Eating jewelry
In NetHack, eating jewelry is a method to gain the intrinsics conveyed from certain rings and amulets.
Description
To eat a ring or amulet, one must first polymorph into a monster that can eat the material of the ring or amulet.
Eating a ring has a 1⁄3 chance (33%) of conveying its powers to the eater, while eating an amulet only has a 1⁄5 chance (20%) of conveying its powers[1] - artifacts are treated as their base items for eating purposes, i.e. they will not confer any other properties of the artifact (though doing so is a bad idea regardless).
Edible rings
The material of a ring is dependent upon its randomized appearance, not its function. Not all ring materials are edible, so the set of rings that can be eaten varies from game to game.
| Image | Appearance | Material | Consumable by |
|---|---|---|---|
|
iron | iron | any metallivore |
|
twisted | ||
|
steel | ||
|
wire | ||
|
engagement | ||
|
shiny | ||
|
bronze | copper | metallivore not restricted to rustprone metals (rock mole, xorn) |
|
brass | ||
|
copper | ||
|
silver | silver | |
|
gold | gold (material) | |
|
wooden | wood | gelatinous cube |
|
granite | mineral | inedible |
|
clay | ||
|
coral | ||
|
moonstone | ||
|
opal | ||
|
black onyx | ||
|
jade | gemstone | |
|
agate | ||
|
topaz | ||
|
sapphire | ||
|
ruby | ||
|
diamond | ||
|
emerald | ||
|
tiger eye | ||
|
pearl | bone | |
|
ivory | ||
Effects of eating rings
Digesting (positively enchanted) rings of protection, increase damage, and increase accuracy gives diminishing returns if you already have a high intrinsic bonus of the same type.[2] Specifically, if digesting a +n ring would put you at or above +10, the +n bonus is reduced to a random number between 1 and n; if you would get +20 or more, you have a (n-1) in n chance of getting a single extra point (otherwise you get nothing); if you would get +40 or more, then you get nothing.
Edible amulets
Most amulets are iron, so they are edible for metallivores: rock moles, rust monsters, and xorns. A Cheap plastic imitation of the Amulet of Yendor is made of plastic, and therefore is not edible. The Amulet of Yendor is made of mithril, but is not edible for other reasons.
Effects of eating amulets
| Amulet | Effect | |
|---|---|---|
| amulet of change | change gender | |
| amulet of ESP | gain telepathy | |
| amulet of life saving | no effect | |
| amulet of magical breathing | gain breathlessness | |
| amulet of reflection | no effect | |
| amulet of restful sleep | gain restful sleep | |
| amulet of strangulation | immediately choke | |
| amulet of unchanging | unpolymorph | |
| amulet versus poison | gain poison resistance | |
| cheap plastic imitation of the Amulet of Yendor | inedible | |
| Amulet of Yendor | inedible | |
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.
An amulet of guarding provides +2 intrinsic protection when eaten. An amulet of flying provides no effect when eaten.Strategy
While most intrinsics granted by eating jewelry can be obtained from other sources, doing so may still be useful, especially for conduct players. For example, eating rings is a safe way to obtain teleport control without the risk of teleportitis from a tengu. Beware of accidentally eating any artifacts this way, including artifact amulets - an artifact that is eaten will be lost forever.
Eating rings is the only source of intrinsic conflict, regeneration, hunger, polymorphitis, polymorph control, protection from shape changers, increased damage or increased accuracy. Eating amulets is the only source of intrinsic magical breathing.
Except for the amulet of magical breathing, most amulets are not generally useful for eating, although conduct players may have specialized needs -- for example, an atheist vegan character might want to eat amulets of ESP.
Some intrinsics come with downsides. Regeneration and conflict permanently increase your hunger rate in addition to their useful properties; both of these hunger rate increases stack cumulatively with the hunger property itself. Polymorphitis is not a desirable property even for characters with polymorph control: each polymorph still has a 20% chance of polymorphing you into your own race, in which case random stat shuffling can occur.
You will usually need to eat many rings or amulets to get any given intrinsic. If you are limited in ways to polymorph yourself it's important to have duplicates readily available, so you can eat them all before you revert to your normal form. Short of polypiling it is unlikely you'll have enough to be almost certain to get the intrinsic for amulets:
| Rings Eaten | Likelihood of Intrinsic (%) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 33.3333 |
| 2 | 55.5556 |
| 3 | 70.3704 |
| 4 | 80.2469 |
| 5 | 86.8313 |
| 6 | 91.2209 |
| 12 | 99.2293 |
| 18 | 99.9323 |
| 23 | 99.9911 |
| 29 | 99.9992 |
| Amulets Eaten | Likelihood of Intrinsic (%) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 20.0000 |
| 2 | 36 |
| 3 | 48.8 |
| 4 | 59.04 |
| 6 | 73.7856 |
| 8 | 83.2228 |
| 11 | 91.4101 |
| 21 | 99.0777 |
| 31 | 99.901 |
| 42 | 99.9915 |
| 52 | 99.9991 |
Chargeable rings
If you're trying to get high intrinsic bonus to-hit/damage/AC, you will obviously want to eat rings as highly charged as you can find. However, charging them manually is usually not worth a thought unless you have the Platinum Yendorian Express Card or several spare magic markers. Even then, you need to balance increased charge with a risk of explosion, and because of this consideration, charging beyond +3 is usually a waste: even the blessed scroll will give you a ring with an average of 5 charges 4/7th of the time and nothing otherwise, so the expected charge is 20/7 which is less than 3 you started with; uncursed charging fares even worse.
Enchanting +2 rings always increases expected charge; however, due to how digesting them works, you will want to avoid that if you only have access to uncursed charging (PYEC as non-Tourist) and already have a +8 or higher intrinsic bonus: at this level, +2 rings only give +1.5 to the bonus on average, +3 rings give +2, and 2*5/7 is less than 1.5. Similarly, at +19 or above, +2 rings give +0.5, +3 rings give +0.67, and uncursed charging is undesirable as well. Blessed-charging +2 rings, however, is always fine.
You will obviously want to give first priority to enchanting +0 rings (and +1 rings if your bonus is already +19) as they don't contribute to your bonus at all when digested. Cancel negatively-charged rings instead of trying to enchant them.
History
In NetHack 3.4.3 and earlier versions, including some variants based on those versions, rings of protection, increase damage and increase accuracy have no explicit limitation on stat gain beyond the 1⁄3 chance of acquiring the bonus in the first place. However, the intrinsic damage bonus and intrinsic accuracy bonus are stored in an variables of type schar, which has an inherent limit of +127 on most platforms. Increasing those bonuses beyound +127 would typically wrap around and become negative. The intrinsic protection bonus is stored in an int with a much larger inherent limit, so it does not have this issue.
In NetHack 3.6.1 and earlier versions, due to a bug, eating a ring while wearing another ring of the same type could actually reduce your intrinsic bonus.
Messages
- Magic spreads through your body as you digest the <ring/amulet>.
- You gained an intrinsic from eating jewelry.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, there are five new ring materials and five new ring functions. Ridged rings can be eaten by any metallivore, while wedding, obsidian, plain, and glass rings cannot be eaten by any monster.
| Ring | Intrinsic granted |
|---|---|
| mood ring | no effect |
| sleeping | restful sleep |
| dexterity | +n dexterity until unpoly |
| intelligence | +n intelligence until unpoly |
| wisdom | +n wisdom until unpoly |
| Amulet | Effect |
|---|---|
| amulet of flying | no effect |
| amulet of drain resistance | no effect |
| amulet versus stone | reverses stoning |
Gnollhack
In GnollHack, polymorphing into a lithivore allows the player to eat mineral-based jewelry.
Vitality = Pariapt of vitality increases max hp 1d4; not sure if it stays after polymorph
Mana = Demon Blood Talisman increases max mana 1d4; not sure if it stays after polymorph
