White dragon scale mail
[ white dragon scale mail 
| |
|---|---|
| Appearance | white dragon scale mail |
| Slot | body armor |
| AC | 9 |
| Special | |
| Base price | 900 zm |
| Weight | 40 |
| Material | dragon hide |
White dragon scale mail is a type of body armor that appears in NetHack. It is made of dragon hide like all dragon scale mail.
Contents
Generation
White dragon scale mail is not randomly generated. Reading a non-cursed scroll of enchant armor that targets worn white dragon scales will convert them into mail, with a blessed scroll adding a point of enchantment.
Player monsters that are not monks generated on the Astral Plane have a 1⁄9 chance of generating with white dragon scale mail as their initial body armor before role-specific replacements.[1]
Description
While worn, white dragon scale mail confers 9 base AC and cold resistance. Uncontrolled polymorph while wearing white dragon scale mail will revert them to scales and turn the wearer into a white dragon.[2][3]
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.
Per commit 9942b65d, extrinsic sources of an elemental resistance have a 99⁄100 chance of protecting your inventory from that type of damage. Per commit ef1eeed7, both the scales and scale mail also provide slow digestion - per commit e8374b36, the scales still incur ring hunger unless the character is also wearing a ring of slow digestion; wearing a ring of slow digestion and another ring consumes two units of nutrition every 20 turns regardless of armor, while wearing white dragon scales/mail and two non-slow digestion rings consumes three units of nutrition every 20 turns.Strategy
White dragon scale mail is rarely used by most characters, since reflection is sufficient enough to protect a hero against many forms of cold damage, and obtaining cold resistance or avoiding melee combat (in the case of brown molds and blue jellies) can protect from the rest. Puddings, gray oozes and gelatinous cubes can grant cold resistance to a hero when eating their corpse or tin, as can blue jellies, winter wolves and their cubs. Valkyries in particular start with cold resistance, rendering white dragon mail almost entirely obsolete for them.
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.
White dragon scale mail is more likely to be considered for heroes, since it confers extrinsic cold resistance and slow digestion: they both gain a valuable source of cold damage protection for their inventory, especially against revamped freezing spheres, while also potentially freeing up a valuable ring slot. Casters that do not plan to use body armor for magic resistance or reflection may consider using white dragon mail to maintain their nutrition, while pet-keepers may consider white dragon scale mail for strong humanoid pets such as arch-liches that they do not want to lose to digestion attacks.History
White dragon scale mail first appears with most other colors of dragon scale mail in NetHack 3.0.0. From NetHack 3.0.0 to NetHack 3.0.10, including variants based on those versions, white dragon scale mail is created by polymorphing the corpse of a white dragon. White dragon scales are introduced in NetHack 3.1.0, along with the current method for converting them into dragon scale mail.
Variants
In some variants, dragon scale mail is phased out in favor of dragon-scaled armor, whose implementation is based on a proposal by dtsund. Instead of being made into mail of its own, dragon scales are treated as a cloak, and reading a scroll of enchant armor melds them onto a worn set of body armor, generally augmenting that armor by adding its AC and conferred extrinsic properties to it. Dragon-scaled armor is implemented in NetHack Fourk, xNetHack, EvilHack, and Hack'EM.
Several variants also give white dragon scale mail additional properties while worn, and may even introduce other forms of white dragon scale armor. Variants that implement partial intrinsics and/or object properties may also make white dragon mail and other colors more worthwhile.
SporkHack
In SporkHack, worn white dragon scale mail allows the wearer to freeze pools of water and lava underfoot.
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, dragon scales and dragon scale mail have randomized powers and appearances in each game - to wish for dragon armor or scales by its corresponding power, either type of armor must be formally identified first, e.g. by using a scroll of identify on dropped dragon scales (which identifies the matching scale mail along with it) or by witnessing the dragon use its breath weapon. Only wishes from a wand of wishing can create dragon scale mail directly.
White dragon scale mail is effectively replaced by ice dragon scale mail, which confers only 5 base AC like all dragon scale mail in UnNetHack.
dNetHack
In dNetHack and notdNetHack, worn white dragon scale mail additionally confers magical breathing and swimming, and wetproofs the wearer's inventory.
FIQHack
In FIQHack, worn white dragon scale mail additionally confers automatic searching, magical breathing, and swimming, and wetproofs the wearer's inventory. It also weighs 300 aum like all dragon scale mail in FIQHack (which is halved while worn).
References
- ↑ src/mplayer.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 156: initial body armor for Astral playermons is random DSM, with equal probability
- ↑ src/polyself.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 501
- ↑ src/polyself.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 518
