User:Umbire the Phantom/Luck item

A luck item is a general term for any item in NetHack that changes your Luck and Luck timeout, such as a luckstone. Specifically, many artifacts are designated to "act as a luckstone" when carried, and function in the exact same way as one in addition to any other effects.

List of luck items

• Luckstone
  • The Heart of Ahriman
• The Tsurugi of Muramasa
• The Orb of Fate

Strategy

Since all luck items in vanilla NetHack outside of the luckstone are quest artifacts, the ability to obtain a luck item can render the guaranteed luckstone within Mines' End redundant; such characters may elect to postpone their trip to the Gnomish Mines in favor of Sokoban, for example, or else will choose not to proceed beyond Minetown. On the other hand, players may want a luckstone to tide them over until they obtain their luck item.

There is little tangible benefit to carrying multiple luck items outside of a container; with non-negative base Luck, blessing is not strictly necessary in terms of luck timeout, except to prevent the luck item becoming cursed. However, other luck items are often preferred over plain luckstones due to the other benefits from their base items - as all of them are also quest artifacts, they are intelligent and will resist the curse items spell 80% of the time. This makes blessing them an unambiguous boon, and the quest artifact for your role will always be generated as blessed.

Variants

Luckblade is an artifact weapon that appears in many variants and acts as a luckstone when carried.

TNNT

The November NetHack Tournament introduces the Really Cool Shirt, an artifact T-shirt given for completing the dev team's quest that acts as a luckstone while carried.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, the Convict quest artifact, The Iron Spoon of Liberation, acts as a luckstone.

NetHack brass

The katyusha acts as a luck item if worn by a female character in a maid dress.

References

• SPFX_LUCK in artilist.he
• artifact.c, line 298