Luckstone

*
Name	luckstone
Appearance	gray stone
Damage vs. small	1d3
Damage vs. large	1d3
To-hit bonus	+0
Weapon skill	sling
Size	one-handed
Base price	60 zm (+10/positive enchant)
Weight	10
Material	mineral

A luckstone is a gray stone that modifies a player's Luck and Luck timeout. A noncursed luckstone adds 3 Luck (which may exceed the ordinary maximum of 10) and a cursed luckstone subtracts 3 Luck. Luckstones carried in containers (e.g. bags) have no effect on Luck.

A cursed luckstone prevents the timeout of negative Luck, blessed ones prevent the timeout of positive Luck, and uncursed ones prevent both.

Multiple luckitems have no cumulative effect. You get the blessed luckstone effect if you have strictly more blessed than cursed luckitems in your open inventory, the cursed effect if the other way around, and the uncursed effect if equally many blessed as cursed (or all uncursed).

Luckstones are always generated uncursed (except possibly in bones files).

There is a guaranteed luckstone in each of the three variants of Mines' End.

The Heart of Ahriman is a luckstone, which allows you to determine whether any gray stone is a luckstone through abuse of the naming artifacts trick. The Tsurugi of Muramasa and the Orb of Fate both act as luckstones.

Strategy

Blessing your luckstone is not terribly important because Luck is one integer value (though it's useful so spellcasting enemies have to curse it in two steps).

A backup luckstone carried in a container or left in a stash may be useful in case your primary luckstone becomes cursed (assuming uncursing is limited). (Differently named, blessed luckstones in your inventory can help retain positive luck after facing a cursing monster.)

If your luck is negative (e. g. Sokoban, mirrors, killed a coaligned unicorn), a non-blessed luckitem is harmful. In this case, you should bag or drop it until your luck becomes zero again.

Identifying a gray stone

If you find a gray stone: First, make sure this is not a loadstone by kicking it (see identification of gray stones for more details). If it is, leave it alone.

Second, rub it on an iron item: a touchstone will sound "scritch, scritch". Archeologists can skip this. Blessed touchstone are useful to identify gems, but that is out of scope.

If both tests are negative, this is either a luckstone or flint stone. You should pick it up and type-#name it until you get two different kinds, cheat, or have a chance to price-id it: luckstones cost 60, flint doesn't interest shopkeepers.

As long as you don't know whether it is luckstone or flint stone, treat is as a luckstone. Luckstones are initially uncursed, so they are safe to carry around (barring bones or bad Luck).

You have a luckstone: Max your Luck and keep it

Once you have a known luckitem to prevent Luck timeout, you want to max out your Luck. This is an essential part of any ascension kit; do so before you go to Gehennom. Good ways to increase your base Luck are:

• throwing precious gems to co-aligned unicorns (2 formally identified or 5 type-named gems get you 10 Luck),
• sacrificing powerful monsters on a coaligned altar (each four-leaf clover message means at least 1 point).

Never drop your luckstone thereafter or put it into a container, because you need it to prevent the Luck timeout. Some people assign a favorite "never drop this" inventory letter. (Preferrably bless your luckstones before going to the Gehennom because of cursing monsters.)

There are notable exceptions to this max-and-keep Luck strategy:

• A cursed luckstone belongs in a bag. Likewise for a bones level luckstone until you test it (pet, altar, or scroll of id).
• If your Luck is negative, drop or bag all non-blessed luckstones until you fix it or wait it out.
• Altar work requires Luck <= 8 to avoid getting crowned when praying. The easiest way to control your Luck is to max it out, then to break mirrors or to squeeze onto a boulder in Sokoban. Keep your luckstone, and watch those sacrifice messages!