Oilskin sack
( 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | oilskin sack |
| Appearance | bag |
| Base price | 100 zm |
| Weight | 15 |
| Material | cloth |
| Monster use | Will not be used by monsters. |
An oilskin sack is a type of non-magical tool that appears in NetHack. It is a made of cloth, and appears as a bag when unidentified.
Contents
Generation
The oilskin sack makes up 1⁄200 (0.5%) of all randomly-generated tools. General stores and hardware stores can stock oilskin sacks.
Description
As with other containers, the oilskin sack can hold items beyond the 52-character limit, and will additionally protect its contents from water damage unless cursed, in which case it will only protect its contents 2⁄3 of the time.[1]
An oilskin bag that prevents water from getting inside it will auto-identify if the hero sees this occur.[2]
Strategy
An oilskin sack is incredibly useful for protecting your potions, scrolls and spellbooks alongside rust-prone weaponry and armor—other bags require a charge from a can of grease to offer similar protection, and the grease has a 1⁄2 chance of washing off each time water damage would occur.[3]
Placing your bag of holding in an oilskin sack useful for protecting the first bag's contents from water damage and the curse items monster spell, at the cost of some tedium when retrieving items in from it; most heroes prefer to grease the bag instead. Blessing the oilskin sack itself is optional, but may be worthwhile to give it a layer of protection from being cursed, especially once you start the ascension run and approach the Plane of Water.
As with a plain sack, an oilskin sack can also be used to protect a wand of cancellation that is stored outside your main bag of holding; unlike a plain sack, the water protection allows you to reliably store other items such as blessed potions of full healing scrolls of remove curse without greasing it beforehand.
Identification
Oilskin sacks can be auto-identified by dipping them into any type of water, such as a moat—be sure to empty any bags that you plan to dip-test this way. They are also fairly easy to detect via price identification: Looting a bag with a base price of 100zm and not being bitten eliminates the bag of tricks from object candidates, and stashing heavier items in a bag to observe its effects on encumbrance can eliminate the bag of holding.
History
The oilskin sack first appears in NetHack 3.1.0. From this version to NetHack 3.6.0, including some variants based on these versions, the oilskin sack was the only bag to not produce a message when subjected to possible water damage, allowing it to be informally identified by process of elimination.[4]
The feedback for water sliding off an oilskin sack is added in NetHack 3.6.1 via commit 2b7b2af9, when Alex Smith asked on IRC about an idea for a small, easily implementable feature.
Messages
- Some water slides right off your <sack>.
- Your oilskin sack stopped water from damaging its contents, auto-identifying it.
Variants
In variants that import the advent calendar patch, an oilskin sack is among the various items that may appear as the Christmas present on day 24.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, upgrading a sack will produce an oilskin sack 4⁄5 of the time. Upgrading a bag of holding always produces an oilskin sack, and vice versa.
Among other things, the ability to upgrade oilskin sacks makes the amulet of reflection from Sokoban a much more valuable prize, and also provides an additional use case for multiple bags of holding, including creating a safe container for wands of cancellation and other explosion-inducing items.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, Pirates start each game with an oilskin sack.
SpliceHack
In SpliceHack, an oilskin sack can be created at a furnace by combining a can of grease with any other type of bag except a bag of tricks.
Pirates start with an oilskin sack, and merfolk heroes in roles that start with a sack will start with an oilskin sack instead.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, tortle heroes have a 1⁄4 chance of starting the game with an oilskin sack, except for Archeologists - a tortle Archeologist will always start with an oilskin sack in place of the role's normal sack. The Infidel role also starts with a fireproof oilskin sack.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, Pirates, Corsairs and Rogues start the game with an oilskin sack. Divers begin each game with the oilskin sack identified.
Hack'EM
In Hack'EM, in addition to EvilHack details, Rogues and Infidels start the game with an oilskin sack, while Pirates have a 1⁄2 chance of starting a game with an oilskin sack.
Upgrading a sack will produce an oilskin sack, while upgrading an oilskin sack will produce a bag of holding.
Encyclopedia entry
Summer passed all too quickly. On the last day of camp, Mr.
Brickle called his counselors together and paid them what he
owed them. Louis received one hundred dollars - the first
money he had ever earned. He had no wallet and no pockets,
so Mr. Brickle placed the money in a waterproof bag that had
a drawstring. He hung this moneybag around Louis' neck,
along with the trumpet, the slate, the chalk pencil, and the
lifesaving medal.
