Wand of striking
| / | |
|---|---|
| Name | striking |
| Appearance | random |
| Abundance | 7.5% |
| Base price | 150 zm |
| Weight | 7 |
| Type | beam |
| Maximum charges | 8 |
| Spell | force bolt |
| Monster use | May be used offensively by monsters. |
A wand of striking is a type of wand that appears in NetHack.
Contents
Generation
Wizards may be given a wand of striking as the random wand in their starting inventory.[1]
Wands of striking make up 3⁄40 (7.5%) of all randomly-generated wands. General stores and "quality apparel and accessories" shops can sell wands of striking.
Three wands of striking with no charges are generated in the Orcish Town map of Minetown at level creation.[2]
Shopkeepers are always generated with a wand of striking.[3]
Dispater is always generated with a wand of striking.[4]
Randomly created intelligent monsters may be generated with a wand of striking as a offensive item, and will be given one in place of a scroll of earth if they are generated without a hard helm.[5][6]
Wands of striking are created with 4 to 8 charges.
Description
Zapping this wand has mostly the same effects as the force bolt spell:[7] the bolt rolls against the AC of any monster in its path, skipping this check if zapped by the hero at a monster engulfing them, and if the roll is lower than the target's AC plus 10, it hits and deals 2d12 damage subject to MR score and half spell damage. Monsters will use this wand, with hostile monsters zapping it at the hero. Magic resistance blocks the effects of the wand.[8] A Knight carrying the Magic Mirror of Merlin in open inventory deals double damage to monsters when zapping the wand.[9][10][11]
Boulders and statues in the zap's path will crumble into rocks, while doors, drawbridges (on either square that they occupy) and fragile items are destroyed[12][13][14][15][16]—this includes any inventory from monsters killed by the wand. Statue traps hit by the wand will instead activate.[17]
A hero zapping the wand at themselves will take 2d12 damage and abuse strength unless they have magic resistance.[18]
Zapping the wand upward has a 2⁄3 of dislodging a rock from the ceiling and cause it to fall on the hero's head, dealing up to 6 damage (or up to 2 if they are wearing a hard helm), and has no effect in areas without a ceiling.[19][20] Zapping the wand downward wipes 2-8 letters from any engraving on that square, and doing so over a trap door will shatter the door and turn it into a hole that the hero may then fall into, unless they are levitating or flying.[21][22]
The wand is auto-identified if the hero zaps it at a monster and sees it hit or miss, if the hero sees a monster zap the wand at them and it hits them or is nullified by magic resistance, or else if they see it destroy an object or any dungeon features. Engraving with a wand of striking gives a distinct message, but does not auto-identify the wand.[23]
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.
Per commit 97238fc0 and commit 9ee55d87, an unidentified wand of striking will auto-identify only if it hits a target that the hero can see, and a monster that sees the hero resist the wand (or fail to resist) will remember accordingly.
Per commit 8b5e9ead, the beam from a wand of striking will not destroy a drawbridge just by passing over the other square while it is closed.
Per commit cbb0f907, dropping a wand of striking while levitating or flying causes it to "strike" the floor rather than "hit" it, providing a means to informally identify it without using up any charges, though dropping any wand made of glass while levitating will cause it to break.Strategy
The wand of striking is slightly better than the wand of magic missile for dealing damage: though it fires a beam that cannot rebound like a ray does, it also cannot be stopped by reflection, though magic resistance still nullifies it. On the other hand, the magic missile spell becomes much more damaging and reliable at experience level 6, and the wand's reliance on beating a target's AC makes it unreliable from around the mid-game on: monsters with 0 AC or better become more commonplace, and monsters with much higher MR scores can lower the potential damage. Additionally, using the wand against nymphs is perilous, since they are likely to be carrying a mirror that will break if the wand kills them, resulting in a -2 luck penalty.
Outside of combat, the wand is somewhat useful for blasting through boulders that block the hero's path: remember that doing so in Sokoban carries a -1 luck penalty, and be careful that there are no peacefuls in the beam's path! A wand of striking is also worth keeping on hand for heroes who do not care about the passtune and want to enter the Castle as quickly as possible by destroying its drawbridge. Conversely, the wand of striking is perhaps the worst thing a hero can encounter when crossing any drawbridge (e.g. on the Valkyrie quest), since a monster with the wand is likely to pick the moment you are over its square to zap you by sheer happenstance, resulting in an unceremonious instant death—a daring hero can inflict the same fate upon other monsters if they so choose, though they can only utilize this once per drawbridge.
Polymorph
Some players going for a speed ascension and/or digging for victory may opt to polypile for the wand if they have not yet found it—the table below details the odds and given confidence of creating a wand of striking this way, not accounting for shuddering from system shock:
| Confidence | 7.5⁄95 | 25% | 50% | 60% | 75% | 85% | 90% | 95% | 99% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Polymorphs | 1 | 3.5 | 8.43 | 11.14 | 16.86 | 23.07 | 28 | 36.43 | 56 |
History
The wand of striking appears in Hack 1.21, which is based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, and is included in the initial item list for Hack 1.0. Wands and staves of striking also appear in Rogue v4 and earlier versions, where they never miss and deal 1d8+3 damage with a 1⁄20 chance of dealing 3d8+9 damage instead (average 8.95).
In NetHack 3.4.3 and some previous versions, including variants based on these versions, the wand of striking is subject to some bugs that are fixed in later versions and most variants:
- If a monster carrying a potion of acid is crushed with a drawbridge, or a force bolt or zapped wand of striking blows up the drawbridge underneath it, the game may panic. This is bug C343-179.
Messages
- The wand hits <the monster>!
- You zapped a monster with a wand of striking.
- The wand misses <the monster>.
- As above, but the zap missed.
- The wand hits you!
- You were zapped by a wand of striking.
- The wand misses you.
- As above, but the zap missed.
- Boing!
- The wand was resisted with a source of magic resistance.
- The wand unsuccessfully fights your attempt to write!
- You engraved with a wand of striking—the message is a pun on a writers' strike.
Variants
Some variants of NetHack make it so that engraving with a wand of striking auto-identifies it.
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, two wands of striking are generated in the area outside of the drawbridges of Moloch's Sanctum at level creation.
AceHack
In AceHack, engraving with a wand of striking will formally identify the item type.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, iron bars can be broken by zapping the wand of striking at them.
The inverted ziggurat map inclusion can contain a buried iron chest with a wand of striking inside.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, the wand of striking will knock any monster it hits 1 space back if it deals 16 or more damage. Iron bars can also be broken with a wand of striking, and engraving with a wand of striking will formally identify the item type.
References
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 164
- ↑ dat/mines.des in NetHack 3.6.7, line 147
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 675
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 499
- ↑ src/muse.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1588
- ↑ src/muse.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1592
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 157
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 164
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 142
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 170
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3750
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1950
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2860
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3315
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3432
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 4656
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2099
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2279
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2861
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2876
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2893
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2981
- ↑ src/engrave.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 668
