Item
An item is any carriable object to be found in the dungeon. All items can be placed in your inventory, assuming they are not too heavy for you to pick up, and they appear there under a number of categories, listed below. An object is a stack of one or more identical items that can be stored in a single inventory slot (though sometimes the term 'item' is erroneously used to refer to an object).
If the weight of the items you are carrying becomes too much then you become encumbered. Items can be blessed, uncursed or cursed, which affects their properties. Some have charges, and can be charged, most can be destroyed, some are generated randomly, and some are unique.
Many objects can pile up on top of each other on one square, but only the symbol of the top one is shown.
Item categories
- $ – Coins
- " – Amulets
- ) – Weapons
- [ – Armor
- % – Comestibles
- ? – Scrolls
- + – Spellbooks
- ! – Potions
- = – Rings
- / – Wands
- ( – Tools
- * – Gems/Stones
- ` – Boulders/Statues
- 0 – Iron balls
- _ – Chains
- . – Venoms
Dungeon features fixed to the floor, such as altars, fountains, and sinks, are distinct from items.
Item generation
Items can be randomly found on the floor and in containers. An item is occasionally generated as a death drop when you kill a monster and it leaves a corpse. The probabilities below govern the generation of such random items, which varies depending on where they are generated:
| Item class | Normal dungeon | Inside containers | Rogue level | Gehennom |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weapons | 10% | 0% | 12% | 20% |
| Armor | 10% | 0% | 12% | 20% |
| Comestibles | 20% | 15% | 22% | 16% |
| Tools | 8% | 0% | 0% | 12% |
| Potions | 16% | 18% | 22% | 1% |
| Scrolls | 16% | 18% | 22% | 1% |
| Spellbooks | 4% | 12% | 0% | 0% |
| Wands | 4% | 6% | 5% | 8% |
| Rings | 3% | 5% | 5% | 8% |
| Amulets | 1% | 1% | 0% | 4% |
| Gems | 8% | 18% | 0% | 10% |
| Total | 100% | 93% | 100% | 100% |
The "Gehennom" column is only used for branches with the "hellish" flag set, which is currently just Gehennom proper and the Valley of the Dead (in particular, it does not include Vlad's Tower, which generates items the same way as the normal dungeon).
The other 7% of objects generated inside containers will be piles of gold.
In addition, some levels specify extra randomly-generated items: for example, each level of the Gnomish Mines contains at least one tool, and each Sokoban level contains a ring and a wand. Monsters can also be generated with items in their inventory.
This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.
It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.1. Information on this page may be out of date.
Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-361}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.
