloaks are treated as having the Stealth intrinsic. Robe AC Bonus: 2 Material: Cloth Cancel: 98% Wearing a robe decreases the spell failure chance that accompanies each spell you cast. If worn along with metal items that typically interfere with spellcasting, the failure chance for those items is halved. Cloak of Protection AC Bonus: 3 Material: Cloth Cancel: 98% Appearance: Either Opera cloak, Piece of cloth, Ornamental cape, or Tattered cape -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Armor Type: Gloves Gloves come with four appearances, randomly determined for each game: old gloves, padded gloves, riding gloves, and fencing gloves. Whichever one is denoted riding gloves makes it more likely to successfully saddle and mount a steed. Wearing gloves lets you carry cockatrice corpses in your inventory without being petrified. Leather Gloves/Yugake AC Bonus: 1 Material: Leather Appearance: Either Old gloves, Padded gloves, Riding gloves, or Fencing gloves Gauntlets of Dexterity AC Bonus: 1 Material: Leather Appearance: Either Old gloves, Padded gloves, Riding gloves, or Fencing gloves These will act like leather gloves until they have a numerical enchantment, at which point they will increase your Dexterity by the same amount as said enchantment. Gauntlets of Fumbling AC Bonus: 1 Material: Leather Appearance: Either Old gloves, Padded gloves, Riding gloves, or Fencing gloves Characters with these gloves on will occasionally fumble -- trip and fall, drop equipment, or other klutzy mishaps. Furthermore, you suffer a -3 to hit with ranged attacks or when [a]pplying a polearm. Not surprisingly, these are usually cursed. Gauntlets of Power AC Bonus: 1 Material: Iron Appearance: Either Old gloves, Padded gloves, Riding gloves, or Fencing gloves When you wear these gloves, your Strength score is increased to 25, with all the benefits in melee combat, carrying capacity, and Valkyries throwing Mjollnir you'd expect. But they're a little stiff, so they give a -2 penalty to hit in ranged combat. They're the only gloves to be made of iron, so they carry a spell failure chance the others don't. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Armor Type: Boots Boots have many different appearances. Some are set, but Elven boots, Fumble boots, Kicking boots, Levitation boots, Jumping boots, Speed boots, and Water walking boots are each assigned a random appearance when the game begins; this appearance is either Mud boots, Buckled boots, Riding boots, Snow boots, Hiking boots, Combat boots, or Jungle boots. Whichever boots are called "Riding boots" give you a bonus to saddling and mounting a steed; this doesn't add to the bonus you get from Riding gloves if you have those too. The boots called "Snow boots" let you walk on ice as though it were normal ground. Low Boots AC Bonus: 1 Material: Leather Appearance: Walking shoes These boots were made for walkin', and that's about all they'll do. Elven Boots AC Bonus: 1 Material: Leather Appearance: Either Mud boots, Buckled boots, Riding boots, Snow boots, Hiking boots, Combat boots, or Jungle boots Characters wearing Elven boots are treated as having the Stealth intrinsic. Kicking Boots AC Bonus: 1 Material: Leather Appearance: Either Mud boots, Buckled boots, Riding boots, Snow boots, Hiking boots, Combat boots, or Jungle boots Characters wearing these boots do extra damage with [k]icking attacks. Fumble Boots AC Bonus: 1 Material: Leather Appearance: Either Mud boots, Buckled boots, Riding boots, Snow boots, Hiking boots, Combat boots, or Jungle boots Characters with these boots on will occasionally fumble -- trip and fall, drop equipment, or other klutzy mishaps. Not surprisingly, these are usually cursed. Levitation Boots AC Bonus: 1 Material: Leather Appearance: Either Mud boots, Buckled boots, Riding boots, Snow boots, Hiking boots, Combat boots, or Jungle boots Characters wearing these boots will levitate. Since uncontrollable levitation makes things difficult but controllable levitation is a great thing to have, these boots are usually cursed. It figures. Jumping Boots AC Bonus: 1 Material: Leather Appearance: Either Mud boots, Buckled boots, Riding boots, Snow boots, Hiking boots, Combat boots, or Jungle boots Characters wearing these boots can [j]ump around to get around obstacles; Knights wearing these boots no longer jump like they could before. You can jump three spaces in a straight line, or diagonally to any space you could get to by moving twice. Great for getting out of crowds! Speed Boots AC Bonus: 1 Material: Leather Appearance: Either Mud boots, Buckled boots, Riding boots, Snow boots, Hiking boots, Combat boots, or Jungle boots Increases your speed to "very fast", as good as it can get. This lets you move and act more often compared to other monsters, giving you an edge in combat by letting you hit more often (and when discretion is the better part of valor, you move faster than the monster can give chase). Water Walking Boots AC Bonus: 1 Material: Leather Appearance: Either Mud boots, Buckled boots, Riding boots, Snow boots, Hiking boots, Combat boots, or Jungle boots When these boots are donned, you can walk across water. You can also walk on lava, but you'll still take fire damage and potentially burn scrolls and boil potions. If your water walking boots aren't fireproof, they're destroyed the instant you step on lava, too. High Boots AC Bonus: 2 Material: Leather Appearance: Jackboots Extra armor class, but no special ability. Iron Shoes AC Bonus: 1 Material: Iron Appearance: Hard shoes The only boots to be made of metal, which will interfere with any spells you want to cast. ========================================================================== ========================================================================== Section III: A Short Note on Item Damage Items may be burned, rotted, rusted, or corroded, depending on what they're made of: iron items rust and corrode; leather, cloth, and wood items burn and rot; and bronze and copper items corrode. There are three levels of this damage, and it doesn't matter which applies to the item; the penalties are the same. Only the worst penalty applies. Damaged armor loses one point of armor class bonus. Very damaged armor loses two points of armor class bonus. Thoroughly damaged armor loses three points of armor class bonus. The armor class for an item can never drop below 0 as a result of armor damage. Once it hits 0, you might as well take off the armor, but it will never negate the protection you get from elsewhere. For instance, if you're wearing a Helmet (made of iron), it grants an armor class bonus of 1. If the helmet is rusty, it grants an AC bonus of 0. If the helmet is very rusty, its AC bonus is still 0 -- you don't get easier to hit because your equipment is damaged. However, if you enchant the helmet so that it is a "very rusty +1 helmet", the AC bonus remains 0 -- the natural bonus of 1 and the enhancement bonus of 1 make a total bonus of 2, which is nullified by the damage to the item. Bummer! ========================================================================== ========================================================================== Section VI: EoD/Copyright Notice This guide was compiled with information from Nethack spoilers found on the world wide web, such as those by Kevin Hugo, Dylan O'Donnell et al, combined with my own research. This game guide is copyright 2007 Richard Rouse. Feel free to distribute this guide anywhere you like, but crediting me as the writer would be nice.