Smoky and milky potions

Smoky and milky potions are two of the randomly generated colors of potion; they can be any type. However, they are noteworthy because they have a chance of summoning a monster upon quaffing: the smoky potion may summon a djinni and the milky potion may summon a ghost. If the monster appears, the potion does not have its normal effect.

Smoky potions

Quaffing a smoky potion has a 113 + 2n chance of producing a djinni, where n is the number of djinn that have been created in this game. This djinni might grant you a wish, become tame, be peaceful, vanish instantly, or turn hostile; the chances of each outcome depend on the beatitude of the potion and are identical to the chances for magic lamps. Blessed smoky potions are the most likely to give a wish.

The effect of quaffing a smoky potion does not depend on whether or not you have identified that type of potion. If you have identified smoky potions but have forgotten which ones they are, you can use \ or ` to check your current identification knowledge.

Djinn can also be summoned when a monster quaffs a smoky potion. The djinni will disappear 50% of the time; the other 50% it will be peaceful. In neither case will it grant wishes, though it does count toward the total number of djinn created.

Chance of producing a djinni

Djinn already created		0	1	2	3	4	5	n
Chance of producing a djinni		7.69%	6.67%	5.88%	5.26%	4.76%	4.35%	113 + 2n
Overall chance of wish	Blessed	6.15%	5.33%	4.71%	4.21%	3.81%	3.48%	465 + 10n
	Uncursed	1.53%	1.33%	1.18%	1.05%	0.95%	0.87%	165 + 10n
	Cursed	0.38%	0.33%	0.29%	0.26%	0.24%	0.22%	1260 + 40n

Milky potions

Milky potions have a chance of containing a hostile ghost; unless you are blind when you quaff the milky potion, you will be "are frightened to death, and unable to move" for three turns. As with djinn, the probability of a milky potion generating a ghost is based on the number of ghosts already generated by any means: 113 + 2n, where n is the number of ghosts already generated. Since there will always be a large number of ghosts in the Valley of the Dead, the chance of getting a ghost from a potion decreases significantly after that point.

A monster quaffing a milky potion can also summon a ghost, paralyzing them for 3 turns.

Strategy

Smoky potions and wishing

Because of the possibility of a wish, it is worth blessing and quaffing all smoky potions, even if they are an otherwise useless or harmful type, especially because harmful potions are less harmful when blessed. In some cases, however, precautions must still be taken; the table below outlines these cases and what can be done to mitigate their effects:

Potion	Cost	Blessed result	Mitigation
sickness	50	Lose 1 HP, abuse Con	Quickly recovered
confusion	100	Confusion, abuse Con	Unicorn horn, or just wait (it's quite short)
hallucination	100	Hallucination	Unicorn horn
sleeping	100	Sleep	Sleep resistance
blindness	150	Blindness	Unicorn horn
invisibility	150	Permanent invisibility	Wear mummy wrapping
polymorph	200	Polymorph	Unchanging or polymorph control
levitation	200	Levitation	Press > to float gently to the ground
acid	250	Lose 1–4 HP, abuse Con	Acid resistance or recover
oil	250	Abuse Wis	Quickly recovered
paralysis	300	Paralysis	Free action

Probably the worst of these is the potion of polymorph, since its effect is not easily resisted and can be quite devastating if proper precautions are not taken. Unchanging is preferable to polymorph control: controlled polymorph into your own race will shuffle your stats, while choosing to polymorph into another monster may keep your stats the same but will break polyselfless conduct. With unchanging, neither of these is an issue.

In the case of potions of sleep and paralysis, a locked closet with a burned Elbereth square or scroll of scare monster is a reasonably secure substitute: almost all phasing, digging or door-destroying monsters respect Elbereth, although the latter two may open the way for non-Elbereth respecting monsters. A sanctuary is an even better substitute, although still not as good as free action since angelic beings may still attack you.

Alchemy

Another problem can occur if smoky potions are healing or extra healing, since players generally want to alchemize these to full healing. The dilemma posed is such: get more HP, or get a wish? In this case, one should go for the alchemy - on average, for the potions required to get one wish, you will get 45 extra HP if smoky potions are extra healing, and 105 extra HP if smoky potions are healing. The extra HP is pretty much always better in the latter case, and usually better in the former case, especially given that many items can be obtained without wishing.

Combat

Both of these potions can be dangerous to players in tense situations. The milky potion effect is far worse across the board: three turns of paralysis can be deadly against particularly nasty monsters, particularly if the potion was full healing. The paralysis effect can be avoided by blinding yourself. The smoky potion effect, while beneficial on paper, robs you of that potion's effect, which can be fatal - e.g., at low health, your only smoky potion of full healing produces a wish-less djinni instead.

Milky potions

As there is no benefit to summoning ghosts, and ghosts can be hard to defeat for most players, it is better to dip milky potions into a fountain to turn them into potions of water, which can then be blessed at an altar.

Variants

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, wishes cannot be used on magical items unless they are from a wand of wishing.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, monsters can wish for items if the smoky potion they attempted to quaff produces a djinni that grants a wish.

External links

• Wishing spoiler

References

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

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.

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