Pick up
| Keyboard commands | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ~ | ! | @ | # | $ | % | ^ | & | * | ( | ) | _ | = | + | ||||||||
| Q | W | E | R | T | Y | U | I | O | P | { | } | | | |||||||||
| q | w | e | r | t | y | u | i | o | p | [ | ] | \ | |||||||||
| A | S | D | F | G | H | J | K | L | : | " | |||||||||||
| a | s | d | f | g | h | j | k | l | ; | ' | |||||||||||
| Z | X | C | V | B | N | M | < | > | ? | ||||||||||||
| z | x | c | v | b | n | m | , | . | / | ||||||||||||
| q | w | e | r | t | u | i | o | p | Alt | ||||||||||||
| a | s | d | f | j | l | Alt | |||||||||||||||
| c | v | n | m | ? | Alt | ||||||||||||||||
| A | C | R | T | O | Alt | ||||||||||||||||
| a | c | d | o | p | r | t | [ | Ctrl | |||||||||||||
You can pick up items from the dungeon floor using the , key. If there is only one item or stack in your square, you will usually pick it up without further prompting; otherwise you will be asked which items you want to pick up, where you can use menu controls to refine your selection. You can press m, to pick up items off the floor using a menu, even if you're using menustyle:traditional.
The pickup burden option sets an encumbrance limit. If an item you attempt to pick up would take you past that limit, you will be prompted to confirm, unless the item is a loadstone.
Picking items up normally uses an action. You can also configure autopickup, which will allow you automatically to pick up items on the square you move onto; autopickup does not take any time.
Exceptions
If the item would take you past your maximum carrying capacity, you can't pick it up, unless the item is a loadstone.
If you have already filled all of your 52 knapsack slots (a-zA-Z), you can't pick up any further items unless they stack with your current inventory, or the item is gold (which gets the letter $) or a loadstone (which gets #).
If you are polymorphed into a creature without hands, you can't pick anything up unless your form has another means of doing so (e.g. canines and their mouths, or whirly monsters).
Levitating prevents you picking up items off the ground unless you have a bullwhip on hand.
A cross-aligned quest artifact is likely to evade your grasp and prevent you picking it up.
Monsters
Monsters can pick up items from the floor as well. Whether a monster is willing to pick up a specific class of item is defined by the monster's attributes:[1]
| Item class | Monster attribute required to pick up |
|---|---|
| Gold | monsters which like gold |
| Weapons, armor, gems, food (except corpses) | monsters which can pick up weapons and food |
| Amulets, potions, scrolls, wands, rings, spellbooks | monsters which can pick up magical items |
| Boulders (when not in Sokoban) | monsters which can throw boulders |
| Gems (excluding rocks and gray stones) | monsters which like gems |
| Pick-axes | monsters which need a pick-axe to tunnel through walls |
In addition to the above, intelligent monsters will pick up items that are useful to their specific situation:[2]
- if the monster is not already invisible, and the monster has no gaze attack, they will pick up charged wands of make invisible and potions of invisibility;
- if the monster is not already fast, they will pick up charged wands of speed monster and potions of speed;
- if the monster is not floating, they will pick up charged wands of digging;
- if the monster has difficulty less than 6, they will pick up charged wands of polymorph;
- they will always pick up charged wands of striking, teleportation, and create monster;
- they will always pick up charged ray wands (e.g. wands of death);
- they will always pick up the following potions:
- potions of healing, extra healing, and full healing;
- potions of polymorph;
- potions of gain level;
- potions of paralysis;
- potions of sleeping;
- potions of acid;
- potions of confusion;
- potions of blindness (if the monster has no gaze attack);
- they will always pick up the following scrolls:
- if the monster is not nonliving, they will pick up amulets of life saving;
- they will always pick up amulets of reflection;
- non-unicorns will pick up non-cursed unicorn horns;
- if the monster can blow (roughly, has a head and breathes), they will pick up charged frost and fire horns;
- if the monster is wearing gloves, they will pick up chickatrice and cockatrice corpses;
- they will always pick up chickatrice and cockatrice eggs;
- if the monster is not themselves resistant to stoning, they will pick up corpses that cure stoning (e.g. lizards), as well as tins of the same (if they can eat tins).
A different set of rules govern if/when monsters will use the items they pick up, depending on whether it's considered a defensive item, offensive item or miscellaneous item.
References
