Ring

Item classes
" Amulets	[ Armor
% Comestibles	$ Coins
* Gems	! Potions
= Rings	? Scrolls
+ Spellbooks	` Statues
( Tools	` Boulders
) Weapons	/ Wands

A ring, represented by =, is a type of magic item that appears in NetHack. Rings produce a variety of effects when worn, and each ring always has a randomized appearance.

Description

Rings are worn by using P to put them on,

If you have a pair of hands, you may wear one ring on each. Whether a ring is worn on the left or the right, the effect is the same, although a cursed wielded weapon may prevent access to the right finger, and incubi will place a ring of adornment on a female's left hand. Use R to remove the ring.

All rings have a weight of 3, except for the meat ring, which has a weight of 1. All rings except for the ring of shock resistance have a 1-in-3 chance of exploding when subjected to shock damage.

Ring hunger

All rings, except for the meat ring and for chargeable rings at +0 charge, cause an additional nutrition point to be deducted once every 20 turns. This is cumulative—a player wearing two rings will lose 2 additional hunger points every 20 turns. This sense of "ring hunger" is distinct from the additional hunger-causing effects of rings of regeneration, conflict, and hunger, all of which cause a nutrition point to be lost every other turn. The ring of slow digestion prevents ordinary nutrition consumption, but still causes ring hunger (if it didn't, it would be a ring of no digestion.)

For a full list of hunger causes and amounts, see the articles on nutrition and foodless.

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.

A +0 ring of protection now causes ring hunger if it is your only source of extrinsic protection. If you are wearing two rings of protection and the one on your left hand is +0, ring hunger applies to it, even if the right ring is charged.

Table of rings

Ring	Cost	Extrinsic granted	Notes
meat ring	5	None	symbolized by %; never randomly generated
ring of adornment	100	+n charisma	chargeable
ring of hunger	100	hunger	90% generated cursed
ring of protection	100	+n protection	chargeable
ring of protection from shape changers	100	protection from shape changers
ring of stealth	100	stealth
ring of sustain ability	100	sustain ability
ring of warning	100	warning
ring of aggravate monster	150	aggravate monster	90% generated cursed
ring of cold resistance	150	cold resistance
ring of gain constitution	150	+n constitution	chargeable
ring of gain strength	150	+n strength	chargeable
ring of increase accuracy	150	+n to-hit bonus	chargeable
ring of increase damage	150	+n damage bonus	chargeable
ring of invisibility	150	invisibility	cursed if from a Nazgul
ring of poison resistance	150	poison resistance
ring of see invisible	150	see invisible
ring of shock resistance	150	shock resistance
ring of fire resistance	200	fire resistance
ring of free action	200	free action
ring of levitation	200	levitation
ring of regeneration	200	regeneration
ring of searching	200	searching
ring of slow digestion	200	slow digestion
ring of teleportation	200	teleportitis	90% generated cursed
ring of conflict	300	conflict
ring of polymorph	300	polymorphitis	90% generated cursed
ring of polymorph control	300	polymorph control
ring of teleport control	300	teleport control

Instead of giving an attribute, chargeable rings modify a stat by n, where n is the ring's charge, which can be positive or negative.

Generation

Rings comprise 3% of all randomly-generated items in the main dungeon, 5% in containers, 5% on the Rogue level, and 8% in Gehennom. All types of rings are equally likely to be generated.

Of the rings marked as 90% cursed above, the remaining 10% are uncursed. The BUC status of chargeable rings is determined by the following table:

	≥ +1	+0	≤ −1	Total
blessed	15.1%	0.4%	0.2%	15.7%
uncursed	33.3%	1.7%	6.3%	41.3%
cursed	1.6%	0.4%	40.9%	42.9%

All other rings are generated 10% cursed, 90% uncursed, and 0% blessed. Rings of invisibility carried by Nazgul are always cursed.

The initial enchantment of a chargeable ring has an exponentially-weighted probability, but tends to be in the range of −3 to +3.

Charging

The enchantment of a chargeable ring (adornment, gain constitution, gain strength, increase accuracy, increase damage, or protection) may be altered by charging, for example with a scroll of charging or the PYEC. In contrast to most chargeable items, whose charge dwindles with use, a ring retains its enchantment permanently much like weapons and armor.

When a ring with a positive enchantment is charged, it has an (enchantment before) in 7 chance of exploding. Rings with enchantments of ≤ −5 or ≥ +7 will always explode when charged. Otherwise, blessed charging adds 1 to 3 points of enchantment, cursed charging removes 1 to 2 points, and uncursed charging always adds 1. Therefore, the highest possible enchantment is +9 by charging (and +10 by random generation). You may repeatedly enchant and disenchant a ring.

Below is the odds of using blessed scrolls of charging to achieve the enchantment on the top row starting from the enchantment listed in the left column without the ring exploding.

	≥ +1	≥ +2	≥ +3	≥ +4	≥ +5	≥ +6	≥ +7	≥ +8	+9
From +0	100%	95%	83%	60%	43%	26%	11%	3.9%	0.8%
From +1	N/A	86%	78%	62%	38%	24%	12%	3.3%	0.7%
From +2	N/A	N/A	71%	61%	45%	22%	12%	4.2%	0.6%
From +3	N/A	N/A	N/A	57%	46%	31%	10%	4.3%	1.1%
From +4	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	43%	33%	19%	2.9%	0.8%
From +5	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	29%	20%	10%	0.5%
From +6	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	14%	9.5%	4.8%

Identifying rings using sinks

When a ring is dropped on top of a sink, you will get a message that can help you identify the ring. Since the ring is usually lost in the process, this is not a very popular option.

Strategy

Dropping a noncursed ring down a sink is not a good use of it, but if you have two, you may as well use up one to identify the other. Rings are only very occasionally destroyed by an electrical attack, so spares are not essential. Also if you are on the brink of starvation and have several unidentified rings, you may consider giving up all of them to a sink, as ring of slow digestion is not lost when dropped down the drain.

Eating rings is a way to permanently obtain the effects granted by wearing some rings, however, this is only possible for rings of metal or wood.

Topaz, sapphire, ruby, steel, diamond, and emerald rings can be used to make slow but semi-permanent engravings. Since this is dependent on the appearance rather than the function of the ring, it can be used even if the ring isn't identified.

Encyclopedia entry

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]

References

This page is based on a spoiler by Dylan O'Donnell. The original license is:

Redistribution, copying, and editing of these spoilers, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. The original contributors to any spoiler must continue to be credited.
2. Any modifications to the spoiler must be acknowledged and credited.

This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.1. Information on this page may be out of date.

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