Amulet of magical breathing
An amulet of magical breathing is a type of amulet that appears in NetHack.
Contents
Generation
The amulet of magical breathing makes up 3⁄40 (7.5%) of all amulets that are randomly generated on the ground, in general shops or as death drops. Jewelers shops can also stock amulets of magical breathing.
Description
A hero that puts on the amulet of magical breathing grants extrinsic breathless, making the hero amphibious: this allows them to breathe while underwater and on land, and prevents them from drowning by any means, though their inventory will be subject to water damage as usual—if the hero is in an aquatic polymorph form that normally cannot breathe outside water, the property will prevent any gradual HP loss from occurring. Water squares are also considered "safe" for purposes of teleportation while the amulet is worn. The 1000 experience point-bonus for killing sea monsters with drowning attacks does not apply while the hero is amphibious from wearing the amulet.[1] Additionally, wearing the amulet increases the dice used for determining the amount of energy the hero recovers by 2:[2] for example, if the hero ordinarily gains 1d3 energy on a turn that they would regain energy, they will instead regain 1d5 energy.
Poison clouds will not damage a hero with a worn amulet of magical breathing regardless of if they have poison resistance or not, and a hero standing within poison clouds is not considered a major trouble for prayer in this case (though they can still blind the hero).[3][4] Putting on an amulet of magical breathing while inside a poison cloud, or else removing it, will auto-identify the amulet if doing so causes the poison cloud to stop or start affecting the hero[5][6]—walking into or out of a poison cloud with one worn will have no effect.
A hero wearing the amulet is also protected from the effects of sleeping gas traps and the engulfing attacks of fog clouds.[7][8] Breathlessness from the amulet also protects the hero from choking to death: the effect of eating an amulet of strangulation is nullified, while wearing the amulet and eating too much food will always cause the hero to "vomit voluminously" instead of dying, lose 1000 nutrition (or enough to be set to 60 nutrition, if they have the voracious hunger property) and abuse their constitution.[9][10]
Eating the amulet has a 1⁄5 chance of absorbing its magic successfully and granting intrinsic breathlessness.[11]
Monsters will not wear this amulet.
Strategy
The amulet of magical breathing can be a form of protection from drowning, making fighting sea monsters less dangerous and enabling a character to cross large bodies of water, but the amount of items that are susceptible to rust, dilution and blanking can reasonably put players off the notion. An oilskin sack to place those valuables in can make the idea of "swimming" this way much more tenable. Some players also elect to polyself into a metallivore and eat multiple amulets until they gain the intrinsic, keeping their amulet slot free for other options: keep in mind that this carries the same risk described above, including being moved into the water when teleporting without teleport control (and in some unfortunate cases even with the property, if you select an invalid square).
Magical breathing can be used to retrieve items dropped by monsters that are killed over a body of water, as well as projectiles fired at such monsters—depending on your circumstances, it may be preferable to use a wand of teleportation for relocating underwater items, especially if they are cumbersome to carry. This will be especially necessary if retrieving the corpse of a large pet or other monster that you wish to revive without them subsequently drowning.
An amulet of magical breathing can help you chew through several corpses such as those of giants and dragons without fear of choking, and can also help with troll disposal by eating in a few cases—the act of eating multiple large corpses is still time-consuming, however, and they may become tainted before you can finish enough of them; constant over-satiation also abuses dexterity, though this is a relatively lesser concern. A tinning kit is more ideal in most cases if you have one, both to permanently deal with reviving corpses and to make large ones into less-filling tins that grant the same intrinsics.
Spellcasting characters in both the early and late game may find the amulet's secondary effect of increasing energy recovery to be useful as a weaker form of energy regeneration, multiplying the amount of points you gain back by at least 1.5x in the long run. Its effect stacks with energy regeneration (which changes the rate rather than the magnitude), so characters lucky enough to obtain both will recover the amulet of magical breathing's boosted amount of energy points every turn.
Identification strategy
Informal identification of the amulet of magical breathing can be tricky and dangerous: a fog cloud is generally one of the safest means of testing for one, since being engulfed by one while wearing the amulet will produce a distinct message, and even without magical breathing its attack inflicts meager physical damage at absolute worst.
Another riskier method involves falling into the water while wearing a suspected amulet of magical breathing in your base form: if you do not attempt to crawl out, the amulet must be magical breathing. If testing for the amulet this way, make sure that you are not fumbling and have accessible land squares nearby (e.g. ones that are not occupied by monsters or boulders), and drop any items that are greased and/or vulnerable to water damage—if you are polymorphed, ensure you are not in a form that is normally breathless. Similarly, if testing for the amulet using poison clouds, make sure you do so while already inside the cloud.
Plane of Water
One of the best use cases for the amulet of magical breathing is on the Plane of Water, where the water prevents the use of levitation and water walking boots—magical breathing makes travel between the air bubbles trivial, with the only related difficulty being water currents and the aforementioned damage to items. Players that have a spare wish and have not discovered an oilskin sack may opt to use it on one here. While polyself into a breathless or swimming form can also provide a means of traveling between air bubbles, it is quite dangerous: the form may time out unexpectedly (especially if the source is a blessed potion of polymorph), or you may be prematurely returned to normal from HP damage.
History
The amulet of magical breathing first appears in NetHack 3.1.0. From this version to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, the amulet makes up 13⁄200 (6.5%) of all randomly-generated amulets, and it has no effect on energy recovery.
NetHack 5.0.0 gives the amulet of magical breathing its current probability, and also adds its effect on the amount of energy that the hero recovers via commit 9fc15142—the amulet's effects on a hero (or monster) that is aquatic and outside of water are added in the same version via commit 90313d44 and commit 274290bc.
Messages
- You are breathing poison gas!
- You are in a poison gas cloud and removed an amulet of magical breathing.
- You are no longer bothered by the poison gas.
- You are in a poison gas cloud and put on an amulet of magical breathing.
Variants
Variants created prior to NetHack 5.0.0 may not implement the amulet of magical breathing's effects on regaining energy or its effect on an aquatic wearer's ability to breathe on land.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, the amulet of magical breathing does not affect energy regeneration.
A well-hidden chest in the northwestern corner of Grund's Stronghold has a 1⁄3 chance of containing a amulet of magical breathing, and if generated the amulet will always be accompanied by a spellbook of haste self.
The amulet of magical breathing is one of many methods that can be employed by the hero to survive a monster casting the create pool monster spell (most often in the endgame stages), though the hero's inventory will still be subjected to water damage.
GruntHack
In GruntHack, the amulet of magical breathing does not affect energy regeneration.
Gelatinous cubes and water elementals are capable of causing strangulation with their engulfing attacks, and cubes can still paralyze the hero as well—this makes the amulet of magical breathing far more valuable early on as a means of surviving cube encounters. Putting on an amulet of magical breathing while being strangled by an engulfer will auto-identify the amulet.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, the amulet of magical breathing does not affect energy regeneration, and monsters are capable of wearing the amulet.
A golden amulet of magical breathing can be found within the statue of Father Dagon on the Temples of the Old Gods level in on the Neutral Quest.
Sand-walker's shops run by selkies in Elshava can stock and sell amulets of magical breathing, which have a 7⁄100 of generating per item.
An amulet of magical breathing has a 1⁄4 chance of being placed randomly on the Troubadour quest goal level during level creation.
The Sea contains a guaranteed amulet of magical breathing on each map, in the event that the level's guaranteed magic lamp is placed underwater.
One of the possible "good" equipment kits for a lilitu includes a cursed golden amulet of magical breathing.
An amulet of magical breathing can be used to repair the life support subsystem of an imperial elven helm, granting breathlessness while the helm is worn.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, the amulet of magical breathing does not affect energy regeneration.
Gelatinous cubes and water elementals behave mostly the same as they do in GruntHack, making the amulet of magical breathing valuable to identify early. Sea dragons also have an engulfing attack that can suffocate characters, and green slimes can inflict sliming while suffocating an engulfed victim.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, one of the possible Gehennom levels places an amulet of magical breathing in a statue of Poseidon, vaguely similar to the one within the statue of Father Dagon in dNetHack and its variants.
Hack'EM
In Hack'EM, the amulet of magical breathing does not affect energy regeneration.
As in SLASH'EM, a well-hidden chest in the northwestern corner of Grund's Stronghold has a 1⁄3 chance of containing a amulet of magical breathing, and if generated the amulet will always be accompanied by a spellbook of haste self.
One of the possible Gehennom levels places an amulet of magical breathing in a statue of a giant crab, similar to SlashTHEM.
The sea dragon and green slime retain their EvilHack ability to suffocate heroes while gelatinous cubes and water elementals do not, making the amulet of magical breathing less "necessary" early on.
References
- ↑ src/exper.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 125
- ↑ src/do_wear.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 609-L610
- ↑ src/region.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1351-1362: n is only incremented if the hero is in a dangerous region
- ↑ src/region.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1385: hero is only teleported or given magical breathing from prayer if they are established to be within a poison cloud that is dangerous to them
- ↑ src/do_wear.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 978-L995: putting on amulet in poison cloud
- ↑ src/do_wear.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1128-L1132: taking off amulet in poison cloud
- ↑ src/trap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1570-L1572: sleeping gas traps against you
- ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1439-L1448: fog cloud engulfing the hero
- ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 258-L262
- ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 264-L266
- ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2280
