Magicbane

)   Magicbane
Base item	athame
Damage vs. small	1d4 + 1d4 + (special) (2-8)
Damage vs. large	1d3 + 1d4 + (special) (2-7)
To-hit bonus	+2 +1d3
Bonus versus	fail monster MR check or player without MR
Weapon skill	dagger
Size	one-handed
Affiliation	neutral (Wizard)
When carried	(none)
When wielded	magic resistance blocks 95% of curses special attacks
When invoked	(none)
Base price	3500 zm
Weight	10
Material	iron

Magicbane is an artifact athame. It is considered a dagger for skill purposes, and has a 40% chance of having a magical effect on the victim as well inflicting damage. Throwing Magicbane can have the same effect on a monster it hits. Care should be taken not to throw at an enemy that can pick it up and wield it, conferring magic resistance to the monster. The "bonus" effects that Magicbane can produce are:

• Cancel monster
• Probe monster
• Stun monster
• Scare monster

Any bonus effect adds an additional 1d4 damage. Though the chance of some type of magical bonus effect is always 40%, Magicbane's level of enchantment affects the probability of each type of effect differently. Magicbane enchanted to +2 has the best chance of inflicting valuable magical effects, but the average damage it inflicts increases with each level of enchantment. It can be safely enchanted to +7 (but stop enchanting it once it reaches +6!), which is typically desirable for dealing maximum damage as primary weapon.

Magicbane has two reactions if it's enchanted to +0 or above:

• "Your right hand itches!" (+0 or +1)
• "Your right hand flinches" (+2 or higher)

In addition, Magicbane catches and resists 95% of curses sent to the wielder and gives magic resistance. Like all athames, when blessed or uncursed Magicbane can also engrave Elbereth without dulling and in one turn, albeit not permanently. While being wielded, Magicbane nullifies the effects of magical traps: teleport, polymorph, and level teleport. This is especially useful against polymorph traps.

Wizards receive Magicbane as their first gift from their god after sacrificing at an altar. Arch-liches have a miniscule (1/1170, or approximately 0.085%) chance of being generated with Magicbane. Even hunting them until extinction yields only a 9.75% chance of Magicbane appearing.

Magicbane, like all artifacts, resists being dual-wielded as a second weapon.

Damage

The base damage is 1d4 to small monsters and 1d3 to large monsters. If the monster fails a magic resistance check, an additional 1d4 damage is added to the base damage. There is a 8 / 20 (40%) chance of an additional +1d4 damage and possibly more. Given there is additional damage:

• There is a chance of an additional +1d4 stun damage.
  • If the monster failed the previous magic resistance check, the probability of this stun damage is $\frac{10 - \max(\mathrm{enchantment}, 0)}{11}$.
  • If the monster passed the magic resistance check, the probability of this stun damage is $\frac{6 - \max(\mathrm{enchantment}, 0)}{7}$.
• The is a chance of an additional +1d4 scare damage or +2d4 scare & cancellation damage.
  • The roll for scare or cancellation damage is scaled by $z = 2^{\max(\mathrm{enchantment}, 0) \; \mathrm{div} \;3}$, where $\mathrm{div}$ is integer division. The base roll for scare damage is $R_{\mathrm{scare}} = 4 \; \mathrm{div} \; z$ and the base roll for cancellation damage is $R_{\mathrm{cancel}} = 2 \; \mathrm{div} \; z$.
    • If the monster failed the previous magic resistance check, the probability of scare damage is simply $p_{\mathrm{scare}} = \frac{R_{\mathrm{scare}}}{8}$ and the probability of cancellation damage is simply $p_{\mathrm{cancel}} = \frac{R_{\mathrm{cancel}}}{8}$.
    • If the monster passed the previous magic resistance check, the probability of scare damage is $p_{\mathrm{scare}} = \frac{\max(R_{\mathrm{scare}} - 1, 0)}{8}$ and the probability of cancellation damage is $p_{\mathrm{cancel}} = \frac{\max(R_{\mathrm{cancel}} - 1, 0)}{8}$.
  • Exactly one of the following occurs:
    • The probability of +1d4 scare damage is $p_{\mathrm{scare}} - p_{\mathrm{cancel}}$.
    • The probability of +2d4 scare & cancellation damage is $p_{\mathrm{cancel}}$. (Note that this means there is a $p_{\mathrm{scare}}$ probability of +1d4 scare and a $p_{\mathrm{cancel}}$ probability of +1d4 cancellation, which is used in the table below.)
    • The probability of no scare or cancellation damage is $1 - p_{\mathrm{scare}} - p_{\mathrm{cancel}}$.
      • If there is also no stun damage, the attack probes.

The monster can resist the effects of stun, scare, probe, & cancellation, but not the damage they cause.

Enchantment	Monster Resisted	Base Damage	Chance of +1d4 Extra	Chance of +1d4 Stun	Chance of +1d4 Scare	Chance of +1d4 Cancel	Mean Damage
+0	No	(1d4 or 1d3) + 1d4	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 10 / 11	4 / 20	2 / 20	7.66 or 7.16
	Yes	1d4 or 1d3	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 6 / 7	3 / 20	1 / 20	4.86 or 4.36
+1	No	(1d4 or 1d3) + 1d4 + 1	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 9 / 11	4 / 20	2 / 20	8.57 or 8.07
	Yes	(1d4 or 1d3) + 1	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 5 / 7	3 / 20	1 / 20	5.71 or 5.21
+2	No	(1d4 or 1d3) + 1d4 + 2	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 8 / 11	4 / 20	2 / 20	9.48 or 8.98
	Yes	(1d4 or 1d3) + 2	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 4 / 7	3 / 20	1 / 20	6.57 or 6.07
+3	No	(1d4 or 1d3) + 1d4 + 3	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 7 / 11	2 / 20	0 / 20	10.01 or 9.51
	Yes	(1d4 or 1d3) + 3	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 3 / 7	1 / 20	0 / 20	7.05 or 6.55
+4	No	(1d4 or 1d3) + 1d4 + 4	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 6 / 11	2 / 20	0 / 20	10.92 or 10.42
	Yes	(1d4 or 1d3) + 4	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 2 / 7	1 / 20	0 / 20	7.91 or 7.41
+5	No	(1d4 or 1d3) + 1d4 + 5	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 5 / 11	2 / 20	0 / 20	11.83 or 11.33
	Yes	(1d4 or 1d3) + 5	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 1 / 7	1 / 20	0 / 20	8.77 or 8.27
+6	No	(1d4 or 1d3) + 1d4 + 6	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 4 / 11	1 / 20	0 / 20	12.49 or 11.99
	Yes	(1d4 or 1d3) + 6	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 0 / 7	0 / 20	0 / 20	9.5 or 9
+7	No	(1d4 or 1d3) + 1d4 + 7	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 3 / 11	1 / 20	0 / 20	13.40 or 12.90
	Yes	(1d4 or 1d3) + 7	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 0 / 7	0 / 20	0 / 20	10.5 or 10
+8	No	(1d4 or 1d3) + 1d4 + 8	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 2 / 11	1 / 20	0 / 20	14.31 or 13.81
	Yes	(1d4 or 1d3) + 8	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 0 / 7	0 / 20	0 / 20	11.5 or 11
+9	No	(1d4 or 1d3) + 1d4 + 9	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 1 / 11	0 / 20	0 / 20	15.09 or 14.59
	Yes	(1d4 or 1d3) + 9	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 0 / 7	0 / 20	0 / 20	12.5 or 12
+10 or more	No	(1d4 or 1d3) + 1d4 + Enchantment	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 0 / 11	0 / 20	0 / 20	(6 or 5.5) + Enchantment
	Yes	(1d4 or 1d3) + Enchantment	8 / 20	8 / 20 * 0 / 7	0 / 20	0 / 20	(3.5 or 3) + Enchantment

Strength, skill and blessed damage bonuses are also added.

Hallucination messages

If hallucinating, the Magicbane bonus damage (and effect) messages change to suitably warped messages, such as amaze, purge and tickle. The effects they correspond to are randomized, but are still in effect.

SLASH'EM

)   Magicbane
Base item	athame
Damage vs. small	1d4 + 4 + (special) (2-8)
Damage vs. large	1d3 + 4 + (special) (2-7)
To-hit bonus	+2 +3
Bonus versus	fail monster MR check or player without MR
Weapon skill	dagger
Size	one-handed
Affiliation	neutral (Wizard)
When carried	(none)
When wielded	magic resistance blocks 95% of curses special attacks
When invoked	(none)
Base price	3500 zm
Weight	10
Material	iron

The damage is the same in SLASH'EM, except failing a magic resistance check adds +4, not +1d4. (In the table above, this is replacing '+ 1d4' with '+ 4' in the base damage column when 'Monster Resisted' is 'No', which adds 1.5 to the mean damage in these cases.)

References

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It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-343}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.