Ascension kit

The ascension kit is the nickname given to a set of items that are virtually required for a successful ascension in NetHack. Most often, they are chosen for their attributes: reflection, magic resistance and cancellation, and similar. Most kits include: a unicorn horn, escape items, a luck item, a source of levitation, some ranged attacks, a source of conflict, portal detection (for the Elemental Planes).

This page contains some common suggestions for ascension kit components. You will not need everything on this page, and many of the items listed are mutually exclusive, but unless you are attempting an unofficial conduct, you should make sure that you collect items to cover all the major attributes listed above, and should also complete your ascension kit before taking on the Wizard of Yendor.

Common items

Armor

Cloak

• Cloak of magic resistance: Provides magic resistance, magic cancellation 1, and 1 AC. Magic resistance is necessary in the endgame, and the quest artifact is unreliable as the Wizard may steal it.
• Cloak of displacement: Provides displacement, MC1 and 1 AC. Displacement helps keep you from being surrounded by making monsters waste moves attacking empty space.
• Robe: Provides enhanced spellcasting, MC2, and 2 AC. Commonly combined with GDSM and an amulet of reflection, or SDSM and a wished-for quest artifact that provides magic resistance.
• Cloak of protection: Gives MC3 by itself, and 3 AC, but does not provide the special benefits of the above cloaks. Should be erodeproofed to protect its natural AC bonus.
• Oilskin cloak: Renders you immune to drowning attacks on the Plane of Water (in other places, simply do not stand next to water until you have verified all the eels are dead); however, carrying escape items such as a wand of cold or wand of teleportation will largely mitigate this risk.

If you have magic resistance and reflection, any cloak is good enough. Greasing the cloak will protect from grabbing and drowning attacks until the grease wears off.

Body armor

Dragon scale mail, usually silver or grey: This provides either reflection or magic resistance, 9 base points of AC, and does not hinder spellcasting. Yellow dragon scale mail is another lesser possibility as it provides acid resistance, which cannot be gained intrinsically.

High-level Monks with high Luck can hit accurately enough to overcome the −20 to-hit penalty for wearing body armor.

Boots

Speed boots and jumping spell, or jumping boots and haste self spell / potion of speed: Dodge monsters instead of fighting them. You zap teleportation in your free move to create an alley, then jump through it, ending your turn.

Jumping is an easier spell to cast than haste self, but casting it repeatedly with the Amulet will drain your power rapidly, and failed casts can waste precious movement opportunities. With jumping boots, you haste yourself with the Amulet at your feet when not in immediate danger, to build up hundreds of turns of the effect, then pick it up and go on your way. Jumping with the boots is not subject to random failure.

For characters who lack access to either spell, extrinsic speed is generally more useful than the ability to jump, which requires clear paths through monster hordes, and conveys no combat advantage.

Water walking boots are guaranteed in Vlad's Tower, and can be swapped with other boots to easily dilute potions and scrolls.

Gloves

• Gauntlets of power for non-spellcasters: They provide strength 25 (+6 to damage) and 1 point of base AC. Valkyries in particular can use them to throw Mjollnir and catch it again.

• Gauntlets of dexterity or leather gloves for spellcasters: Either is fine for scenarios where you might need to handle a footrice corpse. The dexterity bonus does not matter much if you are at your racial maximum, unless you are a monk with a −20 to-hit penalty from body armor.

Neither gauntlets of power or gauntlets of dexterity are absolutely essential - if you have already found a pair of well-enchanted leather gloves, they will suffice.

Helmet

• Helm of opposite alignment: For switching alignments on the Astral Plane.
• Helm of telepathy: Gives a limited range of telepathy when not blind.
• Helm of brilliance: Does not hinder spellcasting and increases intelligence and wisdom by its enchantment.
• Elven leather helm: Does not hinder spellcasting, provides base AC 1, and can be safely enchanted up to +7, giving a higher potential AC boost than any other helm. Its weight of 3 is also much less than the others' 50.

Any sufficiently enchanted piece of headgear will do; you should grease it if possible to help protect against mind flayer attacks.

Shield

• Shield of reflection: If you are not wearing SDSM or an amulet of reflection, the shield is an ideal choice for protecting your inventory from ray attacks. The shield of reflection is a good choice for non-spellcasters, cannot rust or corrode, and provides 2 base AC.

• Elven shield: If you already have reliable reflection from one of the other above sources and are not a spellcaster, this may be a good choice. It has a base AC of 2, and can be safely enchanted to +7, giving it the highest generally feasible AC of any shield. It is also the lightest shield out of those with base AC 2.

• Small shield: Provides 1 base AC, but does not penalize spellcasting as much as other shields.

• No shield: No AC, but necessary for twoweaponing. Putting out damage nearly twice is fast is usually better than having more AC. Also is good for spellcasting.

Shirt

• A T-shirt or Hawaiian shirt - they are identical in practical terms and lack AC of their own, but both provide an extra piece of armor to enchant for lower AC.

Rings

• Ring of conflict: Makes monsters fight each other instead of you. A minor disadvantage is that the pet guardian angel on the Astral Plane will be replaced with some hostile angels if you arrive wearing the ring or wear it in its presence - but they will probably fight each other, and the guardian angel isn't a good pet at this point anyway.
• Ring of levitation: Players must be levitating or flying to move reliably on the Plane of Air, and the ring is the quickest and most convenient option; levitation is also helpful (but not necessary) on the Plane of Fire. One or two blessed potion of levitations will carry you through the endgame if you lack this specific ring.
• Ring of free action: Prevents paralysis from a number of sources.
• Ring of teleport control or other source of teleport control: Very important if you have teleportitis, and can be used to teleport between staircases on the the ascension run. It is also convenient for easy level teleportation.

Amulets

• Amulet of life saving: If you die while wearing it, you come back with full HP instead, unless the cause of death would still kill you afterward. While not necessary, this item is quite useful - chiefly, it lets you take on more risk in the Endgame, reducing resource consumption. It also provides limited protection against YASDs from overconfidence, inattentiveness, typos, and other gameplay blunders.
• Amulet of reflection: Some playstyles prefer to gain reflection via the amulet—you may wish to free the left hand for #twoweapon instead of the shield of reflection, or keep a robe to enhance spellcasting while wearing GDSM for magic resistance.
• Amulet of magical breathing: Without some way to cross the Plane of Water, you're at the mercy of the bubbles' random movement. Self-polymorph is a potential(ly risky) alternative. Not recommended without an oilskin sack to protect your scrolls and potions.

Tools

• Blessed unicorn horn: Can be applied to cure sickness caused by Pestilence, not to mention all of the status ailments you might pick up otherwise. An absolute must.
• Towel or blindfold: Put one of these on to blind yourself for using intrinsic telepathy if you have it, or avoiding blinding and stunning from Archons. It's a good idea to bless your towel or blindfold as an extra layer of protection against cursing.
• Tooled horn, bugle or leather drum: Any of these instruments can cause monsters to flee from you, which is useful to scare off low MR monsters in the endgame, such as the sea monsters in the Plane of Water or the air elementals in the Plane of Air.
• 7 candles: These must be attached to the Candelabrum as part of the Invocation Ritual.
• Expensive camera: Apply it to Riders. They will wander around instead of coming straight torward you. If you blind a Rider that is next to you, sometimes they will get scared and flee.
• Crystal ball, mostly only if illiterate: Apply it (while engulfed) to find the location of the portals on the Elemental Planes. Others normally use gold detection.
• Sack, oilskin sack, bag of holding: To protect items from inventory damage. The bag of holding is the most desirable since it reduces weight.
• Magic markers: If you have any left, keep them around to write extra/emergency scrolls.
• Light source: If you plan to jump on the Astral Plane, you will need one. The Candelabrum is ideal to maximize casting the spell at Skilled or Expert; otherwise, any oil-filled lamp will suffice.

Wands

• Wand of teleportation: Can be zapped (even on non-teleport levels!) at monsters or objects to make them go away. Very useful when trying to get to a high altar or get rid of air elementals. When surrounded on a non-teleport level, breaking one can give you room to maneuver. Zapping a Rider or its corpse will usually move it adjacent to you, but possibly adjacent in the direction you came from.
• Wand of death: Pestilence, Famine, and the Wizard of Yendor are all vulnerable to wands of death, as are other Endgame baddies - air elementals, player monsters, etc. Do not zap Death with a wand of death.
• Wands of digging: You will need several wands of digging for the Plane of Earth, and one to raze the doors on the Astral Plane. Pick-axes are much too slow, and the ground there very often forms earth elementals when dug. You may need fewer wands if you have the spell of digging.
• Wand of secret door detection: Very useful for finding the secret door in Moloch's Sanctum, as well as finding the portal on the Plane of Water, or finding it again on the Plane of Air if you used a cursed scroll of gold detection.
• Wand of cancellation: Best kept in a separate bag, it can be used to uncurse a bag of holding or create blank scrolls and potions of water in an emergency. Can also cancel annoying monsters like disenchanters or energy vortices.
• Wands of fire: Burn Elbereth when surrounded by nasties, or cure sliming.
• Wand of wishing: As long as it has charges (and it will always have at least one unless it has been cancelled), keep it around in case you need any of the other listed items.

Scrolls

• Scroll of gold detection: You want one to discover the vibrating square and four more to discover the portals on the Elemental Planes. The best solution is to read a scroll of gold detection while confused, which will detect and identify traps. However, it takes a turn to read the scroll, and another turn or more to cure confusion using a unicorn horn. Confusion usually comes from a forgotten spell, which takes no game-time but can stun you, or a cursed scroll of confuse monster, a potion of confusion, or a cursed unicorn horn.
  • Cursed scrolls of gold detection show all traps as $. This is useless on the Plane of Fire, which is full of fire traps. Also, traps detected as gold will vanish from the screen once they are in sight.
  • You could also use a crystal ball, but it freezes you for d10 turns and has possible negative effects; you could use a wand of secret door detection or the unreliable Amulet of Yendor, but it only helps if you are within eight squares of the portal.
• Scroll of magic mapping:After the first time you find the portal on the Plane of Water, a scroll of magic mapping will show you the current location of the portal, plus the current outline of all the bubbles
• Blessed scroll of remove curse: Can be useful to uncurse all items in main inventory. Uncursed scrolls only uncurse worn and wielded items.
• Blessed scroll of charging: In case your wands run out of charges.
• Scroll of scare monster: An excellent single-turn panic button that works against nearly all monsters. Tip it out of a container or your bag of holding. Since Elbereth does not work in Gehennom, it is the best defense against a gated Demogorgon.
• Cursed scroll of genocide: Can be used to create cockatrices, which can be killed for their corpses to use as good weapons on the Astral Plane or the Sanctum, or else killing the Wizard of Yendor in a pinch. Can be used to create purple worms on the Astral Plane as part of the purple rain strategy.
• Scrolls of blank paper: To write scrolls with your magic markers, ideally of assorted BUC.

Weapon

• Weapon: You likely want some weapon, unless you are a conduct player. Most players choose an artifact weapon. Grayswandir, enchanted to +6 or +7, is usually considered the best. #Twoweapon with a blessed silver saber makes it even better. For all characters, any of the crowning weapons will suffice. Check your role's page (under § Strategy → Late game) for further advice.

Potions

• Holy water: Used to bless items that are unblessed or cursed by the Wizard of Yendor, liches, and other foes. While there are a number of techniques for un-cursing your items, holy water is the only convenient route to re-blessing items that you need to be blessed (such as a bag of holding). It is advisable to carry at least five holy water in your bag.
• Blessed potions of full healing: Quickly restores your hit points by a large amount in case of emergency. It also cures illness, blindness, and hallucination. A unicorn horn is free, but is not always reliable - the blessed potion is most ideal if the horn does not work after one or two attempts, especially when facing Pestilence.
• Cursed potion of gain level: Lets you instantly escape from Moloch's Sanctum after grabbing the Amulet of Yendor, and can bypass certain other levels on the ascension run. The potion can also confirm if you have the real Amulet of Yendor: quaffing it with the real Amulet brings you to the Elemental Planes, and will otherwise print a message with no effect.
• Potions of paralysis: You may wield the potion and attack in melee against Riders, none of whom resist paralysis. You will need free action to avoid paralyzing yourself.
  • A thrown potion has a ^Dex⁄₂₅ chance of hitting its target, which is an appealing option for characters with extremely high dexterity. You will not paralyze yourself unless the target is adjacent. Consider that a death ray has a ¹³⁄₂₀ chance of hitting Famine and Pestilence.
• Potion of speed: Gives temporary extrinsic speed, excellent for characters without speed boots. Save them for critical end game areas such as the Sanctum, Plane of Air, and the Astral Plane.
• Blessed potion of monster detection: More powerful than extrinsic telepathy, and useful for locating Riders without blinding yourself.

Comestibles

• K-rations and C-rations: Often dropped by the Yendorian Army, these rations provide 400 and 300 points of nutrition respectively. Both weigh only 10 units and are consumed in only one turn, making them very useful when facing Famine.
• Lembas wafers provide 600-1000 points of nutrition each (depending on race), are eaten in 2 turns, never cause rotten food effects if non-cursed, and only weigh 5 units; they can be very effective while still running to the Planes. Also, lembas wafers are never rotten.
• Royal jelly can be found in giant beehives and provides 200 nutrition for only 2 units of weight, and can heal you up to 20 HP at a time when eaten. Non-cursed royal jelly also increases strength by 1 and heals wounded legs (cursed jelly decreases strength and does not heal wounded legs).
• Blessed tins of nurse meat: Consuming one restores you to full hit points, with some advantages and some disadvantages relative to potions of full healing.
  • First and foremost: consumption of nurse meat is cannibalism for human characters!
  • Unlike potions, tins never explode or dilute and are always safe to carry in main inventory, even in environments such as the Plane of Fire. On the other hand, even a blessed tin will take two turns to heal you (one to open and one to consume), which is slower than quaffing a potion in main inventory and no faster than retrieving a potion from a bag before quaffing.
  • A non-cursed homemade tin will always provide 50 nutrition, and can cause you to choke to death if you are satiated; this is never the case with a potion.
  • Finally, a full healing potion can only restore a maximum of 400 hit points; nurse meat always restores you to your maximum, however high that is (although it is rare to attain or need over 400 HP without alchemy or any farming in the first place).
• Lizard corpses: For curing stoning, and can also nullify the effect of the new moon when carried in open inventory.
• Cockatrice eggs: if you manage to obtain some, they can make short work of the Wizard and other tough monsters sans the Riders. If you rely on a quest artifact for magic resistance, this could be your backup plan in case the Wizard manages to steal it - don't forget to pack a wand of striking to extract your artifact from the statue. The eggs should be generally used in melee (wielded one at a time!), but similarly to potions of paralysis they can also be thrown with very high dexterity.
• Footrice corpse: While perishable, if you get a fresh one just before beginning the ascension run and don't dally, it should last through the Sanctum, greatly simplifying the combat. (Make sure to avoid the guaranteed spiked pit!) A blessed partly eaten chickatrice corpse is also a common Astral Plane wish, and you can try to reverse genocide cockatrices before entering.

Luck item

• A blessed luck item: While usually a luckstone is enough, any blessed quest artifact that acts as a luckstone (e.g. The Tsurugi of Muramasa or The Orb of Fate) can also work, though quest artifacts can be stolen.

Armor combinations

Reflection and magic resistance are considered essential properties for the end game. Other desirable properties are life saving, displacement, two weaponing (when available), and high magic cancellation. The following table summarizes the tradeoffs:

Body armor	Cloak	Amulet	Shield	Other	Advantages	Disadvantages	For whom?
SDSM	magic resistance	life saving			Gives life saving Allows twoweaponing	No displacement MC1	Wizards, or any character who has found a cloak of magic resistance
GDSM	displacement	reflection			Displacement Safe switching to robe or oilskin cloak Allows twoweaponing	No life saving MC1	Any character who wants situational access to non-combat spellcasting and/or defense against grab attacks
GDSM	displacement	life saving	reflection		Gives life saving Gives displacement More AC from shield	No twoweaponing MC1	Classes that cannot do two-weapon combat: Caveman, Healer, Priest, Ranger Rogues who want backstab damage Genocideless conduct players who want maximum protection from ;
GDSM	protection	life saving	reflection		Maximum AC Gives life saving Safe switching to oilskin cloak MC3, no ring needed	No displacement No twoweaponing	Those who want better MC and AC than provided by the cloak of displacement
GDSM	robe	reflection			Enhanced spellcasting MC3 with ring of protection	No life saving No displacement	Those who need help casting spells: Priests have no spellcasting skill in many schools, and start with a robe
SDSM	robe	life saving		MR artifact such as the Eye of Aethiopica	Best spellcasting Gives life saving MC3 with ring of protection	Must wish for artifact Wizard of Yendor can steal the quest artifact of other roles No displacement	Classes that need help casting spells but can be powerful casters: knights especially (due to doubled magic missile damage; note they cannot obtain the Eye unless they convert themselves to neutral after the quest and wish for it) Those willing to wish for artifacts
none	robe	reflection		MR artifact such as the Eye of Aethiopica (if neutral) or The Orb of Detection (if lawful)	No body armor Best spellcasting MC3 with ring of protection	Must wish for artifact Wizard of Yendor can steal the quest artifact of other roles No life saving (though can use shield of reflection instead)	Monks who are not wearing body armor because of the to-hit penalty Other quest artifacts confer MR but don't enhance spellcasting as much
other or none	magic resistance	reflection			No body armor	No life saving No displacement	Monks who don't want to wish for an MR artifact Vegetarians looking for an additional resistance

Variants

SLASH'EM

For the most part, the ascension kit in SLASH'EM stays the same, with some differences.

• If two-weaponing is possible, wielding two artifact weapons at the same time is allowed.
• Amulet of flying or water walking boots, due to the new create pool spell.
• Amulet of drain resistance or deep dragon scale mail: Level draining been a more serious threat.
• The cloak of magic resistance is much more interesting for freeing a slot for the new required resistances. You could enchant an elven cloak to +7, and then upgrade it to a cloak of magic resistance. Gray dragon scale mail loses its appeal. Shield of reflection. More interesting, for freeing a slot for level drain resistance.
• Less of a priority, yellow dragon scale mail which provides acid resistance, and shimmering dragon scale mail which provides displacement, can be useful. YDSM can be useful due to more dangerous acid attacks from giant shoggoths, among others.
• A robe of power or a robe of protection: Can be upgraded from regular robes. They take the suit slot, and dragon scale mail interfering with spellcasting now.
• The Hand of Vecna provides half physical damage, hungerless regeneration, and level drain resistance when wielded. You can decide to forfeit level drain resistance and rely on MC3 and wielding the hand for special cases.
• +7 unicorn horn or +7 Nighthorn if lawful. They need to be highly enchanted now to be reliable.
• A ring of free action has more positive effects.
• A magic candle: It burns indefinitely and only weights 2.
• An assault rifle and bullets: A more powerful ranged weapon.
• A holy wafer: Better than sprig of wolfsbane.
• Blessed healthstones: They increase health regeneration.

SporkHack

One of SporkHack's main design goals was to do away with the notion of a clear-cut ascension kit, instead forcing the player to make hard and interesting choices. For example, the other colors of DSM might be useful as well, due to their secondary effects.

UnNetHack

UnNetHack offers chromatic dragon scale mail, which provides multiple resistances including stoning.

dNetHack

The dNethack ascension kit is similar to, but more inclusive than, the vanilla ascension kit.