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 a type of magical tool that appears in NetHack. It is made of bone, and appears as a horn when unidentified.
Contents
Generation
Horns of plenty are very rare, and make up 1⁄500 (0.2%) of all randomly-generated tools. General stores and hardware stores can sell horns of plenty.
A horn of plenty is always generated uncursed, with the exception of player bones and trap "bones", and is created with 1 to 20 charges.[1]
Description
Applying a horn of plenty produces an item from it that is placed in the hero's inventory if possible, using up a charge and auto-identifying the horn:[2][3][4][5] the item will be a comestible with a 12⁄13 chance and a potion otherwise, and has the same beatitude as the horn.[6][7][8] Tipping a horn of plenty will use up all of its charges and generates an item(s) on the ground for each one.[9] Nothing happens if a horn of plenty is tipped or applied without charges.[10]
Applying or tipping a horn of plenty in a shop will incur a usage fee, and the items created are the property of the shop.[11]
A horn of plenty can hold up to 50 charges, and charging a horn of plenty adds 1 to 5 charges for an uncursed scroll, while a blessed scroll adds 6–15 charges if the horn has 10 or less and otherwise adds 6–10 charges.[12] It is the only horn that cannot be used as a musical instrument.[13]
Food probabilities
In the tables below, class probability is the chance of that item being generated within its item class (potion or food), and the overall probability is the chance relative to all possible items.
Comestibles generated by a horn of plenty use standard room probabilities, and if a food ration is generated, there is a 1⁄7 chance that it is replaced by a lump of royal jelly.[14] This produces the following ratios, with a stack of multiples being possible:
| 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% |
When generating a potion, the standard room probabilities for potion generation will be used initially:[15] if the selected potion is magical, a new potion is created from the non-magical set of potions, which will in turn be re-generated until it is not a potion of sickness.[16][17] This produces 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% |
Strategy
For a Tourist or any neutral hero 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. Though a player in a normal game will not need the extra food that often, 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. and in particular, it makes the Tourist a viable candidate for a liquid diet: this RGRN thread details an ascension with a foodless, atheist, true polyselfless survivor Tourist using a horn of plenty.
- 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 heroes without access to the PYEC, recharging the horn is unlikely to be a good use for a valuable scroll of charging: bless the horn if you can spare the holy water, use it until it is out of charges, then save it for polypiling or discard it.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, a horn of plenty can generate any non magical potion one except for the potion of blood or potion of sickness.
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, there is a very small chance (about 1⁄250) that the potion generated will be a blood-red potion, which has a 4⁄5 chance (80%) of being a potion of blood and will otherwise be a potion of vampire blood.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, any of the newly-added non-magical potions (such as cyanide and Jolt Cola) can be generated from a horn of plenty.
References
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 944
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2196
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2210
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2236
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2262
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2211
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2226
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2227
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2198
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2204
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2231
- ↑ src/read.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 665
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3735: doapply case
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 723: food probabilities are the first value after the object name
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 788: potion probabilities are third value after name and appearance
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2215: calls rnd_class to rename object using base probabilities
- ↑ src/objnam.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2721: rnd_class function
