Rock

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

For the dungeon feature, see Solid rock.

A rock is a common type of item that appears in Nethack. You can use them as a projectile weapon by throwing them or firing them from a wielded sling; slung rocks can also be multishot. They have no resale value in shops.

Rocks, flint stones and luckstones are generalized and referred to as "stones" by the game, especially in messages indicating a pet has dropped one.

Generation

In addition to random generation, rocks can be found or made in various circumstances:

• Hitting statues and boulders with digging tools, a wand of striking or a force bolt spell will shatter them into several rocks.

• Using a footrice corpse or egg for stoning tiny-sized monsters produces rocks instead of a statue. Clay golems also collapse into several rocks upon death. Hitting a footrice with an egg will turn it into a rock.

• The falling rock trap will drop a rock on the head of whatever triggers it, dealing 2d6 damage.

• Reading a scroll of earth while confused will cause several rocks to fall, with the patterns being the same as a normal scroll of earth.

• Zapping a ray from the wand of digging or dig spell upwards can cause a rock to fall on your head.

• Tunneling monsters will leave rocks behind when they dig around the level, and metallivores will produce rocks sometimes after eating metallic objects.

Strategy

Rocks are incredibly commonplace, and can accordingly be put to several uses by players.

Combat

As weapons, rocks are the most accessible means of dealing with enemies from a distance in the early game - even without a sling, they can provide a useful option against sessile or slow-moving foes with dangerous melee or passive attacks, such as molds, floating eyes and jellies. This is especially useful for spellcasting characters (e.g. wizards) aiming to preserve their magic power for other purposes, or else any character lacking a viable choice or looking to preserve better weapons (such as daggers or darts). The player can carry as many as they deem necessary without encumbering themselves; once no longer needed or more reliable options are found, the rocks can safely be disposed of as junk.

Other uses for rocks

The stone to flesh spell turns rocks into meatballs, which is the only other way to do so besides casting the spell at a tiny-sized statue. Meatballs can be used to train the apport of a carnivorous or omnivorous pet, and polymorphing meatballs via the wand or spell can easily create enough food to last the entire game — the odds of getting one or more food items with at least 100 nutrition from a non-shuddering polymorph is 48.3%.

As starvation is mostly a threat only in the early game and usually only until Sokoban, this is generally only useful if a wand of polymorph be found early, food is particularly rare, or a player is maintaining specific conducts (where vegan extinctionist is a particularly gruesome combination). It can also be used to lower encumbrance from carrying food if the polymorph produces a sizable stack of lembas wafers.

History

The early versions of hack121 and PDP-11, variants of Jay Fenlason's Hack, did not have rocks, but instead used various types of "bullets" - this referred to sling bullets, which are much more aerodynamically rounded. Actual rocks are introduced in Hack 1.0.

Variants

SlashTHEM

In SlashTHEM, lithivores can consume rocks, and they consider it a treat similarly to carnivorous pets and meatballs.

Encyclopedia entry

Bilbo saw that the moment had come when he must do something.
 He could not get up at the brutes and he had nothing to shoot
 with; but looking about he saw that in this place there were
 many stones lying in what appeared to be a now dry little
 watercourse. Bilbo was a pretty fair shot with a stone, and
 it did not take him long to find a nice smooth egg-shaped one
 that fitted his hand cosily. As a boy he used to practise
 throwing stones at things, until rabbits and squirrels, and
 even birds, got out of his way as quick as lightning if they
 saw him stoop; and even grownup he had still spent a deal of
 his time at quoits, dart-throwing, shooting at the wand,
 bowls, ninepins and other quiet games of the aiming and
 throwing sort - indeed he could do lots of things, besides
 blowing smoke-rings, asking riddles and cooking, that I
 haven't time to tell you about. There is no time now. While
 he was picking up stones, the spider had reached Bombur, and
 soon he would have been dead. At that moment Bilbo threw.
 The stone struck the spider plunk on the head, and it dropped
 senseless off the tree, flop to the ground, with all its legs
 curled up.
        [ The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]