Amulet of life saving

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Name	amulet of life saving
Appearance	random
Base price	150 zm
Weight	20

An amulet of life saving is a type of amulet that appears in NetHack.

Generation

7.5% of randomly generated amulets will be an amulet of life saving. The amulet will generate as uncursed ⁹⁄₁₀ of the time, blessed ¹⁄₂₀ of the time, and cursed ¹⁄₂₀ of the time.

An amulet of life saving is generated within a niche on the middle floor of Vlad's Tower during normal level creation.

Description

A character or monster that dies while wearing the amulet will have their life saved by the amulet, which restores them to full hit points and disintegrates - the amulet will auto-identify itself if its effect is seen. Specifically, the following occurs for a character whose life is saved by the amulet:

• They lose a point of constitution.
• Their hit points are restored to the maximum - if said maximum is lower than either 10 or twice the character's experience level, then it is raised to the higher value of the two.
• Their nutrition is set to a minimum of 500 unless they died of choking, in which case it is set to 900 and they vomit.
• Sickness that would kill the character immediately after they revive is cured.
• A character trapped in lava becomes untrapped.
• A character killed by a drowning attack will resurrect as normal, though they will remain held by the monster that drowned them.

Life saving will not successfully resurrect a character in the following circumstances:

• Trickery forfeits the game rather than killing the character, so it ignores the amulet entirely.
• Death by self-genocide or brainlessness will cause the character to die again immediately, making the amulet moot.
• Level teleporting to a negative dungeon level causes the game to end regardless of life saving, though a character whose life is saved in this case will escape the dungeon rather than dying.

Having a character's life saved breaks the survivor semi-conduct, with more details explained below.

Monsters will wear the amulet of life saving unless they are nonliving, and it is the only other amulet they will actively use besides an amulet of reflection. The amulet cannot protect monsters wearing it from genocide, though it will still activate and be destroyed, but it can save from death by intelligence drain attacks, which only deals extra damage to affected monsters. Monsters that are "killed" and have their life saved by the amulet do not award experience, but doing so will still break pacifist conduct.

Eating an amulet of life saving will have no effect.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.

Per commit 09cf4648, the amulet of life saving only restores up to 50+10*⌊constitution/2⌋ hit points, which comes up to 60 HP at 3 constitution, and 170 HP at 25 constitution.

Survivor

NetHack keeps track of how many times a character's life has been saved by amulets of life saving. If this number is zero, and the game ends without dying (i.e. by ascension, escaping or quitting), the end-of-game attributes list will note as much - this is referred to as the survivor semi-conduct:

You survived.

Choosing not to die in explore mode or wizard mode also counts towards this statistic. If the number is not zero, the line will instead read:

You survived after being killed <x> times.

Surviving is usually an indicator that the player was lucky or skillful enough not to die during a particular game - in particular, survivor can add prestige to a foodless ascension, which removes one of the game's alternative sources of nutrition. Exploiting the polyself bug to raise maximum HP is incompatible with surviving.

Strategy

Some players consider life saving an essential part of the ascension kit, but others call it the "amulet versus YASD" and point out that another amulet is much more useful with various armor combinations. It also increases the level of risk a character can afford, which lowers resource consumption (particularly in the Endgame). For an early character, an amulet of reflection may be a better choice since it can save a character's life many times over - being life saved after a winter wolf cub's frost blast, for example, is little consolation if the winter wolf is still around.

Since the amulet works regardless of beatitude, the most common reason for one not working is forgetting to put it on.

Retrieving amulets of life saving

It can be extremely aggravating having an amulet of life saving stolen, usually by a nymph, or else noticing that a monster has picked one up: this makes it near-impossible to retrieve, since the monster will usually put it on as soon as you are anywhere in their vicinity. Thankfully, it is possible to retrieve an amulet before it is put on, and in some cases even after it is worn:

• Kill or tame the offending monster: monsters drop any unused inventory items on taming, and this should include the amulet if it is not yet worn. Nymphs in particular do not wear items immediately after stealing them, putting it on the next time they pick any item up - this also occurs or if she polymorphs, assuming the new form can put amulets on. Killing the nymph before either occurs allows the amulet to be retrieved.
• Polymorph into a nymph and steal it back: This has the added advantage of preventing nymphs stealing items from a character in that form.
• Polymorph the offending monster into a form that cannot wear or use the amulet, e.g. an undead creature, a golem, a vortex, or a manes: this is done easiest by using a nearby polymorph trap after taming the monster, since the other means of polymorph risk killing them by system shock and using up the amulet.

History

The amulet of life saving first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.

Messages

But wait... Your medallion begins to glow! You feel much better! The medallion crumbles to dust!

You died but were resurrected and the amulet is used up.

But wait... Your medallion feels warm! You feel much better! The medallion crumbles to dust!

As above, while blind.

Unfortunately your brain is still gone.

You died and were resurrected, and then die from brainlessness.

Unfortunately you are still genocided...

You died and were resurrected, and then die from genocide.

An energized cloud of dust begins to coalesce. Your body rematerializes, and you gather up all your possessions.

You were resurrected after teleporting to dungeon level 0.

Your life will be saved.

You have life saving as viewed via enlightenment.

But wait... <monster>'s medallion begins to glow! <monster> looks much better! The medallion crumbles to dust!

A monster died wearing the amulet. The amulet is identified.

But wait... <monster>'s medallion begins to glow! <monster> reconstitutes! The medallion crumbles to dust!

A monster exploded wearing the amulet. The amulet is identified.

Unfortunately <monster> is still genocided...

A monster died and was resurrected, and then dies from genocide.

Variants

SporkHack

In SporkHack, a cursed amulet of life saving only works ¹⁄₂ of the time, and otherwise the character dies as normal, except that their cause of death is logged as "killed by a cursed amulet of life saving".

Messages

The chain on your medallion breaks, and you hear a faint giggling!
Your medallion suddenly falls off!
It doesn't look like you're going to make it after all...

A cursed amulet of life saving did not save your life in SporkHack.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, a cursed amulet of life saving only works ³⁄₄ of the time, and otherwise the character dies as normal.

Messages

But ... the chain on your medallion breaks and it falls to the <floor>! You hear homeric laughter!

A cursed amulet of life saving did not save your life in UnNetHack.