Potion of levitation
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| |
|---|---|
| Name | levitation |
| Appearance | random |
| Base price | 200 zm |
| Weight | 20 |
| Monster use | Will not be used by monsters. |
The potion of levitation causes you to levitate.
A blessed potion will make you levitate for 250–299 more turns, an uncursed potion will give you 10–149 more turns, and a cursed potion will give you 0 more turns. Regardless of potion beatitude, if you are not already levitating, you get 1 more turn of levitation.[1][2][3] These stack with any current levitation timeout you have; for example, quaffing four blessed potions of levitation in quick succession will provide 1001 to 1197 total turns.
In addition, upon quaffing a blessed potion, you become able to end your levitation at will with the > key (unless you have extrinsic levitation from some other source that would prevent this). This only lasts until the end of your current levitation - it is not a permanent benefit.
Quaffing a cursed potion also has additional effects. If you were already levitating and had the ability to land at will, you lose this ability. If you were not already levitating, you hit your head on the ceiling and suffer d10 points of damage (d6 damage if you are wearing any helm; d3 damage if the helm is metallic), unless you happen to be standing on an upstair. In that case, you will be treated as if you had entered the < command.
This potion is used in only one alchemy recipe: it can be mixed with the potion of enlightenment to sometimes produce the potion of gain level.
Contents
Messages
Most of the potential messages produced by this potion are the same ones that any levitation source would produce. See Levitation#Messages for those.
- "You have a peculiar feeling for a moment, then it passes."
- The potion was cursed, and you were already levitating or on the Plane of Water.
- "You have a normal feeling for a moment, then it passes."
- The potion was cursed, you were already levitating or on the Plane of Water, and you are hallucinating.
- "You hit your <head> on the <ceiling>."
- The potion was cursed and you are neither on the Plane of Water nor on an upstair.
Strategy
This potion is useful in a few scenarios in which you have to cross terrain-based obstacles that can be crossed via levitation. Specific examples include:
- Medusa's Island, if you prefer not to dig down and return from the other side
- The Plane of Air, in which levitation allows you to control your movements
- The Plane of Fire, with a lot of lava hazards
- Juiblex's swamp
- The trap door corridor in the Castle
- The lower levels of the Valkyrie quest
In many of these scenarios, if you have a different source of levitation such as a ring, it may be preferred to use that instead of the potion, because it allows you to save the potion for diluting or cancelling later. However, it is often worth it to save one or two blessed potions for the Plane of Air (at a typical pace, and if you use a portal detection methods, the duration of one potion will last you through the Plane of Fire) because that allows you to avoid using a ring or boots slot on levitation.
Another minor advantage of the potion over gear-based levitation is that there is no way to have your levitation gear destroyed or stolen, dropping you into water or lava for a possible instadeath; both rings and boots can be removed by a foocubus or nymph, and rings of levitation can be destroyed by electric damage, while boots of levitation can be destroyed by a spellcaster. (Gremlins cannot steal intrinsic levitation.) On the other hand, with a blessed potion of levitation, it is possible to accidentally press the > key over open water and instantly drown, which is a much easier typo to make than accidentally removing levitation gear, so this poses its own dangers.
See also
References
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 1033: You get 1 extra turn if you were not already levitating.
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 1067: blessed
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 1071: uncursed
