Ring of Thror
| = Ring of Thror | |
|---|---|
| Base item | granite or gold ring |
| Affiliation | |
| When carried | none |
| When worn |
|
| When invoked | none |
| Base price | 0 zm |
| Weight | 6 |
The Ring of Thror is an artifact that appears in dNetHack and notdNetHack. It is unaligned and dwarf-favoring, and its base item is a ring with the randomized appearance of a "granite ring". If the granite ring is a ring of polymorph in the current game, then it will appear as a gold ring instead.
Generation
Both Narya and the Ring of Thror have the same fallback appearance, but since they will both only become gold rings if their primary appearance is polymorph, at most one of the two will be a gold ring in a given game.
Description
While worn, the Ring of Thror has the usual effects conferred by the ring whose appearance it matches, and additionally confers aggravate monster, along with doubling the amount of gold generated in the dungeon (done at time of creation while wearing the ring). Each attack made in melee or with a thrown/fired weapon while wearing the Ring of Thror adds +1d6 physical damage.
Strategy
The Ring of Thror is not a particularly impactful artifact, but can be nice when it's found. The bonus damage is most likely not worth the hassle of better monster pathfinding due to the aggravate monster property, unless it is being used to better manage line of sight or other monster movement quirks. Aggravate monster is not a deal-breaker on its own, so the ring may be worth using for a character that lacks better options for their ring slots.
The main benefit is the doubled gold, which can also be a bit of a let-down. Due to it doubling gold only on generation, your best option is often to make sure you wear the ring when entering a new dungeon level, and then remove it immediately after. If you manage to find the portal to Fort Ludios, wearing it before you enter there is most likely the largest impact you'll get in a game.
However, since granite (or gold) rings are a rather rare base item type, it's unlikely to randomly find the Ring of Thror on the ground in the early game. Unfortunately, if you only find the Ring of Thror when you've already made it to the Castle, you cannot get the benefit of doubled gold on any levels you've already loaded - most likely the entire main dungeon and at least a couple side branches. Since it's so rare and the other benefits are so slim, it's most likely not worth avoiding exploration on the infinitesimal chance you're lucky enough to find the Ring of Thror, and so this artifact won't change your strategy too much.
On top of this, there are very few things in the game to actually spend massive amounts of money on. If you get lucky with heaps of gold & riches, aside from paying off a kuker, buying some living doll wares, or buying copious amounts of intrinsic protection, there's likely not much use for it. An early Ring of Thror is probably the only way to consistently sanctify two different items via kukeri, but that requires finding two kukeri in the first place, so this is of middling use.
