Helm of brilliance
[  helm of brilliance | |
|---|---|
| Appearance | crystal helmet |
| Slot | helm |
| AC | 1 |
| Special |
|
| Base price | 50 zm |
| Weight | 40 |
| Material | glass |
A helm of brilliance, sometimes abreviated as HoB, is a type of helm that appears in NetHack. It is a magical helm that is made of glass and appears as a crystal helmet when unidentified.
The helm of brilliance is the base item for The Mitre of Holiness, the Cleric quest artifact.
Contents
Generation
Helms of brilliance make up 3⁄500 (0.6%) of all helms that are randomly generated on the ground, in general shops or as death drops. Used armor dealerships and antique weapon outlets can also stock helms of brilliance.
Player monsters, including those on the Astral Plane, have a 788 chance (~7.95%) of generating with a helm of brilliance as their initial helm before role-based replacements. before any role-specific changes are made:[1]
- Player monster healers and clerics each have a 3⁄8 chance of their initial helm being replaced with a helm of brilliance, raising their effective odds of generating with one to 243704 (~34.52%).[2][3]
- Player monster wizards have a 3⁄4 chance of their initial helm being replaced with a helm of brilliance, raising their effective odds of generating with one to 243352 (~69.03%).[4]
- Player monster barbarians and cave dwellers will never receive a helm of brilliance.[5][6]
Description
While worn, the helm of brilliance grants 1 base point of AC, and a hero will have their intelligence and wisdom by its enchantment. Wearing or removing an enchanted helm of brilliance will auto-identify it, as will enchanting the worn helm while it is at +0.
A helm of brilliance is fragile and has a 1⁄20 chance of becoming cracked if it is thrown, kicked, hit by a force bolt spell or a zapped wand of striking, dropped from a great enough height (e.g. down stairs or while levitating), or else if it is inside a container that is similarly kicked, thrown or dropped—a thoroughly-cracked helm of brilliance will shatter and be destroyed if it is cracked again. A helm of brilliance that is erosion-proofed will be "tempered" and is not subjected to cracking in these instances.
A worn helm of brilliance does not prevent instant death from brainlessness induced by intelligence drain, since the instadeath occurs at a base intelligence of 3.
Strategy
The helm of brilliance is generally useful for spell-casting: higher intelligence and wisdom stats reduce the failure rate of high-level spells and mitigates penalties from wearing metallic armor. In addition, wearing an enchanted helm of brilliance will slightly improve energy regeneration and may give characters a significant boost to maximum power when gaining experience levels—both are influenced by wisdom, and energy regeneration is also influenced by intelligence. Characters casting high-level spells in restricted spell schools, such as a high-level Cleric attempting to cast polymorph, may want to utilize a helm of brilliance.
For a role such as a Wizard that already has a low base spell failure rate, a helm of brilliance will likely not have a noticeable effect—conversely, a role with incredibly high spell-casting penalties such as a Valkyrie or Barbarian may not notice any significant gains without a robe. Characters of the latter type can also use the helm for foocubi encounters, though the helm may end up removed mid-interaction.
History
The helm of brilliance first appears in NetHack 3.0.0. From this version to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, the helm of brilliance is made of iron and has a randomized appearance when unidentified—the default one associated with it is an etched helmet.[7] The helm also weighs 50 aum, and is special-cased to not raise spellcasting failure rates when worn due to its attribute enhancements. The helm of brilliance is given its current set appearance in NetHack 5.0.0 via commit f9a35132, which also gives its old randomized appearance to the helm of caution, and its encyclopedia entry is added via commit 502c66f5.
The helm of brilliance is subject to a bug in NetHack 3.4.3 and prior versions (including some variants based on those versions): using a cursed scroll of destroy armor on a cursed helm of brilliance or a cursed pair of gauntlets of dexterity reduces the enchantment of the piece of armor without altering the stats, and removing them will permanently increase a hero's stats, allowing them to temporarily surpass their racial maximum this way. This is known as the "hobug" (since the helm of brilliance is often abbreviated to "HoB"), and is fixed via commit c25746f0.
Variants
Many NetHack variants created prior to NetHack 5.0.0 retain the helm of brilliance as it appears in prior versions, including the special case that causes the worn metallic helm to not increase spellcasting failure rates—this is also applied to variants with object materials systems.
Some variants also add "brilliance" as an object property that causes armor with the property to behave similar to a helm of brilliance, including the lack of spellcasting penalty if the armor is metallic.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, the helm of brilliance behaves as it does in NetHack 3.4.3.
Upgrading a dwarvish iron helm has a 1⁄2 chance of producing a helm of brilliance, and upgrading a helm of brilliance will produce a dwarvish iron helm.
The Mantle of Knowledge is a defunct artifact helm of brilliance.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, the helm of brilliance behaves as it does in NetHack 3.4.3.
A helm of brilliance grants 1 base AC, 1 base DR, and modifies the hero's intelligence and wisdom by its enchantment while worn, and its weight is reduced to 30 aum. It can appear in band form as a "crown of cognizance".
notdNetHack
In notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, in addition to dNetHack details, Paimon is generated with a +3 gemstone helm of brilliance when summoned by an Illithanachronounbinder.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, the helm of brilliance is changed to be a non-randomized helm as in vanilla NetHack, and has a default material of gemstone rather than glass.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, Duri always generates with a helm of brilliance.
Hack'EM
In Hack'EM, the helm of brilliance behaves as it does in NetHack 3.6.7 and has a base material of iron.
Upgrading a helm of madness will produce a helm of brilliance, and vice versa.
Encyclopedia entry
A helm he set on his head, high of crystal; thereon was many gemstone, all encompassed with gold; it was Uther's, the noble king's; it was named Goswhit, each other unlike.
References
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 154: Default equipment; the helm is chosen from within the designated object classes inclusively in objects.c
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 187: Helm replacement for healers
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 212: Helm replacement for clerics
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 246: Helm replacement for wizards
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 171: Helm replacement for barbarians
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 179: Helm replacement for cavefolk
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 358
