Hood of the Assassin

Version 0.26: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

A soft hood, enchanted by members of the Assassin's Guild to allow the wearer to sense potential victims nearby. It also allows the wearer to easily spot vulnerabilities when attacking unaware opponents, allowing effective stabbing attacks with any weapon.

the +2 hood of the Assassin

+2 hat

+100 Stealth
All weapons count as short blades for purposes of determining stabbing bonuses
Detect Monsters (similar to the Ashenzari ability or Antennae 3 mutation)

Desirability

The hood of the Assassin is a definite boon to stabbers, as the monster detection and massive stealth boost make it even easier to reach sleeping opponents and land that lethal hit. It is also amazingly useful for other melee characters so long as you have some means of generating stabbing opportunities: the short blade-grade stabbing damage multipliers can be massive, and the much higher base damage of heavier weapons can lead to extremely potent blows. A reliable source of invisibility or confusion, the Dazzling Flash spell, or distracting allies are all excellent ways to land stabs even if you're wearing noisy armour, though raising your Stealth skill will still significantly improve your stabbing performance. A potion of stabbing can further increase your damage output for fights you want to end particularly quickly.

Casters and ranged fighters certainly don't suffer for wearing this hat, but they may find a hat or helm of intelligence, magic resistance, or see invisible more useful.

History

• The hood of the Assassin was introduced in 0.25, replacing the old boots of the Assassin.