Alchemy smock
The alchemy smock is a type of cloak that appears in NetHack. It is made of cloth and appears as an apron when unidentified.
Contents
Effects
When worn, an alchemy smock provides 1 point of AC along with acid resistance, poison resistance and MC1 - despite the name, it has no actual effects on alchemy. Reading an alchemy smock will generate one of many cooking-related YAFMs, similarly to T-shirts.[1]
Strangely, monsters wearing an alchemy smock will not actually obtain acid resistance this way.
Strategy
An early alchemy smock is quite useful for non-orcish players, allowing them to safely eat poisonous corpses such as killer bees to gain poison resistance as an intrinsic. Past this point, the alchemy smock can still be useful as a means of granting poison resistance to humanoid pets that lack it.
It is also one of the few extrinsic sources of acid resistance, with the others being yellow dragon scales or the corresponding dragon scale mail. However, acid damage is infrequent and avoidable enough for players through other means that the alchemy smock is usually not considered necessary for this purpose, and pets cannot obtain acid resistance from it.
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.
Pets can now gain intrinsics from eating corpses, providing other methods for humanoid pets to gain poison resistance.History
The alchemy smock is introduced in NetHack 3.3.0. The ability to read alchemy smocks was added in 3.6.0.
Messages
The possible messages displayed from reading an alchemy smock are:
- "Kiss the cook"
- "I'm making SCIENCE!"
- "Don't mess with the chef"
- "Don't make me poison you"
- "Gehennom's Kitchen"
- "Rat: The other white meat"
- "If you can't stand the heat, get out of Gehennom!"
- "If we weren't meant to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?"
- "If you don't like the food, I'll stab you"
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, the alchemy smock is replaced with the lab coat, which provides the same properties but also grants MC3. The presence of more powerful acidic monsters such as giant shoggoths also make it far more desirable to seek out.
NetHack brass
In NetHack brass, the frilled apron also appears as just an apron when unidentified, though wearing a non-cursed apron can easily distinguish which of the two it is.
References
- ↑ apron_text in read.c
