Trident

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Name	Trident
Skill	Polearms
Damage	9
Accuracy	+1
Base delay (%)	13 (130%)
Min delay	6 at skill 14
Hands	1H
Size	Medium
Ranged?	No

A fishing spear improved with a longer shaft and a three-pronged metal head. "Without noticing the occupations of an intervening day or two, which, as they consisted of the ordinary sylvan amusements of shooting and coursing, have nothing sufficiently interesting to detain the reader, we pass to one in some degree peculiar to Scotland, which may be called a sort of salmon-hunting. This chase, in which the fish is pursued and struck with barbed spears, or a sort of long shafted trident, called a waster, is much practised at the mouth of the Esk, and in the other salmon rivers of Scotland." -Sir Walter Scott, _Guy Mannering_, ch. XXVI. 1815.

This weapon falls into the Polearms category. It is a one handed weapon.

The trident is a polearm, being a significant upgrade over the spear.

Strategy

Tridents are a good weapon for the early game. They are reasonably common from dungeon enemies. Of the Gladiator and Fighter starting weapons, tridents are the strongest against single targets, due to their reaching.

In general, Polearms are great if you have some means of creating distance. Characters with fast movement speed, summons, or other allies can benefit the most from Polearms, though tridents aren't a terrible melee weapon on their own.

Unfortunately, tridents are the best one-handed polearm until you have access to a demon trident (or trishula).

	Image
Mundane
Magical
Artifact
	Unrandart
Trident of the Octopus King

History

• In 0.12, its accuracy was lowered to +1, and tridents became one-handed.
• Like most polearms, tridents had their base damage lowered by one to compensate for the introduction of reaching on all polearms in 0.10.