Exercise
If you play NetHack, then you want to exercise your attributes to help the hero survive the dungeon. Though increases in experience level might grant you more hit points and power, the hero requires boosts to attributes to fight well and succeed in more situations.
Of the six attributes (strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom and charisma), you can only exercise four; there is no way to exercise intelligence or charisma. However, charisma can be increased by stepping into a magic trap, and intelligence by eating a mind flayer corpse or quaffing a blessed potion of enlightenment. All attributes can be raised by quaffing a (blessed) potion of gain ability or drinking from a magic fountain (best if Luck >=4).
Here are examples of how to exercise strength, dexterity, constitution, and wisdom:
- Push boulders around for strength.
- Wield a blade and #force open locked chests for dexterity.
- Eat and avoid becoming hungry or satiated for constitution.
- Engrave Elbereth with uppercase "E" and lowercase "lbereth" for wisdom.
You should already be exercising during normal gameplay. However, exercise does not cause immediate gains in your attributes. Instead, exercise has a (18 - current respective attribute value) in 19 chance of incrementing the respective counter, but the counter is capped at 50.[1] NetHack does checks at certain times. During a check, each attribute that is less than 18 has a (counter+1) in (current respective attribute value) of being increased, except for Wisdom, where the chance is (two thirds of counter (rounded down) +1) in (current respective attribute value), then the counter of each increased attribute is set to zero and the counters of all attributes are halved.[2] The first check happens on turn 600. Subsequent checks occur at random intervals from 800 (inclusive) to 1000 (exclusive) turns[3] from the last one. On a game restore, if the first check has happened, the next check is set to happen from 800 (inclusive) to 850 (exclusive) turns afterwards.[4] However, increases become less likely over time.
Abuse
- For abuse of pets, see Tameness#Abuse.
Abuse is the opposite of exercise. Acts of abuse can undo exercise, or even cause your strength, dexterity, constitution or wisdom to drop. If your stats get lowered, use a unicorn horn to heal any such loss. Note that in SporkHack, this won't work - use a potion or spell of restore ability, instead.
