Hell knight

From Doom Wiki

For the hell knight in Doom 3, see Hell Knight (Doom 3).

The hell knight is a monster introduced in Doom II. It is a weaker cousin of the baron of hell, with tan rather than pink skin, and different sounds when alerted or slain. Although it is easier to kill, its attacks are just as potent as a baron's.

Being functionally equivalent to the baron of hell except for having only half as much health, the weaker hell knight serves better as a medium-strength monster, falling more quickly to small arms fire such as from the shotgun or chaingun, or offering some resistance without slowing the action down, against heavier weapons.

The Doom II manual describes the hell knight as follows: "tough as a dump truck and nearly as big, these Goliaths are the worst things on two legs since Tyrannosaurus rex". In the manual for Doom, this was the description used for the baron of hell.

Contents 1 Combat characteristics 2 Tactical analysis 3 Data 4 Appearance statistics 5 Doom RPG

[edit] Combat characteristics

With 500 hit points, hell knights stand as fitting elite troops of hell. They attack opponents by scratching when close or by throwing green comet shaped fireballs when distant.

[edit] Tactical analysis

Hell knight attacks are easily dodged, but are faster than those of imps or cacodemons and can do very heavy damage on a successful hit. Because these monsters take relatively heavy beatings before going down, and because their pain chance is low, use of the rocket launcher, plasma gun, or super shotgun is convenient. However, provided that the player can get at sufficient range without being hit, the chaingun and shotgun will also work well. Melee attacks against them are hazardous, as they put the player at risk of being clawed, although five berserk powered punches will generally take them down. To avoid damage, the player needs to move in, deliver a punch and quickly move away before it counterattacks.

To kill them requires about 3 rockets, 23 energy cell shots, 50 bullets, 6 seconds with the chainsaw, 8 well-placed shotgun blasts, or 3 point-blank super shotgun blasts. The BFG9000 at close range can easily kill a hell knight in one shot, however-but it is very wasteful unless there are more of them around.

Hell knights often pose a lesser immediate threat than some of the weaker monsters because they make a single attack without special effects and, given sufficient space, their unswerving fireballs are not too hard to dodge (especially by circlestrafing). In confined spaces, however, they are hard to move around and can be more lethal.

[edit] Data

Attributes ID # 69 (decimal), 45 (hex) Hit points 500 Speed 8 map units per frame (93.3 map units per second) Width 48 Height 64 Reaction time 8 Pain chance 50 (19.53%) Mass 1000 Bits 4194310 Bits list 1: Obstacle 2: Shootable 22: Affects Kill %

Sprites & sounds Sprite name BOS2 Alert sound DSKNTSIT Action sound DSDMACT Pain sound DSDMPAIN Death sound DSKNTDTH

Melee attack Damage 10-80 Sound DSCLAW Ranged attack Type Projectile Speed 15 map units per tic (525 map units per second) Damage 8-64 Width 6 Height 8 Sprite name BAL7 Sound DSFIRSHT (firing) DSFIRXPL (impact)

Blows needed to kill1	Mean	Standard deviation	Min	Max
Player (100% health, no armor)	2.77	0.78	2	5
Player (100% health, security armor)	3.87	1.02	2	7
Player (200% health, combat armor)	9.41	1.48	6	13
Barrel	1.12	0.33	1	2
Zombieman	1.12	0.33	1	2
Shotgun guy	1.25	0.46	1	3
Wolfenstein SS	1.61	0.70	1	4
Imp	1.81	0.76	1	4
Heavy weapon dude	2.04	0.79	1	4
Lost soul	2.77	0.78	2	5
Commander Keen	2.77	0.78	2	5
Demon	3.87	1.02	2	7
Spectre	3.87	1.02	2	7
Romero's head2	6.12	1.19	4	10
Revenant	7.22	1.33	5	11
Cacodemon	9.41	1.48	6	13
Pain elemental	9.41	1.48	6	13
Hell knight	11.65	1.67	8	16
Arachnotron	11.65	1.67	8	16
Mancubus	13.84	1.72	10	18
Arch-vile	16.07	1.78	12	20
Baron of hell	22.81	2.10	17	27
Spiderdemon	67.42	2.81	61	74
Cyberdemon	89.66	2.76	83	95

Shots needed to kill	Mean	Standard deviation	Min	Max
Player (100% health, no armor)	3.37	0.88	2	6
Player (100% health, security armor)	4.78	1.04	3	8
Player (200% health, combat armor)	11.68	1.70	8	16
Barrel	1.27	0.51	1	3
Zombieman	1.27	0.51	1	3
Shotgun guy	1.44	0.60	1	4
Wolfenstein SS	2.04	0.77	1	5
Imp	2.25	0.76	1	5
Heavy weapon dude	2.56	0.73	2	5
Lost soul	3.37	0.88	2	6
Commander Keen	3.37	0.88	2	6
Demon	4.78	1.04	3	8
Spectre	4.78	1.04	3	8
Romero's head2	7.66	1.32	5	11
Revenant	9.04	1.46	6	13
Cacodemon	11.68	1.70	8	16
Pain elemental	11.68	1.70	8	16
Hell knight3
Arachnotron	14.55	1.88	10	19
Mancubus	17.27	2.00	12	21
Arch-vile	20.10	2.11	14	25
Baron of hell3
Spiderdemon	84.14	2.60	79	93
Cyberdemon	112.12	2.48	107	117

1. These tables assume that all calls to P_Random for damage, pain chance, blood splats, impact animations, and backfire checks are consecutive. In real play, this is never the case: counterattacks and AI pathfinding must be handled, and of course the map may contain additional moving monsters and other randomized phenomena (such as flickering lights). Any resulting errors are probably toward the single-shot average, as they introduce noise into the correlation between the indices of "consecutive" calls.
2. Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map.
3. Hardcoded exception to infighting negates damage (excepting indirect damage caused by exploding barrels).

[edit] Appearance statistics

In classic Doom, the hell knight is first encountered on these maps:

Game	ITYTD and HNTR	HMP	UV and NM
Doom II	MAP06: The Crusher	MAP06: The Crusher	MAP05: The Waste Tunnels
TNT: Evilution	MAP03: Power Control	MAP04: Wormhole	MAP02: Human BBQ
Plutonia	MAP02: Well of Souls	MAP02: Well of Souls	MAP02: Well of Souls

The IWADs contain the following numbers of hell knights:

Game	ITYTD and HNTR	HMP	UV and NM
Doom II	22	58	75
TNT: Evilution	63	93	110
Plutonia	104	138	151

[edit] Doom RPG

In Doom RPG, the baron of hell and the hell knight both belong to the "baron" monster class. There are three variations, identified by color:

• Ogre (green torso, red hands, brown legs)
• Hell knight (brown torso, brown hands, pink legs)
• Baron (pink torso, orange hands, brown legs)

As in the original, the hell knight is not as powerful as the baron, though both are more powerful than the new "ogre" variation.

Monsters from Doom and Doom II
Arachnotron | Arch-vile | Baron of hell | Cacodemon | Commander Keen | Cyberdemon | Demon | Heavy weapon dude | Hell knight | Imp | Lost soul | Mancubus | Pain elemental | Revenant | Shotgun guy | Spectre | Spiderdemon | Zombieman | Wolfenstein SS | See also final boss