Chromatic dragon scales (DynaHack)

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Appearance chromatic dragon scales
Slot body armor
AC 1
Special
Base price 1500 zm
Weight 40
Material dragon hide
For the item in other variants, see chromatic dragon scales.

Chromatic dragon scales are a type of body armor that appear in DynaHack and older versions of UnNetHack. They are made of dragon hide like all dragon scales.

Generation

Chromatic dragon scales are not randomly generated, though they can be found in bones or wished for.

Tiamat is guaranteed to drop chromatic dragon scales alongside her corpse upon death, and the chance is reduced to 120 if she was revived. A chromatic dragon that leaves a corpse (i.e. always) has a 13 chance dropping a set of uncursed +0 chromatic dragon scales upon death, and the chance is reduced to 120 if the dragon was revived.

Description

While worn, chromatic dragon scales grant 3 base AC and several properties: fire resistance, cold resistance, shock resistance, sleep resistance, poison resistance, disintegration resistance, acid resistance, stoning resistance, and reflection. Reading a non-cursed scroll of enchant armor that targets worn chromatic dragon scales convert them into chromatic dragon scale mail, with a blessed scroll adding a point of enchantment.

Uncontrolled polymorph while wearing chromatic dragon scales or scale mail will turn the wearer into a chromatic dragon. In practice, only a hero or monster quaffing a potion of polymorph, zapping a wand of polymorph at themselves or (for the hero only) casting the polymorph spell on themselves while wearing the scales or scale mail will cause this—it is one of the few ways available to polymorph into a chromatic dragon, and doing so while wearing chromatic dragon scale mail will also revert them to scales.

Strategy

Chromatic dragon scales are very hard to obtain, but are well worth the trouble for the chance to make them into chromatic dragon scale mail, which is easily one of the best non-artifact armors in the game.