Talk:Bell of Opening

Using it to generate infinite nymphs

It seems you could generate as many nymphs as you liked with the cursed, uncharged Bell of Opening. Do nymphs get death drops? If so, this would seem to be very, very useful. Even if they don't, you could still get as many potions and mirrors as you wanted, useful for diluting or polypiling. Anybody know why this isn't mentioned, given that it seems to be at least as powerful as pudding farming? Granted, you have to complete the Quest first, but most pudding farmers would be experienced enough to do that anyway. -Ion frigate 03:10, April 7, 2010 (UTC)

From the Bell article: A cursed bell, however, has a 1/4 chance of summoning a nymph (she won't be carrying any items), unless any of the nymphs are genocided or extinct. - so I guess this won't work. 62.80.22.186 10:19, April 7, 2010 (UTC)

Nymphs should still get death drops, but yeah they'll never carry any items when summoned. It's no where near as powerful as pudding farming due to the 25% chance of summoning a nymph, compared to 100% chance of a non-fatal iron blow splitting a pudding. As a minor addition, a ring of free action does NOT prevent the 33% chance of 2 turns paralysis. -- Qazmlpok 12:39, April 7, 2010 (UTC)

indestructible?

I can't find this anywhere in my quest levels. Is it possible that pets can pick it up, and if they drop it over lava, will it sink or be lost forever?98.172.189.77 15:18, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Alright, I've scoured every floor from top to the Black Market, and tried locating and retrieving other objects from lava, and still haven't found this bell. I'd read that someone polymorphed into a xorn and was able to eat it, so that must have happened. After I killed Master Kaen, I teleported away from the throngs of xorn closing in, and one must have made a snack of it.98.172.189.77 20:45, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

The nearest I've been able to find is this thread in RGRN. It mentions "years ago, someone ate the Bell of Opening", and was written in 2003. I vaguely remember the actual post, but can not find it in Google Groups. I think that's a bug that has been fixed.--Ray Chason (talk) 00:02, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

The relevant function is is_edible in eat.c. This function first appears in NetHack 3.0.7, which appears to be the first version to allow polymorphed heroes to eat non-foods. There was no Bell, however, until NetHack 3.1.0.

In NetHack 3.1.0, is_edible checks only for three conditions: the item is metal and you're a metallivore, the item is organic and you're a gelatinous cube, or the item is food.

NetHack 3.2.0 adds a check for the oc_unique flag, protecting the invocation tools and also the Amulet.--Ray Chason (talk) 00:18, 2 April 2014 (UTC)