Ring of teleportation
A ring of teleportation is a type of ring that appears in NetHack.
Contents
Generation
9⁄10 of rings of teleportation are generated cursed, and the rest are uncursed or blessed with equal probability.
Wizards may be given a ring of teleportation as one of the two random rings in their starting inventory.[1]
General stores and jewelers shops can sell rings of teleportation.
Description
A hero putting on the ring of sustain ability gains the teleportitis extrinsic, which causes them to teleport at random intervals to a random 'safe' location on the level. Monsters will not wear this ring.
A hero eating the ring has a 1⁄3 chance of successfully absorbing its magic and gaining intrinsic teleportitis.[2]
Dropping a ring of teleportation down a sink will print a message and relocate the sink to another valid square on the level.[3]
Strategy
As with teleportitis in general, the usefulness of a ring of teleportation varies greatly, and obviously represents a hazard when testing rings: it is one of many reasons why it is obviously a Bad Idea to randomly put on rings, but even a non-cursed ring of teleportation can be hazardous since it does not auto-identify, and waiting for it to take effect may result in being teleported—this can reliably confirm its identity, but can also teleport you into into danger (or worse, out of shops), though it still has niche applications in enabling escape from vaults.
A hero that has a known source of teleport control is in far less danger from this and can informally identify a non-cursed ring more reliably, though it may still be of limited use depending on whether that hero has reached their role's experience level threshold for the ability to teleport at will: this threshold is XL 8 for Wizards and XL 12 for all other roles.
Once the player gains teleport control and can teleport at will, the ring of teleportation can potentially be a great boon as a navigation aid (e.g. for Gehennom mapping) and escape item, though the wand or scroll of teleportation are usually preferable—one of the few advantages that the ring has over other forms of teleportation is that it is not a limited-use item. The ring is most useful when paired with a ring of teleport control, but is much less likely to be used by a hero that has either intrinsic teleport control, e.g. Wizards that reach XL 17, or the Master Key of Thievery, since they will often prefer a corpse that grants teleportitis over using a ring slot.
Identification
A cursed ring with a base price of 200 is very probably teleportation. To be absolutely certain, you can uncurse that ring and put it on—a reliable way to informally identify a suspected ring of teleportation is to wear it and attempt teleporting at will via ctrl + t: if the resulting message says you "cannot teleport at will" instead of saying that you "don't know that spell", then the ring is a ring of teleportation. Waiting to teleport is risky, since it may take effect anywhere from the next couple of turns to several turns later, and as mentioned above may land you in danger unless you have teleport control.
History
The ring of teleportation first appears in Hack 1.21 and Hack for PDP-11, which are based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, and is included in the initial item list for Hack 1.0. From this version to NetHack 3.4.3, including some variants based on these versions, dropping the ring down a sink produces a slightly different message and does not affect the sink itself.[4] The old message is still used in NetHack 3.6.0 and later versions if the sink is not teleported.
Messages
- The sink <momentarily> vanishes.
- You dropped a ring of teleportation down a sink, causing it to teleport—"momentarily" is used if no teleport occurs.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, Flame Mages, Ice Mages and Necromancers may be given a ring of teleportation as the random ring in their starting inventory.[5][6][7]
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, dropping this ring down a sink will teleport the sink to a random location, as in later versions of NetHack.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, a ring of teleportation can be used with an upgrade kit to repair the blink subsystem of imperial elven boots, granting teleportitis while the boots are worn.
SpliceHack
In SpliceHack, a ring of teleportation can be combined with a ring of polymorph control at a furnace to create a ring of teleport control.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, Acid Mages, Corsairs, Electric Mages, Nobles, and Pirates may be given a ring of teleportation as the random ring in their starting inventory, unless the hero is a nymph.
References
- Jump up ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 165
- Jump up ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1959
- Jump up ↑ src/do.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 474
- Jump up ↑ do.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 380
- Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 69
- Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 99
- Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 136
