Levitation

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Levitation is a property that causes you to lose contact with the floor. It allows free movement horizontally (i.e. north, south, east, west, and the diagonals), but not up or down. (NetHack is different in this respect from, for example, the Dungeons and Dragons games, in which levitation only allows controlled movement up and down, but not horizontally.) Levitation (or flying, an improved version) can be useful (in fact, almost necessary to win the game); but it can also be very detrimental if you have no control over when it ends. While riding, the effect causes your steed to levitate as well.

Levitation can be gained extrinsically via wearing a ring of levitation or levitation boots. The Heart of Ahriman can be invoked to toggle levitation, or dropped to turn it off. Levitation can also be gained as a temporary intrinsic property via casting the spell of levitation, by quaffing a potion of levitation, or by eating a ring of levitation. Polymorphing yourself into eyes or spheres will also levitate you. (Technically, float you instead.)

Because levitation causes you to lose contact with the ground, many actions become impossible:

• mounting a steed (unless a floating or flying steed, or levitating at will);
• spinning a web, while in spider form;
• while blind, feeling any information about the surrounding terrain, items, and engravings, other than walls, doors (and doorways), corridors, and boulders;
  • You still get the "Foo turns to flee" message for Elbereth.
• sitting;
• drinking from a fountain;
• dipping an item into a fountain, pool or moat;
• jumping;
• picking up items on the ground (except using a bullwhip or grappling hook);
• kicking without something behind you to brace against;
• reliably kicking a "very small" monster that does not fly (it fails 2 times in 3);
• kicking down a secret door or the entrance to a secret corridor, or a throne, altar, sink or fountain;
• identifying water walking boots by trying to walk on water;
• pushing a boulder;
• eating food from the floor;
• offering corpses on the floor;
• engraving, except by using a charge from a wand of fire, wand of digging, or wand of lightning;
• looting a container on the ground;
• digging downwards with a tool;
• locking or unlocking a container;
• applying a stethoscope to the ground, or a corpse;

This is the major difference between levitation and flying; with flight, you have control over your vertical movement as well, meaning that these actions are mostly possible.

However, there are benefits from being out of contact with the ground, as well:

• you cannot fall into a pool or moat, or lava (and travel will move over such terrain);
• you are unaffected by the normal effects of ice;
• you float right over ground-based traps (squeaky boards, holes, trap doors, bear traps, pits and spiked pits), except in Sokoban;
• although you can trigger land mines, it is with only a 1 in 3 chance, and even if you do you are not caught in the resulting explosion;
• fumbling does not make you slip, trip, or make noise;
• although there is no ground on the Plane of Air, levitation nevertheless allows you to control your movements there;
• your encumbrance is calculated as if you had a Strength of 25;
• xans cannot reach your legs to attack them;
• level teleporting to a level between -1 and -9 causes you to escape the dungeon safely, rather than fall to your death;
• you do not erase engravings with movement, or even attacks, meaning that you can fight while levitating over an Elbereth without damaging it;

However, flying does smudge Elbereth.

A few other actions are affected by levitation:

• If underwater (perhaps surviving there with an amulet of magical breathing), starting to levitate causes you to instantly surface.
• Levitation repels the water on the Plane of Water, allowing you to move outside air bubbles there without drowning (as opposed to water walking)
• Uncontrolled teleportation will only teleport you above lava if you are levitating extrinsically.
• Due to a bug, attempting to engrave with an empty wand will check to see if you wrest the wand before attempting to engrave. This allows repeated attempts to wrest in zero time; levitation makes it more comfortable because you don't have to abort writing each time. Some players consider doing this cheating.
• You have a 3 in 8 chance to avoid death to a drawbridge.
• Dropping fragile items may break them.
• When throwing objects, or performing other similar actions like kicking, you are propelled in the opposite direction (known as "hurtling"). (This is not affected by whether you are on the Plane of Air at the time.) The distance you move depends on the weight of the object you throw; all the movement is done instantly, but you are then paralyzed for 1 turn for every square you move (or would have moved, if you collide with something first). Throwing while levitating gives a Luck penalty in Sokoban.
• Untrapping containers will alway make you try to remove a trap.

Generally speaking, you cannot cancel levitation voluntarily once it starts. A few sources of levitation can be ended voluntarily by pressing > ("levitation at will"): the Heart of Ahriman, a blessed potion, or a spell cast at skilled level or higher. These source will also grant control over pre-existing intrinsic levitation. Levitation gained extrinsically can be ended by removing the item that grants it, although equipment that grants levitation is often generated cursed. Most forms of levitation are ended by levitating over a sink; it ends timeouts except for those gained by eating the ring or polyself, and unequips items that grant levitation even if they are cursed or worn under other items. Cursed levitation items are also considered a major trouble, and so it is sometimes possible to pray to uncurse them.

Strategy

Beware crossing lava or water using a non-blessed potion of levitation: The effect wears off after a random time, drowning you.

Levitating over a dust-Elbereth is a powerful way to melee monsters - so imbalanced that wizards cannot start with a ring of levitation.