Hell knight


 * 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 (see that article for a strategy guide), with half as many hit points, 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.

The reason why the Hell Knight was added in Doom II was because there were complaints that the Baron was unbalanced. The Baron had too many hit points yet moved slowly, which made it a "tanking monster", so the level designers could only use it sparingly. By contrast, the Hell Knight is far more common, and its halved health gave the player a more realistic chance of taking it down with small arms fire such as the shotgun or chaingun.

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 Doom's manual, this is the description used for the baron of hell instead.

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

The IWADs contain the following numbers of hell knights:

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.