Amulet of life saving
An amulet of life saving is a type of amulet that appears in NetHack.
Contents
Generation
7.5% of randomly generated amulets will be an amulet of life saving. The amulet will generate as uncursed 9⁄10 of the time, blessed 1⁄20 of the time, and cursed 1⁄20 of the time.[1]
An amulet of life saving is generated inside a chest within a niche on the middle floor of Vlad's Tower during normal level creation.[2]
Description
A character or monster that dies while wearing the amulet will have their life saved by the amulet, which restores them to full hit points and disintegrates - the amulet will auto-identify itself if its effect is seen. Specifically, the following occurs for a character whose life is saved by the amulet:[3][4]
- They lose a point of constitution.[5]
- Their hit points are restored to the maximum - if said maximum is lower than either 10 or twice the character's experience level, then it is raised to the higher value of the two.
- Their nutrition is set to a minimum of 500 unless they died of choking, in which case it is set to 900 and they vomit.
- Sickness that would kill the character immediately after they revive is cured.
- A character trapped in lava additionally becomes untrapped.
- A character that is totally digested will additionally be regurgitated.[6]
- A character killed by a drowning attack will additionally be released from the grip of the monster that drowned them upon reviving.[7]
- A character killed by sliming will be revived as a green slime, which is treated as a temporary polymorph rather than an irreversible tranformation and wears off as normal.
Life saving will not successfully resurrect a character in the following circumstances:
- Trickery forfeits the game rather than killing the character, so it ignores life saving entirely and does not generate bones - in wizard mode, the game will print a message acknowledging the trickery and delete the offending level files, allowing play to continue.
- Death by self-genocide or brainlessness will cause the character to die again immediately. A player in explore mode or wizard mode can choose not to die:
- If a character in either mode chooses not to die from genocide, all other genocided monsters will still be wiped out.
- If a character in either mode chooses not to die from brainlessness, their intelligence is set to 5 before applying attribute loss from the successful brain-eating attack.
- Level teleporting to a negative dungeon level causes the game to end regardless of life saving, though a character whose life is saved in this case will escape the dungeon rather than dying.[8][9]
- Level teleporting to level 0 does not count, as 0 is a non-negative level: the character will cease to exist instead, which life saving can reverse as normal.[10]
- Offering the Amulet of Yendor to Moloch on the high altar in his Sanctum causes the game to end regardless of life saving: Moloch retains dominion over your god and kills you, and then reduces you to dust if life saving occurs[11] - in explore mode or wizard mode, declining to die will force the character to escape the dungeon and end the game.[12]
Having a character's life saved breaks the survivor semi-conduct.
Monsters will wear the amulet of life saving unless they are nonliving, and it has no effect on nonliving monsters, including shapeshifted vampires[13] - the amulet of life saving is the only other amulet that monsters will actively use besides the amulet of reflection. The amulet does not protect a monster wearing it from genocide, though it will still activate and be destroyed before the monster dies again; it can save a monster wearing one from death by intelligence drain attacks, which only deals bonus damage to non-mindless targets when used against monsters. Monsters that have their life saved by the amulet do not award experience, but a character "killing" one this way still breaks pacifist conduct.
Eating an amulet of life saving will have no effect.[14]
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.
Per commit 09cf4648, the amulet of life saving only restores up to 50+10*⌊constitution/2⌋ hit points, which comes up to 60 HP at 3 constitution, and 170 HP at 25 constitution.Strategy
Some players consider the amulet of life saving an essential part of the ascension kit, but others call it the "amulet versus YASD" and point out that another amulet is much more useful with various armor combinations. It also increases the level of risk a character can afford, which lowers resource consumption (particularly in the Endgame). For an early character, an amulet of reflection may be a better choice since it can save their life many times over - being resurrected after dying from a winter wolf cub's frost breath, for example, is little consolation if the winter wolf is still around.
Since the amulet works regardless of beatitude, the most common reason for one not working is forgetting to put it on.
Retrieving amulets of life saving
It can be extremely aggravating having an amulet of life saving stolen, usually by a nymph, or else noticing that a monster has picked one up: this makes it near-impossible to retrieve, since the monster will usually put it on as soon as you are anywhere in their vicinity. Thankfully, it is possible to retrieve an amulet before it is put on, and in some cases even after it is worn:
- Kill or tame the offending monster: monsters drop any unused inventory items on taming, and this should include the amulet if it is not yet worn. Nymphs in particular do not wear items immediately after stealing them, putting it on the next time they pick any item up - this also occurs or if she polymorphs, assuming the new form can put amulets on. Killing the nymph before either occurs allows the amulet to be retrieved.
- Polymorph into a nymph and steal it back: This has the added advantage of preventing nymphs stealing further items from a character in that form.
- Polymorph the offending monster into a form that cannot wear or use the amulet, e.g. an undead creature, a golem, a vortex, or a manes: this is most easily done by using a nearby polymorph trap after taming the monster, since the other means of polymorph risk killing them by system shock and using up the amulet.
History
The amulet of life saving first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.
Messages
- But wait... Your medallion begins to glow! You feel much better! The medallion crumbles to dust!
- You died, but were resurrected by the amulet.
- But wait... Your medallion feels warm! You feel much better! The medallion crumbles to dust!
- As above, while blind.
- Unfortunately your brain is still gone.
- You died and were resurrected as above, and then died again from brainlessness.
- Unfortunately you are still genocided...
- You died and were resurrected as above, and then died again from genocide.
- An energized cloud of dust begins to coalesce. Your body rematerializes, and you gather up all your possessions.
- You were resurrected after teleporting to dungeon level 0.[15][16]
- Your life will be saved.
- You have life saving as viewed via enlightenment.
- But wait... <monster>'s medallion begins to glow! <monster> looks much better! The medallion crumbles to dust!
- A monster died wearing the amulet. The amulet is identified.
- But wait... <monster>'s medallion begins to glow! <monster> reconstitutes! The medallion crumbles to dust!
- A monster exploded wearing the amulet. The amulet is identified.
- Unfortunately <monster> is still genocided...
- A monster died and was resurrected as above, and then died from genocide.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, the black market shopkeeper One-Eyed Sam generates with an amulet of life saving.
SporkHack
In SporkHack, a cursed amulet of life saving only works 1⁄2 of the time, and otherwise the character dies as normal, except that their cause of death is logged as "killed by a cursed amulet of life saving".
Messages
- The chain on your medallion breaks, and you hear a faint giggling!
Your medallion suddenly falls off!
It doesn't look like you're going to make it after all... - A cursed amulet of life saving did not save your life in SporkHack.
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, a cursed amulet of life saving only works 3⁄4 of the time, and otherwise the character dies as normal similar to SporkHack.
The Sokoban prize amulet has a 1⁄3 chance of being a non-cursed amulet of life saving.
The black market shopkeeper One-Eyed Sam generates with an amulet of life saving, as in SLASH'EM.
Messages
- But ... the chain on your medallion breaks and it falls to the <floor>! You hear homeric laughter!
- A cursed amulet of life saving did not save your life in UnNetHack.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, there are multiple sources of life saving available besides the amulet.
An amulet of life saving is generated inside a chest within a niche on the middle floor of the Windowless Tower during normal level creation.
SpliceHack
In SpliceHack, the black market shopkeeper One-Eyed Sam generates with an amulet of life saving, as in SLASH'EM and UnNetHack.
notdNetHack
In notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, in addition to dNetHack details, The Talisman of Buer is an artifact amulet of life saving that grants regeneration and sustain ability while worn, and can be invoked to heal the wearer: it restores an amount of HP equal to half the character's maximum while curing sickness, blindness and sliming, much like The Staff of Aesculapius or Release from Care.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, an amulet of life saving will not work if cursed.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, the Geek quest locate level places an amulet of life saving at one of six locations.
Duri generates with an amulet of life saving.
References
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 967
- ↑ dat/tower.des in NetHack 3.6.7, line 88
- ↑ src/end.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 867
- ↑ src/end.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1168
- ↑ src/end.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1179
- ↑ src/end.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 898
- ↑ src/end.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 901
- ↑ src/teleport.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 945
- ↑ src/teleport.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 957
- ↑ src/teleport.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 865
- ↑ src/pray.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1527
- ↑ src/pray.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1542
- ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1868
- ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2073: "nice try"
- ↑ src/teleport.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 880: call to
doneonly returns if life was saved - ↑ src/end.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1168:
donefunction
