Unwinnable

While any given game of NetHack may be very difficult to complete, it is generally understood that every game is winnable — that is, no game is created that the player cannot win.

However, there are a few methods to render a game unwinnable, most of which are related to the Quest. This may happen by accident, but can also occur through very deliberate action on the player's part. These are the ways in which a game can become unwinnable:

1. Before getting permission from the quest leader or proceeding down afterward, converting your alignment at an altar (exception: you are non-neutral and the quest portal is still present)
2. Before permission, the quest leader dies or levelports down
3. Before permission, getting expelled by angering the quest leader or failing the alignment test seven times (exception: neutral non-wizard)
4. With the Amulet of Yendor remaining in the quest dungeon branch, getting expelled (exception: leader still alive; must be a wizard, neutral, or able to convert to neutral)
5. On the Astral Plane, after offering the Amulet of Yendor to your god but before ascending, saving the game via hangup

The exceptions are what can be overcome using the Eye of the Aethiopica and/or a helm of opposite alignment.

These actions make it impossible to obtain the Bell of Opening from the quest nemesis, or to get the Amulet of Yendor back out of the quest branch, or perform the Invocation - all of these are necessary to win.

The best a player can do in an unwinnable situation is to escape the dungeon with the Candelabrum of Invocation, the Book of the Dead and any other sources of bragging rights.

Permanently converting your alignment

If the player unsuccessfully performs an altar conversion by sacrificing at a cross-aligned altar with negative alignment record, he or she is permanently converted to the alignment of the altar. If done before they obtain permission to proceed down from the quest leader, the game is made unwinnable: a hero's alignment cannot be converted back to any previously held alignment by means of an altar, and the quest leader will "see through" a helm of opposite alignment; furthermore, you cannot go down or level teleport from the quest home level, even with prior permission, if you are not of your original alignment.

The above situation can be overcome with a helm of opposite alignment, which also changes the hero's alignment, but only while the helm is worn. As such, it does not render the game unwinnable, since removing the helm (which usually requires uncursing it due to its autocursing nature) restores the character's previous alignment. Note that you cannot put on the helm in the quest branch, with a somewhat misleading message being printed if you try:

You narrowly avoid losing all chance at your goal

Getting expelled

A second case is if the quest portal has been removed because you have angered the quest leader, or have failed their alignment record test seven times. Don't throw the silver bell or the Amulet of Yendor at them!

In this case, you will not be able to enter the quest branch at all by normal means. If you do branchport in, you will have to pacify your quest leader before you can get permission to go down.

If you threw the Amulet of Yendor at the quest leader, it is trapped in the quest branch. Once the portal is gone, the only way to get it out is to get expelled again while carrying it. The quest leader still has to be alive for this to work.

Entering the quest at all requires the player is neutral, is not a wizard, and has previously entered the quest branch: the player can wish for the Eye of the Aethiopica to branchport to the quest. (You have to have visited the quest once already because the Eye will not open a portal to a branch you haven't been to, and it will only drop you as deep as you have already gone before.)

Dead quest leader

If the quest leader is killed or level teleports before you get permission to go down, the game will also be unwinnable. (Monsters will read scrolls of teleportation when they are low on hit points.) Luckily, the leader is generated meditating, and a peaceful one will only be attacked by pets under conflict, so a levelporting leader is extremely rare. Due to a bug, a petrified quest leader brought back with stone to flesh or one that has been revived will not grant permission. Additionally, only the actual monster can grant or deny permission; a doppelganger imitating them through some means (e.g. using stone to flesh on a statue of a quest guardian or leader) does not count.

The same restrictions apply to expulsion from the quest, in case you are trying to leave it with the Amulet.

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.

Per commit 20cbadcf, being expelled from the Quest no longer seals off the branch by removing the portal, meaning that the game is no longer unwinnable: the quest leader will be hostile when you re-enter the level, and you may either pacify the leader and get their approval to enter the Quest normally, or you may kill them: doing so increases your god's anger by 7, sets your base luck to -4, applies a -20 luck penalty, and forfeits the alignment record bonus from killing the quest nemesis.

History

In NetHack 3.4.3, the Candelabrum would become permanently unusable if you turned it on with fuel for exactly one more turn and you are not on the vibrating square. This is Bug C343-424, and it was fixed in August 2011.

In 3.4.3, it is possible to destroy the Book of the Dead by walking into lava without fire resistance. Doing so will destroy every fire-vulnerable item in your inventory, and the Book of the Dead is not exempt, so a hero that survives via an amulet of life saving will find the Book lost forever. This was fixed in NetHack 3.6.0, where the Book is protected against fire of any kind.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, the six innermost doors on the highest level of Vlad's Tower are indestructible, protecting Vlad the Impaler and the Candelabrum of Invocation. They are opened by the alignment keys, artifact skeleton keys which can be destroyed like any other item (e.g. eaten by a metallivore). While the destruction of the keys would seem to render the game unwinnable, it does not: Vlad can be woken by such means as a drum of earthquake or a psychic blast from a tame mind flayer or a hero polymorphed into one, and he will then warp to the player, carrying the Candelabrum. Alternately, an appropriate covetous monster can be lured to his level, which will then warp to him and wake him up.

A considerably tougher situation can be created by trapping oneself inside Vlad's chambers, with the keys either destroyed or simply outside. This is actually not too difficult to do: quaffing a cursed potion of gain level on the floor below can leave you inside the locked doors, as can more obscure means such as re-locking the doors and eating the keys. As the walls and floor of Vlad's Tower are undiggable and the level is no-teleport, the only means of escape is some form of level teleportation or branchporting. A hero lacking such a means would be required to wait around until an appropriate item is generated from a death drop, and this is not guaranteed to occur before all suitable monsters are rendered extinct—particularly in SLASH'EM where non-humanoid monsters never leave death drops. In order to guarantee an eventual escape, a hero would need to exploit a monster capable of casting summon nasties, which does not respect extinction.

Sporkhack

If the quest leader dies, the stairs are automatically unlocked, to avoid issues with unwinnable games.

dNetHack

One of the artifacts, The Silver Key, can be used to perform the Invocation instead of the Bell of Opening. This lets the game become winnable even if blocked from the quest.

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.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-361}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.