All monks that I played had problems wearing armor, except t-shirts.
Monks can wear all armor. They suffer penalties for wearing body armor
or a shield. For body armor, you suffer a -20 to-hit penalty and lose
both the ability to deal staggering blows and the intrinsic weaponless
to-hit bonus (which is 2 + xplev/3) For shields, you lose the ability
to deal staggering blows. The staggering blows are automatic. You might
have noticed sometimes when you hit a creature it's knocked back a
tile.
I refer you to the wonderful Monk FAQ:
http://www.steelypips.org/nethack/monk_faq.html
Does anyone know how monks can handle dragon scales and still keep fighting as a grand master without feeling coumbered ??
The best way is to max out your luck. Carry a noncursed luckstone and
sacrifice a lot or throw gems at coaligned unicorns. My first ascension
was a weaponless bodyarmor-wearing Monk. I had a difficult time of it.
:)
Try going for lighter armors instead. Robes and clothing-type armors
are what you should wear, because the heavier armors essentially
disable your monk's bonuses
Right; wearing any of the items on the following list is a huge malus
for a monk:
dragon scale mail, plate mail, crystal plate mail, bronze plate mail,
splint mail, banded mail, dwarvish mithril-coat, elven mithril-coat,
chain mail, orcish chain mail, scale mail, studded leather armor, ring
mail, orcish ring mail, leather jacket
Also, they can kick open doors, meaning you don't need a pickaxe or skel key to get out of a trap.
All roles can kick down doors. It's just monks have an easier time of
it because they are martial artists (and have a propensity for high
strength).
The techniques are also awfully strong both for offense and defense.
Techniques are in Slash'EM but not vanilla NetHack, so this doesn't
apply to you, Florian. :)
Shawn M Moore
