Prayer

Some newbies are confused about the purpose of prayer in Nethack and feel that they ought to pray on a regular basis in order to keep in touch with their god. In fact, prayer in Nethack is pestering the gods for help rather than praising or thanking them, so it is a good idea to pray only when you have good reason to (prayer can save your life in an emergency).

You should not pray when your god is angry at you or if your luck is bad. If you pray too often your God will become angry and you shift your alignment status. Once your god is angry with you, your prayers will not be answered until you mollify him/her by sacrificing sufficiently powerful monsters. Praying in Gehennom is never a good idea - you will attract Moloch's attention, and he may blast you with a wide-angle disintegration beam.

If your god is pleased, he/she will protect you for the duration of your prayer, and may well fix at least some of your problems. You may also be granted a favour - this is more likely to happen if your Luck is good or you are praying on an altar. A much more detailed discussion of how your god decides what reward to give you can be found in Matthew Lahut's praying spoiler.

Praying on your own god's altar will bless any water on the altar (provided that your god is pleased). Praying on the altar of some other god will anger your god, decrease your luck, and you might be punished in some other way. It is generally a bad idea, but some experienced players use it to make unholy water.

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