Amulet of unchanging

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" Circular amulet.png
Name amulet of unchanging
Appearance random
Base price 150 zm
Weight 20

The amulet of unchanging is an amulet that appears in NetHack.

Generation

There is a 4.5% chance that a randomly-generated amulet will be an amulet of unchanging, making it the least generated amulet.

Effects

The amulet prevents polymorphing and other means of changing form, and also protects the wearer from sliming; if you put one on while suffering from sliming, it is aborted. It does not prevent being turned to stone. If you eat the amulet, you are "un-changed" and revert to your normal form.

In most cases, if you die while polymorphed and wearing an amulet of unchanging, you will not revert to your normal form, and will instead die. However, if you polymorph into a wood or leather golem and get rotted away by a brown pudding, or polymorph into an iron golem and get rusted, you will resume your normal form. If you are polymorphed and decline to die in explore or wizard mode, you will also resume your normal form.

A lawful player who prays while in undead form will return to their normal form, even with the amulet.

Strategy

If discovered early, this can be a good substitute for magic resistance in early areas where polymorph traps are a big threat, particularly the Gnomish Mines beyond Minetown. If you are riding and do not have magic resistance, an amulet of unchanging will also protect your steed from polymorph traps. Moreover, they can be used to permanently remain in a particular polymorph form; this is somewhat risky, of course, since you will die permanently if your HP is drained to zero, but can be useful if you lack a reusable source of polymorph. It can also become a literal life-saver if you accidentally genocide your role or race while polymorphed.

Identification

Because uncontrolled polymorphing and being slimed are both potentially dangerous if the amulet isn't unchanging, and losing all HP while polymorphed is lethal if it is unchanging, this is a relatively difficult amulet to identify safely. The easiest way is probably to eat a mimic corpse while wearing the unidentified amulet. If you don't mimic gold or an orange, the amulet is unchanging. If you do, the amulet isn't unchanging, you won't break or fall out of your armor, and if a monster tries to pick you up, you return to normal form immediately.

If you're following the vegetarian or vegan conducts, an alternative would be to polymorph yourself while wearing the amulet and a ring of polymorph control, specifying a safe form if you do polymorph. If you intend to use a polytrap for this purpose, you must remove any source of magic resistance as well. If the amulet is unchanging, the polymorph trap will not disappear and you will receive the message, "You feel momentarily different."

Variants

In UnNetHack, amulets of unchanging cannot be polymorphed.

See also

This page is based on a spoiler by Dylan O'Donnell. The original license is:

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