Loadstone
* 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | loadstone |
| Appearance | gray stone |
| Damage vs. small | 1d3 |
| Damage vs. large | 1d3 |
| To-hit bonus | +0 |
| Weapon skill | sling |
| Size | one-handed |
| Base price | 1 zm |
| Weight | 500 |
| Material | mineral |
A loadstone is a type of gem that appears in Nethack. It is one of the four kinds of gray stones, and is the least desirable of them by far.
Contents
Generation
Normally-generated loadstones on the dungeon's floor are always generated cursed. 10⁄11 of loadstones inside containers are generated as cursed, and the remainder are generated as non-cursed.
Player monsters on the Astral Plane have a 1⁄30 chance of being generated with a loadstone.[1]
Description
A loadstone weighs slightly more than an iron ball at 500 aum, and ultimately serves as a "gotcha" item for the unwary: if the hero pick a cursed loadstone up, they cannot drop it or place it into a container. Settings for the pickup_burden option will be ignored if the character attempts to pick up a loadstone, and other inventory restrictions may be ignored as well: if a character's inventory has already reached the 52-item limit, the loadstone will still be picked up and assigned # as the inventory position. A loadstone will autocurse once it is dropped or leaves the main inventory in any other way.
Despite its weight, a loadstone does not deal any more damage than a flint stone when thrown, including shooting from a sling.
Strategy
Loadstones severely hinder the hero's movement and often renders them stressed or worse, which will prevent them from goin up stairways. There are several methods to dispose of a cursed loadstone:
- Uncurse the stone, then drop it.
- Read a noncursed scroll of remove curse, or dip it into a potion of holy water.
- A successful prayer can uncurse a loadstone, since having a cursed one counts as a minor trouble.
- The hero can drop or stash all mineral objects that they want to preserve, then cast stone to flesh at themselves to turn the loadstone into a harmless meatball.
- Similarly, they can drop all objects that the do not want cancelled, then either zap a wand of cancellation or cast the cancellation spell at themselves.
- Dip the stone in a potion of polymorph to transform it.
- Have a monster such as a nymph steal it—this is very unreliable unless the hero can safely ensure no other desirable inventory is targeted.
Be careful not to throw a loadstone if you have autopickup on!
Testing for loadstones
Naturally, one of the most effective methods for dealing with loadstones is learning how to avoid them in the first place.
The easiest way to test if a gray stone is a loadstone is to kick it before picking it up - loadstones are heavy enough that they cannot be kicked under normal circumstances. In the most "ideal" form of this test, the hero kicks the loadstone without enhanced strength (e.g. from gauntlets of power) while it is on a non-ice square, and there hero is in a role that does not use martial arts (i.e. Monk or Samurai), and is not a form with a kicking bonus (i.e. a sasquatch).[2][3] A Monk, Samurai, or a hero in the form of a sasquatch can still test for loadstones with this method: a loadstone will travel a much shorter distance than a harmless gray stone or any non-fragile object of similar weight, like a rock—be careful, as some kicking bonuses will add a small random amount to the distance.
As a mass majority of loadstones are generated cursed, heroes can also pet-test a suspected loadstone since they will only "reluctantly" move over it. This method also works on stones stuck next to undiggable walls, which occurs most often in Mines' End - but beware of level teleporter traps. Loadstones also only autocurse when they are dropped or leave the inventory, so a hero can cancel a suspicious gray stone and pick it up; cancellation has no effect on gray stones beyond rendering them uncursed, and the hero can simply drop it if the stone turns out to be a loadstone.
Picking up a container with a loadstone inside will not cause it to stick in the hero's inventory: a pickup_burden that warns about severe encumbrance when lifting a container with a gray stone inside is usually a sign that the stone is a loadstone, though large boxes and chests tend to be fairly heavy even when empty. A hero can also #tip the container after removing all other items from it, then test the gray stone using the other above methods.
After determining that a gray stone is a loadstone, it should be type-named or formally identified it so that the hero can recognize any future ones. A hero reading a noncursed scroll of remove curse for other reasons may deliberately pick up a known loadstone. Beware sources of amnesia, since the hero may forget the loadstone's identity!
History
The loadstone is introduced in NetHack 3.0.0.
Origin
The loadstone is one of the many "treasures" derived from Dungeons & Dragons, where it first appears in the 1st Edition Dungeon Masters Guide; it is also known as a "stone of weight". "Loadstone" is a pun on the word lodestone, a naturally magnetic mineral (which also alludes to its "sticky" properties).
A stone of weight causes a 50% reduction in attack and movement rate as soon as its owner has to move quickly in order to avoid an enemy; it also "sticks" to its owner and will always turn up on their person, no matter how they attempt to get rid of it. The stone can only be removed by casting "dispel evil", which causes it to permanently vanish. The loadstone of NetHack behaves in a similar spirit: it "sticks" to the holder's inventory and inconveniences them by slowing them down with its innate weight; curse removal is similarly required, though it does not destroy the stone, but makes it possible to drop or otherwise get rid of it.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, dipping a loadstone in a potion of amnesia will transform it into a flint stone. This allows a hero to not only get rid of one, but uncurse and then upgrade the resulting flint into a healthstone.
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, a loadstone appears on the square south of the up stair in Asmodeus' Lair.
Vulture
When using Vulture, you can see the weight of items, so it is much easier to avoid picking up a loadstone. Drop a junk item on any suspect gray stone: this forces the pickup menu to appear since there are now several items. Gray stones weighing only 10 are harmless to pick up.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, Center of All has a special projectile attack that launches a loadstone at the target; these thrown loadstones deal 1d30 damage and have a 1⁄3 chance of adding themselves to the target's inventory instead of dropping to the floor, which can quickly weigh down and immobilize targets. Loadstones generated this way are always cursed.
xNetHack
xNetHack removes the loadstone.
SpliceHack
In SpliceHack, a loadstone appears on the square south of the up stair in Asmodeus' Lair, as in UnNetHack.
A loadstone can be combined with a scroll of identify at a furnace to create a crystal ball.
notdNetHack
In notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, in addition to dNetHack details, loadstones can be made into spearheads that add +2d4 damage and make the spear weldproof.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, lithivores such as rock moles can eat loadstones—A hero can polymorph into a lithivorous monster to eat away a loadstone that they have picked up.
