Nethack Clinic: Team a

Often people talk about YASD (Yet Another Stupid Death) in Nethack, some deaths are just Nethack kicking your ass. Bumping into a Mumak before you get your AC up. Failing your poison save from a dart trap, or bump into a Chameleon while he’s polymorphed into something wayyyy to big for your britches. Hell I have a certain aversion to Giant Bats because they can be generated in the first few levels, and they’re fast, hard-to-hit, and can do a fair amount of damage. Those bastards frequently stop my game before it even starts.

But this recent game got me thinking about the big one. Its what the NAO players call “Team Ant” or “Team a”.

It gets it name from the ants. The big killers are the soldier ants (which took me in the above linked game), they travel in packs, they are hard to hit, fast-moving, and have a poison attack that deals additional damage, and possibly death if you are not resistant to poison. Slightly less deadly are the fire ants which lack the poison attack, but have a fire attack that can burn you, and your items. At the bottom of the totem pole are the giant ants, which are wimps compared to their bigger but they appear higher in the dungeon, and still they can deal a lot of damage, and are hard to hit, and they also travel in packs.

Also another “a” but not an ant but are very similar in both their behavior, as well as their deadliness are the killer bees. Again, packs, small, fast, poison!

So what do you do if you encounter these bastards? First up RUN! Distance is your friend, they can’t attack at range so as long as they aren’t beside you you’re safe. Use ranged attacks to thin their numbers before they make contact.
Second, Bottle-neck these guys! They attack in packs, so don’t let them swarm you. If you get completely surrounded you’re likely soon dead, so bottle-neck them in a hall or a doorway. At this point if you know an attack spell or have a wand, this might be a good time to attack multiple monsters at once, while you can only get attacked by one-at-a-time.

And of course if you get killed, don’t be too upset if you lose…many before you have been there before, many after you will as well.

So what can you do proactively to limit your death-by-ant?
-Have a ranged attack. Daggers, bow-and-arrow, attack spells, wands. Anything that can knock a few off their numbers before they can throw their first attack.
-Speed. Drink a potion of speed, zap yourself with a wand of speed monster, eat a quantum mechanic while you have normal speed, or wear speed boots.
-Have poison resistance. Besides being a class that has that innate intrinsic, or wearing a ring or amulet of poison resistance, or a alchemy smock. The best way to gain the intrinsic is to eat corpses that can grant poison resistance. Go read that list, and note which corpses are safe to eat, and also look at corpses that are “Unsafe”. Eat corpses that are acidic if you have lots of hit-points and can take the damage. ONLY eat corpses that are poisonous if you have the resistance (if you are wearing an item that grants resistance you won’t be harmed by the poison, but you can still gain the resistance. if you read “You feel especially healthy”, it means you can feel free to ditch your item at your convenience. If you don’t have poison resistance, but DO have a Unicorn Horn (BTW one of the most useful items in the game, a blessed Unihorn is a MUST have for all adventurers). Eat poison corpses, take damage, then apply the Unihorn to regain lost strength. When you read “You feel healthy” , you’re set.

-Have a low AC. The harder you can make it for them to hit, or hurt you the better. ‘Nuff said.
-Have a good weapon. When you go toe-to-toe with one of these guys the faster you can end it, the better a chance for survival you have. Damage of course is the king, but the level-drain attack by Stormbringer can kill many of these beasts because of their relatively low hit-points.

Of course be mindful. If you see one, assume there are others, and be VERY proactive about the battle!

Happy ‘Hacking!