Wand of cold
| / | |
|---|---|
| Name | cold |
| Appearance | random |
| Abundance | 4% |
| Base price | 175 zm |
| Weight | 7 |
| Type | ray |
| Maximum charges | 8 |
| Spell | cone of cold |
| Monster use | May be used offensively by monsters. |
The wand of cold is a wand that appears in NetHack.
Contents
Effects
Zapping the wand in a given direction will shoot a ray of ice that deals 6d6 damage to non-cold resistant targets, and an additional 3d6 damage if the monster is fire resistant;[1] and possibly freezing any potions in their inventory, destroying them. The ray bounces when it hits walls or targets with reflection, and freezes any moat of water it travels over into ice; it will not affect potions left on the ground.
Engraving with a wand of cold will cause a few ice cubes to drop from the wand; this message is unique to the wand, but does not auto-identify it. Doing so over a burned engraving will make it vanish.
Applying a wand of cold to break it will create a damaging magical explosion of cold in a 3×3 square centered on you. See breaking wands for details.
Strategy
The wand of cold can be especially deadly against vulnerable monsters if you have a means of rebounding or reflecting the ray back at them. A wand of cold can also be used to retrieve any of the invocation items from moats of water or lava by freezing it; the invocation item will then appear on top.
In scenarios where a player lacks levitation or water walking boots, a wand of cold with sufficient charges can be a good choice if you need to cross water - try to make the shortest ice bridges possible in order to conserve charges. The ice will prove slippery, and may potentially melt away, raising the possibility of being stranded (although the ice may become permanent instead). Additionally, be careful of monsters with fire attacks!
In the event of much larger crossings, such as Medusa's Island in most cases, zapping a wand of digging downward is usually a better idea. You might even choose to continue to the Castle, collect its loot and the wand of wishing, and come back up through Medusa's downstair with better equipment;[2] very rarely, you may want to head even further down to Vlad's Tower for the guaranteed water walking boots.
Message
- A few ice cubes drop from the wand.
- You engraved something on the floor with a wand of cold.
Variants
In xNetHack, engraving with the wand of cold will auto-identify it.
