Wand of striking
| / | |
|---|---|
| Name | striking |
| Appearance | random |
| Abundance | 3% |
| Base price | 150 zm |
| Weight | 7 |
| Type | beam |
| Maximum charges | 8 |
| Spell | force bolt |
| Monster use | May be used offensively by monsters. |
A wand of striking is a type of wand that appears in NetHack. It is a magical directional wand that has a randomized appearance when unidentified—the default one associated with it is an "ebony wand".[1]
Contents
Generation
Wizards may be given a wand of striking as the random wand in their starting inventory.[2]
Wands of striking make up 3⁄100 (3%) of all wands that are randomly generated on the ground, in general shops or as death drops. "Quality apparel and accessories" shops can also stock wands of striking.
Three wands of striking with no charges are placed randomly within the town walls on the Orcish Town map of Minetown during level creation.[3]
Several monsters can be generated with a wand of striking:
- Dispater is always generated with a wand of striking.[4]
- Shopkeepers are always generated with a wand of striking.[5]
- Randomly created intelligent monsters may be generated with a wand of striking as a offensive item, and will be given one in place of a scroll of earth if they are a monster type that can be affected by falling boulders and they are generated without a hard helm.[6]
Wands of striking are generated as blessed 1⁄34 of the time and cursed 1⁄34 of the time, and will otherwise be uncursed.[7] They are created with 4-8 charges, and can hold up to a maximum of 8 charges.[8][9]
Description
Zapping this wand prompts the hero for a direction to zap it in, and has mostly the same effects as the force bolt spell:[10] the bolt rolls a d20 against the AC of any monsters in its path (or against a single monster that is currently engulfing the hero zapping it), and the bolt hits if that roll is lower than each target's AC plus 10, dealing 2d12 damage which is subject to the target's MR score and half spell damage.[11] The magic resistance property blocks the effects of the wand.[12] A Knight carrying the Magic Mirror of Merlin in their open inventory deals double damage to monsters when zapping the wand.[13][14]
Monsters will use this wand for the same effect, with hostile monsters seeking out the wand and zapping it at the hero unless it has no charges or they believe that the hero has magic resistance.[15][16][17][18]
A hero zapping the wand of striking upward has a 2⁄3 chance of dislodging a rock from the ceiling and cause it to fall on the hero's head, dealing up to 6 damage (or up to 2 if they are wearing a hard helm), and has no effect in areas without a ceiling.[19] A hero zapping the wand downward wipes out 2-8 letters from any engraving on that square, and doing so over a trap door will shatter the door and turn it into a hole that the hero may then fall into unless they are levitating or flying.[20][21] Zapping the wand downward while riding will affect the steed as with any other monster.[22]
Several items and dungeon features can be hit and broken by a zapped wand of striking, including any inventory left behind from a monster that is killed by the wand:[23]
- Boulders and statues hit by a zapped wand of striking will crumble into rocks, while doors are destroyed, and drawbridges will collapse and additionally scatter metal debris if they were open.[24][25][26][27]
- Statue traps hit by the wand will activate, animating the top-most statue on their square.[28][29]
- Fragile armor hit by a zapped wand of striking becomes cracked and will outright shatter if it was very thoroughly cracked already, while other fragile items will be immediately destroyed.
A hero zapping the wand at themselves takes 2d12 damage and abuse their strength unless they have magic resistance, and will auto-identify the wand.[30]
The wand of striking is additionally auto-identified under the following conditions:[31][32]
- The hero zaps it at a monster that they can see and the wand hits or misses.
- The hero sees a monster zap the wand at them, and it hits the hero or is nullified by their magic resistance.
- The hero zaps the wand and see it destroy an object(s) or any dungeon features.
- The hero sees the wand destroy an object(s) or any dungeon features as a result of a monster zapping the wand.
Breaking a charged wand of striking by applying it, or wresting one last charge from an applied wand, will cause an explosion that deals (X+1)d6 damage, where X represents the amount of charges, and affects all objects within the range of the explosion that are normally affected by force bolts.[33][34] As with zapping the wand, damage from this explosion is blocked by the magic resistance property.
Engraving with a wand of striking gives a distinct message, but does not auto-identify the wand.[35]
Dropping a wand of striking while levitating or flying causes it to "strike" the floor rather than "hit" it.[36]
Strategy
The wand of striking is slightly better than the wand of magic missile for dealing damage: though it fires a beam that cannot rebound like a ray does, it also cannot be stopped by reflection, though magic resistance still nullifies it. On the other hand, the magic missile spell becomes much more damaging and reliable compared to both wands at experience level 6, and the wand of striking's reliance on beating a target's AC makes it unreliable from around the mid-game onward: monsters with 0 AC or better become more commonplace, and monsters with much higher MR scores can lower the potential damage. Additionally, using the wand against nymphs is perilous, since they are likely to be carrying a mirror that will break if the wand kills them, resulting in a -2 luck penalty.
Outside of combat, the wand is also useful for blasting through boulders that block the hero's path: remember that doing so in Sokoban carries a -1 luck penalty, and be careful that there are no peacefuls in the beam's path!
A wand of striking is also worth keeping on hand for heroes who do not care about the passtune and want to enter the Castle as quickly as possible by destroying its drawbridge. Conversely, the wand of striking is perhaps the worst thing a hero can encounter when crossing any drawbridge (e.g. on the Valkyrie quest), since a monster with the wand is likely to pick the moment you are over its square to zap you by sheer happenstance, resulting in an unceremonious instant death—a daring hero can inflict the same fate upon other monsters if they so choose, though they can only utilize this once per drawbridge.
Identification
Wands of striking are fairly easy to distinguish due to auto-identifying when zapped, giving a distinct engraving message and also printing a distinct message when dropped while levitating or flying[35][36]—the latter-most method is especially valuable for heroes trying to save on wand charges when testing, although it is unsafe for wands that are made of glass.
History
The wand of striking first appears in Hack 1.21, which is based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, and is included in the initial item list for Hack 1.0. Wands and staves of striking also appear in Rogue v4 and earlier versions, where they never miss and deal 1d8+3 damage with a 1⁄20 chance of dealing 3d8+9 damage instead (average 8.95).
In NetHack 3.6.7 and previous versions, including variants based on these versions, the wand of striking makes up 3⁄40 (7.5%) of all randomly-generated wands. Some players going for a speed ascension and/or digging for victory in these versions may opt to polypile for the wand if they have not yet found it—the table below details the odds and given confidence of creating a wand of striking this way, not accounting for shuddering from system shock:
| Confidence | 7.5⁄95 | 25% | 50% | 60% | 75% | 85% | 90% | 95% | 99% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Polymorphs | 1 | 3.5 | 8.43 | 11.14 | 16.86 | 23.07 | 28 | 36.43 | 56 |
Bugs
The wand of striking is subject to some bugs across versions that are fixed in later versions and most variants:
- If a monster carrying a potion of acid is crushed by a drawbridge, or a force bolt or zapped wand of striking blows up a drawbridge underneath a monster, the game may panic. This is bug C343-179, and is fixed in May 2006 via commit a73d9970.
- The beam from a wand of striking zapped from a monster can destroy drawbridges by passing over the square in front of one while that drawbridge is closed—this is fixed in NetHack 5.0.0 via commit 8b5e9ead to bring it in line with the effects of the wand when zapped by the hero.
Messages
- The wand hits <the monster>!
- You zapped a monster with a wand of striking.
- The wand misses <the monster>.
- As above, but the zap missed.
- The wand hits you!
- You were zapped by a wand of striking.
- The wand misses you.
- As above, but the zap missed.
- Boing!
- The wand was resisted with a source of magic resistance.
- You bash yourself!
- You zapped the wand at yourself and were hit by it.
- A wall of force smashes down around you!
- You applied a wand of striking to break it, and either set off all its charges or wrested a final charge from it.
- The wand unsuccessfully fights your attempt to write!
- You engraved with a wand of striking[35]—the message is a pun on a writers' strike.
Variants
Some NetHack variants have the wand of striking auto-identify when engraving with it.
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, two wands of striking are generated in the area outside of the drawbridges of Moloch's Sanctum during level creation.
AceHack
In AceHack, engraving with a wand of striking will formally identify the item type.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, iron bars can be broken by zapping the wand of striking at them, producing one or more iron bar items.
A wielded rod of force can absorb bolts fired from a zapped wand of striking, protecting the wielder and charging itself by an additional 10,000 turns (up to a maximum of 150,000).
Deminymphs that are generated under normal circumstances will be given wizard kits that always have a wand of striking.
The inverted ziggurat map inclusion can contain a buried iron chest with a wand of striking inside.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, the wand of striking will knock any monster it hits 1 space back if it deals 16 or more damage. Iron bars can also be broken with a wand of striking, and engraving with a wand of striking will formally identify the item type.
The above information also applies to Hack'EM.
References
- ↑ include/objects.h in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1464
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 170
- ↑ dat/minetn-1.lua in NetHack 5.0.0, line 110-L112
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 512-L514
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 704-L720
- ↑ src/muse.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2046-L2056
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1125
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1122-L1124
- ↑ src/read.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 737-L740
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 189-L217: fall through to force bolt spell case
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 6099-6158: resist() function
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 196-L200
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 165
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 206
- ↑ src/muse.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1501-L1506
- ↑ src/muse.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1609-L1650
- ↑ src/muse.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1878-L1890
- ↑ src/muse.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2735-L2738
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3307-L3320
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3324-L3338: striking and trap doors
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3676-L3679
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3122
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2446-L2463
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2275-L2312
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3290-L3306
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3707-L3715
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 4060
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2455-L2457
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 5589-L5591
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2712-L2728
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2279
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2310
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 4008-L4020
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 5443-L5451
- ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 src/engrave.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 602-L605
- ↑ 36.0 36.1 src/dothrow.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 617
