Curse removal

One very common problem in NetHack is being stuck to a cursed item. Cursed weapons weld themselves to your hand, cursed armour and jewellery cannot be removed, and cursed loadstones cannot be dropped. You can reduce your chances of being stuck with something cursed by testing everything with your pet or an altar, but because some monsters can curse your items, it is likely that even careful players will end up with cursed items at some point.

This page aims to list all possible ways to free yourself from a cursed item. Many of them will not uncurse the item, but will free you from being stuck to it. Some will destroy it - it is clearly noted when this is the case.

All-Purpose Techniques

1. Read a scroll of remove curse (a blessed scroll will uncurse everything in your main inventory).
2. Cast a spell of remove curse. If you're at least skilled in clerical spells, it will work like a blessed scroll. Otherwise, it will work like an uncursed scroll. Note that you can't cast spells with both hands welded to a cursed two-handed weapon, and probably can't cast remove curse while wearing a cursed dunce cap.
3. Dip the cursed item into a potion of holy water.
4. Dip the cursed item into a fountain. Be aware that this may summon a water demon or water nymph, and that this is not guaranteed to remove the curse.
5. Pray. Your deity treats cursed blindfolds and levitation items as a major problem, and other cursed wielded or worn items (plus loadstones and luckstones) as a minor problem. There is also a chance that you will be "surrounded by a light blue aura" and have everything in your inventory uncursed.
6. Zap a wand or spell of cancellation at the object. (Use '.' to zap cancellation at yourself--drop everything you don't want cancelled before doing this. Note that this may reduce the usefulness of some cursed items.)
7. Drop everything else and let a nymph steal the cursed items.
8. Dip the cursed item into a potion of polymorph.
9. In SLASH'EM, pay a shopkeeper to uncurse the item.

Equipment

1. Enchant it. This does not work for chargeable rings.
2. If the cursed object is armour and you don't mind losing it, take off all other armour and read a noncursed scroll of destroy armour.
3. If the cursed object is armour, let a incubus or succubus remove it.
4. If a long sword is converted to Excalibur by dipping, it is automatically uncursed.
5. If the cursed object is causing you to levitate, float over a sink. You will crash to the floor, and the item will be removed, although it will remain cursed.
6. If the cursed object is armour or a weapon, polymorph into something that can't wear armour or wield weapons. If you have a choice, go for a small monster so that the armour isn't destroyed.
7. Step on a magic trap. There is a 1/20 chance of this acting like an uncursed scroll of remove curse. Be careful, because the most common effect of a magic trap is to blind you and summon monsters.
8. High-level spellcasting monsters can destroy armour if you're not magic resistant, in the order cloak, suit, shirt, helmet, gloves, boots, shield, but watch out for their other spells such as touch of death.
9. If the cursed object is a ring, a blast of lightning may cause it to explode, but may also explode useful rings and wands.
10. Overenchant and vaporize it. You can also underenchant and vaporize items with cursed scrolls of enchant foo, if the enchantment is negative enough.
11. Similarly, you can overcharge a chargeable ring until it explodes. This is probably a waste of scrolls of charging.
12. In SLASH'EM, pay a shopkeeper to charge up a cursed chargeable ring until it explodes.

Other

1. Loadstones only: drop everything but the loadstone, a wand of digging and your armour, enter a shop, pick up something in the shop, and dig through the floor. The shopkeeper will grab your backpack.
2. Stone to Flesh will convert a Loadstone or some cursed rings to food. Drop all other gemmed rings, marble wands or gems beforehand.

See also

• Curse-testing