Horn of plenty
( 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | horn of plenty |
| Appearance | horn |
| Base price | 50 zm |
| Weight | 18 |
| Material | bone |
| Monster use | Will not be used by monsters. |
A horn of plenty is one of the magical horns, but unlike the other horns, it cannot be used as a musical instrument.[1] It is created with 1 to 20 charges and it may contain up to 50 charges. When applied, it produces food (including royal jelly) or a potion of water, fruit juice, booze, acid, sickness, or oil.[2][3][4][5] The BUC of the item produced is the same as that of the horn.
Contents
Food probabilities
12⁄13 of the time, a horn of plenty produces a comestible, in the following ratios. Multiples may be created if the food code permits.
| Item | Class probability | Overall probability |
|---|---|---|
| tripe ration | 14% | 12.9% |
| random egg | 8.5% | 7.8% |
| eucalyptus leaf | 0.3% | 0.3% |
| apple | 1.5% | 1.4% |
| orange | 1% | 0.9% |
| pear | 1% | 0.9% |
| melon | 1% | 0.9% |
| banana | 1% | 0.9% |
| carrot | 1.5% | 1.4% |
| sprig of wolfsbane | 0.7% | 0.6% |
| clove of garlic | 0.7% | 0.6% |
| slime mold | 7.5% | 6.9% |
| lump of royal jelly | 5.4% | 5% |
| cream pie | 2.5% | 2.3% |
| candy bar | 1.3% | 1.2% |
| fortune cookie | 5.5% | 5.1% |
| pancake | 2.5% | 2.3% |
| lembas wafer | 2% | 1.8% |
| cram ration | 2% | 1.8% |
| food ration | 32.6% | 30.1% |
| random tin, including spinach | 7.5% | 6.9% |
The remaining 1⁄13 of the time, the horn produces a potion, in the following ratios:
| Potion | Class probability | Overall probability |
|---|---|---|
| potion of booze | 18.6% | 1.4% |
| potion of sickness | 4.2% | 0.3% |
| potion of fruit juice | 18.6% | 1.4% |
| potion of acid | 4.4% | 0.3% |
| potion of oil | 13.3% | 1% |
| potion of water | 40.8% | 3.1% |
In the tables above, class probability is chance within class (potion or food), and overall probability is the chance relative to all possible items.
For food generation, the standard room probabilities for food generation[6] are used. If a food ration is generated, there is a 1 in 7 chance this will be changed to a lump of royal jelly instead. When generating a potion, the standard room probabilities for potion generation[7] will be used initially. In the event that the selected potion is magical, a new potion is created from the non-magical set of potions. This will in turn be re-generated until it is not a potion of sickness. Therefore, the only way to receive a potion of sickness is if it is generated initially.
Strategy
For a Tourist, or any neutral character with the Platinum Yendorian Express Card, a blessed horn of plenty is a great item as it can be recharged an unlimited number of times with little opportunity cost. While in a normal game one doesn't generally need the extra food, the ability to produce an indefinite amount of potions and food has several non-trivial uses:
- The unlimited food and potion source can be essential in multi-conduct games. In particular, it makes the Tourist a viable candidate for a liquid diet: a foodless atheist true polyselfless survivor (see the link below).
- Having a renewable source of royal jelly (and to a lesser degree, spinach) gives vegetarian characters a good chance of maxing out their strength, which is otherwise very difficult without being able to eat giant corpses.
- The potions can be used to provide an indefinite supply of holy water, or can be used for polypiling or alchemy.
- Those attempting stupid ascension tricks such as Death farming might prefer a horn of plenty to prayer as a food source, though prayer is easier to automate.
- If smoky potions are one of sickness, fruit juice, or booze, acid, or oil, the horn can be used as a (slow) wish engine.
For characters without access to the PYEC, recharging the horn isn't likely to be a good use for a valuable scroll of charging. Bless it if you can spare the holy water, use it until it's out of charges, then save it for polypiling or discard it.
Variants
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, there is a very small chance (about 1⁄250) that the potion generated will be a blood-red potion. This potion has an 80% chance of being a potion of blood, and a 20% chance of being a potion of vampire blood. Other than the starting inventories of vampires, this is the only time blood-red potions are generated anywhere in the game.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM and variants based on it, the potion generated can be any non-magical one except sickness and blood, the latter not being generated randomly. Thus, in SLASH'EM itself the only difference is lack of potions of sickness; in, say, SlashTHEM, any of the new non-magical potions (such as cyanide and Jolt Cola) can be generated.
References
- ↑ apply.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 2958: case for HORN_OF_PLENTY in doapply
- ↑ mkobj.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 106: make the object
- ↑ objects.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 722: potion probabilities
- ↑ objects.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 668: food probabilities
- ↑ objnam.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 2721: rnd_class renames object using base probabilities
- ↑ objects.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 668: food probabilities
- ↑ objects.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 722: potion probabilities
External links
- Liquid diet tourist using a horn of plenty
