hero knocking back monster A into B gets B angry at hero #1653

Scenario:

$ nethack --version
Unix NetHack Version 5.0.0-0 post-release - last build May  7 2026 21:09:46

Playing dwarven valkyrie in debug mode, because I play too cautiously for real. In a real game, this game-ending mistake would have upset me.

Arrive on "Home 1" in the quest. Wielding Mjollnir, to signal that I am a worthy Viking to my Quest Leader, whom I have not yet met. Get to the front door of the Norn's house only to find 2 fire giants (the first of whom busts the door down to get at me) and some fire ants. Kill the giants. Prepare to employ tinning kit on them.

Fire ant shows up, indoors. Swing Mjollnir to kill it. The digital dice roll, and I knock it back...into "peaceful warrior".

Warrior is peaceful no more. Oops.

Nor are his buddies.

Nor is the Norn.

Wuh-oh.

The Norn walks over, utters the text corresponding to failing the alignment check 7 times (no warning, no second chance), and kicks my ass sideways (stethoscope says level 19 to my 11). I refuse to die many times, wishing for potions of full healing and blessed scrolls of taming. I can get the warriors calmed down one by one but the Norn is impervious, I guess from its MR 90.

I suppose the existing behavior could be justified on the basis of "well, yeah, you can still win the game with a blemished alignment record if you haul ass out of there as soon as you see the Norn coming, level up a lot, come back and kill it and all its friends. Good luck, jerk!"

But I wonder if this scenario was contemplated by the knockback code implementors.

Questions/ideas:

• When monster A knocks the hero back into monster B, does monster B immediately get mad and grudge monster A? If not, why not?
• Should some monsters be indifferent to knockback annoyance? Maybe soldiers in the Yendorian army love a good scrap in the tavern and don't care. (Maybe the same should be true of hard-drinking warriors of Valhalla. Or maybe they're grumpy because they're not equipped with any potions of booze.)
• Maybe intelligent monsters should "excuse" being on the wrong end of a knockback once only from a given aggressor. "Hey, watch it!" Unfortunately this would mean adding a vector to every monster object, which means heap memory management in C, so my hopes are not high. Though a fixed-length LRU list might work almost as well. How likely is any monster to get somebody knocked back into them from more than, say, 10 different aggressors? I might lose track after that much abuse. Or become hostile to everyone after the third time. I can just see the dwarves and gnomes in the Mines going ape with tantrums...
• Maybe you should be able to make hostile soldiers/watchmen peaceful with potions of booze. That would make them more interesting as a manageable resource. They tend to pile up otherwise. You burn one informally identifying an amethyst, then either dilute them to water or use them to confuse yourself for unusual scroll effects. But then there is no game command to "offer" monsters equipment, like pets you want to outfit with gear. (Personally, I'd extend the #offer command for exactly this purpose, so it has an application somewhere other than an altar.)