Starting Pets[]
All players enter the dungeon with a starting pet depending on their class:
- Kitten (three types and three growth stages for cats). Starting pet for wizard, white witch, druid, and druidess;
- Puppy (three types and three growth stages of dogs). Starting pet for knight, valkyrie, huntsman, and huntress;
- Baby Spider Monkey (three growth stages). Starting pet for thief and rogue;
- Wolf Pup (two growth stages). Starting pet for barbarian and vandal.
Abilities and Disadvantages[]
General Abilities[]
Abilities and/or behaviour of pets, starting or later tamed:
- Pets will follow the player (results may vary when dealing with ladders) and may automatically attack nearby hostile enemies (or not; AI is clunky);
- Pets will gradually gain experience and advance levels when they successfully kill an enemy;
- Pets may be ordered to attack, stay, run. Most pets (not all) can be ordered to fetch, a few can be ordered to steal;
- Pets have the ability to hold and store items. Some pets will have larger carrying capacity than others before they are burdened;
- Pets who are burdened may drop excess items. Some pets may drop items sooner than others;
- Some pets when ordered to fetch or close to the vicinity of items on the ground may detect the blessed/uncursed/cursed status of items. This ability it limited to felines and canines (hellhounds, jackals, werewolves, etc.);
- Pets will usually attack if attacked first and may run away if health is low (or not);
- Some pets may drink health potions (if in inventory) when their health is low. Even when the potion has not yet been identified;
- Most pets will experience hunger and will require food (some pets however e.g. constructs, do not required food);
- Humanoid pets may equip (will vary with creature) weapons (including bows and wands), armor, helmets, cloaks, rings, amulets, and collars;
- Quadrupeds pets usually only equip one amulet or one collar;
- Bipedal pets may also pick up items, quaff potions, read scrolls, and/or use wands.
General Disadvantages[]
Disadvantages of pets, starting or later tamed:
- Pets with short statures, such as cats, sewer rats, etc., may run away if ordered to attack flying creatures out of range, such as bats;
- Pet may or may not defend the player when attacked. Often requires the player to continuously order them to attack, least they stand there and watch the player die (again);
- Ordering pet(s) to attack, may or may not result in the pet attacking the intended target. In many instances, the pet will attack the weakest enemy in the group, totally ignoring the enchanted weapon about to kill the player;
- Pets will often get lost, either due to running away, left behind by a fast player (e.g. equipped with speed boots), or due to teleportitis (e.g. water nymph). Said pet may eventually rejoin the player (or not).
Kitten/Cat/Large Cat[]
Growth Stages[]
- First stage: Black Kitten, Sunny Kitten, Tabby Kitten;
- Second stage: Black Cat, Sunny Cat, Tabby Cat;
- Third stage: Large Black Cat, Large Sunny Cat, Large Tabby Cat.
Abilities[]
- Can detect the blessed/uncursed/cursed status of items, via fetch or close vicinity of items on the ground. Will hiss if an item is cursed.
- High(er) dexterity. Better chance to hit creatures;
- Higher(er) stealth. Better chance to attack passive enemies undetected;
- Can climb ladders.
Weaknesses[]
- Carnivore: Will only eat meat and some goos. Will not eat fruit and vegetables, though will eat bread;
- Cannot carry cursed items;
- Can only equip one amulet/collar as equipment;
- Due to its short stature, may run away if ordered to attack flying creatures out of range, such as bats.
Puppy/Dog/Large Dog[]
Growth Stages[]
- First stage: Boxer Puppy, Dalmatian Puppy;
- Second stage: Boxer, Dalmatian;
- Third stage: Large Boxer, Large Dalmatian, Large Labrador.
Abilities[]
- Can detect the blessed/uncursed/cursed status of items, via fetch or close vicinity of items on the ground. Will bark if an item is cursed;
- Large dogs may be mounted by other medium sized pets, such as goblins, etc;
- Wild dogs can be fed in order to tame them.
Weaknesses[]
- Carnivore: Will only eat meat and some goo. Will not eat fruit and vegetables, though will eat bread;
- Cannot climb up ladders and will repeatedly fall down ladders;
- Can only equip one amulet/collar as equipment;
- Cannot carry cursed items;
- Due to its short stature, may run away if ordered to attack flying creatures out of range, such as bats. May be easier to manage as it grows larger.
Baby Spider Monkey/Spider Monkey/Large Spider Monkey[]
Growth Stages[]
- First stage: Baby Spider Monkey;
- Second stage: Spider Monkey;
- Third stage: Large Spider Monkey.
Abilities[]
- High(est) dexterity. Higher chance to hit enemies;
- High(est) stealth. Virtually undetectable to passive enemies;
- Can steal equipped weapons, armor (helmets and shields), and other items from enemies. Useful against dangerous enemies carrying weapons; such as dwarves, orcs, trolls, ogres, giants, balrogs, etc;
- Bipedal. Can equip 1-2 weapons, one shield, one amulet/collar, two rings, a cloak, and a pair of footwear;
- Can climb ladders;
- Can carry cursed items;
- Can mount other medium sized pets, such as wolves.
Weaknesses[]
- Herbivore. Will only eat fruit and vegetables. Will not eat bread either for some strange reason;
- Cannot detect the blessed/uncursed/cursed status of items, via fetch or close vicinity of items on the ground;
- Lower strength. Limited carrying capability and damage;
- Erratic jumping. Will jump all over the place, often falling down ladders and jump over enemies when ordered to attack them;
- Coward. May often run away quite a distance after stealing items;
- Can (rarely) read scrolls. Trigger unclear.
Wolf/Wolf Pup[]
Growth Stages[]
Abilities[]
- Omnivore: Will eat anything;
- Can detect the blessed/uncursed/cursed status of items, via fetch or close vicinity of items on the ground. Will bark if an item is cursed.
Weaknesses[]
- Cannot climb up ladders and will repeatedly fall down ladders;
- Can only equip one amulet/collar as equipment;
- Cannot carry cursed items;
- Wild wolves cannot be fed directly in order to tame them.
Feeding[]
- Herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores will strictly follow their diet;
- Pets must be fed or have access to food periodically or they will soon turn hostile after reaching the starving status, reported in game as weak with hunger; pet is howling in hunger (starving);
- When a pet is hungry, it will automatically any food (per their diet) and potions their inventory or on the ground to satiate their hunger. As you may accidentally lose something useful this way, it is best to keep your pet well fed at all times. Once a pet is fully satiated, it will not accept any more feeding except for potions;
- If a pet is hurt, it will consume healing potions that are in its inventory, identifying them for you. This is a better way of identifying potions than feeding them to them when they are dead;
- Pets will not eat pies in their inventory, even when starving. The pie must either be fed manually (entire pie will be eaten) or left on the ground, where the pet will eat just enough to be satiated.
Taming[]
New pets can be gained by:
- Feeding a hostile dog (does not work with all canines);
- Reading a scroll of taming near a creature;
- Summoning a creature by reading a scroll of create monster or zapping a wand of create monster after learning the beast mastery talent;
- Freeing a prisoner;
- Mesmerizing them with a lute of charming, then feeding them;
- Reviving creatures who have died while being mesmerized;
- Howling when in werewolf form (or having a pet werewolf do that), which summons one or more pet wolves;
- [as of v.1.3] Hatching eggs found in the dungeon, which have a chance to bear tame hatchlings;
- Mesmerized young creatures (by using a lute of charming) turn into pets when they grow;
- Holding a longsword or a battle axe and reading a scroll of enchant weapon while confused;
- Polypiling;
- Wishing for most any monster (red dragon, balrog, lich, gold golem) will give the message, "there you have it." However, this will only give you one creature, so sometimes it is better wishing for 3 eggs or 3 blessed scrolls of create monster (especially when you have a method of taming or Beast Mastery).
Equipment[]
- Some pets may equip armor and weapons. Pets who can use equipment are generally humanoids with torsos, heads, arms and legs. If they wear cursed items, passing them scrolls of remove curse does not help, as they will not read them. However, shooting the equipment with a wand of cancellation may sometimes uncurse the item;
- The remove curse spell also remove curses from pets equipment if the pet stands nearby;
- A (somewhat) easy way to remove cursed items from pets is to let them die and pick up the items from the ground or the pet menu BEFORE reviving them;
- Pets who can use equipment will equip weapons/armor they are given or pick off the ground themselves;
- Equipment types pets may wear by themselves include helmets, collars, armor, cloaks, weapons, shields, and boots;
- Equipment types pets may not wear by themselves include rings and amulets;
- [as of v.1.3] However, you can directly order them to equip almost any equipment that they carry (with the usual size and type restrictions);
- Since the Power Vortex can load wands and even overload them to make them explode it comes handy to equip a pet with quite empty wands before they encounter the Vortex. That way you can also load the cancellation wand, to ensure escaping vortexes continuously;
- Another method of removing cursed items from your pets is to polymorph into a Water Nymph and steal it from them, or fishing up a Water Nymph from a fountain, telling your pet to attack it and hoping.
Reviving[]
- Pets who die of starvation will lose the 'tame' status and be hostile to the player after dying and will refuse to accept any item fed to them.
- Dead pets who were tame when they died can be fed them any potion of healing, potion of extra healing. potion of full healing. or even a bottle of wine to revive them. Dead pets who have a choking status however, cannot be revived with potions (restricted throat). The potion used on the dead pet, strangely does not disappear and will appear in the dead pets' inventory.
- The spells clean wounds and healing may also be cast on dead pets to revive them. Pets revived in this way will remain as tame or hostile as they were before they were revived.
- Dead pets will vanish if left unattended for long enough. They cannot be picked up.
- Tame creatures that don't leave a corpse simply can't be revived, including all undead (Skeleton Hounds, Zombies, Mummies, etc), Leprechauns, Vertices, Elementals, Pixies, and Constructs (Golems).
Ladder Management[]
- Pets that cannot climb ladders can sometimes be difficult to manage, especially when they fall down ladders that span multiple floors. To retrieve a pet that has fallen multiple floors down a ladder, simply climb up a level, and the pet should teleport to the level below you unless it has engaged in combat. To stop a pet from falling down a ladder and engaging enemies before you, you can order the pet to run away before you climb down. Closing doors on the top level can prevent non-humanoid pets from running too far;
- [as of v.1.3] Equipping pets with a Collar of Jaunting will greatly simplify ladder issues.
Tips[]
- Pet white witches (prisoner) and pixies have the ability to cast lightning on hostile creatures;
- Pets who are polymorphed will not revert to their original form when killed;
- All dead dogs/cats generated in the game show the pet menu even if they were never a pet. This may or may not be a bug;
- As with most menus in game, the buttons on the pet menu can be accessed with the number keys (e.g. 1 for attack, 2 for fetch, etc.), so rebinding the pet menu hotkey (default P) to something more convenient can significantly speed up pet commands.