Loadstone
* 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | loadstone |
| Appearance | gray stone |
| Damage vs. small | 1d3 |
| Damage vs. large | 1d3 |
| To-hit bonus | +0 |
| Weapon skill | sling |
| Size | one-handed |
| Base price | 1 zm (+10/positive enchant) |
| Weight | 500 |
| Material | mineral |
A loadstone is not a desirable gem to have on your person. It is extremely heavy and normally generated cursed, meaning you cannot drop it. You can get rid of it is by removing its curse somehow - by scroll, spell, holy water, or dipping it in a fountain. Prayer can work under certain circumstances; having a cursed loadstone counts as a minor trouble. You also can have it stolen by a nymph. The spell of stone to flesh will also dispose of it. You can wield a loadstone but you cannot get rid of the cursed status by reading a scroll of enchant weapon.
Loadstones autocurse when they are dropped.
Loadstones also are one of the most easily picked-up items in NetHack. Any setting of the pickup_burden variable will be ignored if the character attempts to pick up a loadstone, and other inventory restrictions may be ignored as well -- in the case that a character's knapsack has already reached the 52-item limit, it is not uncommon for a loadstone to still find its place among the other items, its inventory letter changed to a pound sign (#)!
Strategy
To test to see if a gray stone is a loadstone, kick it before you pick it up. Take off any items that add to your strength or kicking capabilities - remove Gauntlets of Power and kicking boots first, and ensure you are not polymorphed in to a creature that has a bonus to kicking, like a Sasquatch. Loadstones are heavy enough that they cannot be kicked under normal circumstances (unenhanced strength, not on ice, no equipped equipment to boost strength).
If for any reason you cannot (or do not want to) prevent yourself from having kicking bonuses, you can compare how far you can kick the suspected loadstone to objects with weights similar to other gray stones; a rock is ideal. A loadstone should travel much less far. Be careful though; some bonuses add a small random amount to the distance. Note that you should not kick fragile objects.
Origin
The name loadstone is a pun on the word lodestone, a naturally magnetic mineral.
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It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.
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