Scroll of food detection

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? Scroll.png
Name food detection
Appearance random
Base price 100 zm
Weight 5
Ink to write 4-7
Monster use Will not be used by monsters.

A scroll of food detection is a type of magical scroll that appears in NetHack.

Generation

Monks may be given a scroll of food detection as the random scroll in their starting inventory.[1] Wizards may be given a scroll of food detection as any of the three random scrolls in their starting inventory.[2]

Scrolls of food detection make up 1⁄40 (2.5%) of all scrolls randomly generated on the floor, in general shops, or as death drops. Second-hand bookstores, rare books shops, and health food stores can also stock scrolls of food detection.

Writing a scroll of food detection with a magic marker takes up 4 to 7 charges.

Description

Reading a scroll of food detection will exercise wisdom and cause the hero to smell and detect certain items on the current level, dependent on the read scroll's beatitude:[3][4][5]

  • A non-cursed scroll of food detection detects and reveals the location of all comestibles on the level, including food that is buried, submerged, inside a container, or in the inventory of a monster.[6][7][8][9]
  • Reading a blessed scroll has the same effect detailed above, and additionally grants the food appraisal intrinsic to the hero if they do not currently possess it.[10][11][12][13]
  • Reading a cursed scroll of food detection, or being confused and reading a scroll of any beatitude, will instead detect all potions on the level under the same conditions as it would have detected food.[14]

Detecting either food or potions using this scroll will auto-identify it, and the player will otherwise be prompted to type-name the scroll. Reading this scroll will always clear any stale object markings for comestibles.[15][16] Monsters will not read this scroll.

Strategy

The most obvious use for a scroll of food detection is to efficiently track down food if you are hungry and/or short on comestibles: remember that the scroll will display all comestibles, including corpses that are tainted from age, poisonous, or otherwise harmful (e.g. petrification from a footrice corpse). Unless you have food appraisal from a blessed scroll), you will not get any warning before eating such a corpse, so do not chow down carelessly. The food appraisal intrinsic from the scroll is also useful to prevent breaking dietary conducts; however, it will only warn you once before the intrinsic is lost and will need to be reapplied.

The potion-detecting capability of cursed and/or confused readings of the scroll have a niche application for finding useful potions, such as smoky potions or a potion of gain level, before a monster can grab it, or else kill a monster before they can use it; this functionality can generally be duplicated by other means, however. Once you learn the spell of detect food or reach a point where food is not much of a concern anymore, this scroll is a good candidate for blanking. The scroll may be of slightly more use for a hero attempting any food-based conducts, including vegan or even foodless; foodless heroes in particular may opt to use cursed scrolls and confused readings instead if they are not averse to maintaining liquid diets.

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 39a7dc1c, monsters that do not pick up food items will not leave behind any comestibles besides their corpse as possible death drops. Per commit 87f3b480, extra food rations are added to the home level of the Monk quest in order to reduce the difficulty of maintaining vegetarian conduct induced from the aforementioned commit. Per commit ae3e5d28, the room containing the stairway to the Gnomish Mines is likely to contain a food ration.

All of the above changes are part of an attempt to rebalance the frequency of food in an average game, and to discourage grinding by reducing the frequency of food rations and other similar items—as a result, scrolls of food detection are somewhat more likely to come in handy, especially for food-based conducts.

History

The scroll of food detection first appears in Hack 1.0.

Messages

A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:

"Check food_detect to verify that all messages are present."

Your <nose> starts to tingle and you smell food.
You read a blessed scroll of food detection and detected comestible items elsewhere on the level, while gaining the food appraisal intrinsic.
Your <nose> continues to tingle and you smell food.
As above, but you already have the food appraisal intrinsic.
Your <nose> tingles and you smell <food/something>.
You read a non-blessed scroll and detected either comestibles or potions elsewhere on the level.
Your <nose> twitches then starts to tingle.
You read a blessed scroll of food detection and gained the food appraisal intrinsic, but there were no comestibles on the level.
Your <nose> twitches.
As above, but you already have the food appraisal intrinsic or read a non-blessed scroll.
Your <nose> starts to tingle.
This is printed before before any of the messages below this one if the read scroll is blessed.
You smell food nearby.
You read a non-cursed scroll, and the only comestibles on the level are on your square.
You sense a lack of food nearby.
You read a non-cursed scroll after previously detecting comestibles on the level, but they are gone now. The additional message for gaining the food appraisal intrinsic at skilled level or higher is not included.
You have a strange feeling for a moment, then it passes.
You read the scroll as a beginner, and there are no comestibles on the level.
You have a normal feeling for a moment, then it passes.
As above while hallucinating.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, Archeologists, Flame Mages, Ice Mages, Monks, Necromancers, Priests, and Wizards may be given a scroll of food detection as any of the random scrolls in their starting inventories.[17][18][19][20][21][22][23]

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, incantifier heroes in roles that start with food will receive scrolls of food detection instead, with the notable exception of the Tourist.

SlashTHEM

In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, Acid Mages, Electric Mages, Lunatics, and Paladins may be given a scroll of food detection as any of the random scrolls in their starting inventories.

Incantifier heroes in roles other than Tourists that start with food items will have them replaced with scrolls of food detection, as in dNetHack and its derivatives.

References

  1. ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 89
  2. ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 167
  3. ↑ src/read.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1479: call food_detect() in detect.c
  4. ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 455: food_detect() function
  5. ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 561
  6. ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 462
  7. ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 469
  8. ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 476
  9. ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 563-L570
  10. ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 493
  11. ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 505
  12. ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 519
  13. ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 553
  14. ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 461-L463
  15. ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 284: clear_stale_map()
  16. ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 465: call from food_detect()
  17. ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 36
  18. ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 67
  19. ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 97
  20. ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 121
  21. ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 138
  22. ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 159
  23. ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 247

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