Player's misconceptions

This article attempts to dispel common assumptions and misconceptions that many players may have about NetHack.

NetHack is not real life

A root of many such misconceptions that players develop regarding NetHack and its mechanics, particularly the ones listed below, is that they often assume various aspects of the game such as a hero's nutrition should function within the game world as they do in our world. The core thing to remember is that NetHack is not real life, and that mechanics within the game will not always reflect real life—in some cases, this may even be for the better.

Nutrition

Drinking water is necessary

Water is not necessary for a hero's survival. The Guidebook's advice on this matter is misleading, stating that "although creatures can survive long periods of time without food, there is a physiological need for water"—while true for real life, it surely does not apply for the character in NetHack, and not only is there absolutely no need to drink water at all, but quaffing water from fountains can be downright dangerous.

Because corpses are dangerous to eat, they should be saved for emergencies

Some corpses are indeed inherently dangerous and should not be eaten. Any other corpse should be eaten while it is still fresh, if you plan to eat it at all: if you save a corpse to eat later, it will almost certainly be tainted and give you food poisoning unless you keep it in an ice box or apply a tinning kit (which is vaguely analogous to real life). Lizard and lichen corpses are exceptions to this rule, as they last indefinitely.

I would not eat that in real life, so my character also probably should not

Again: NetHack is not real life—though most of us would not eat the corpses of a sewer rat or a jackal corpse, much less uncooked ones, and would most probably get ill if we did, that is not an issue for your character in the game. Therefore, if a corpse is fresh, unless there is something intrinsically harmful about the monster that dropped it—such as the kobold, which is poisonous, or the cockatrice, which causes stoning—it will probably be safe for consumption.

Eating pet corpses is bad

There is no specific penalty for eating a pet's corpse after the creature is already dead. However, there are bad effects for eating certain corpses in general or performing other actions with pet corpses:

• Eating the corpse or tin of a kitten, little dog or any of their growth stages will give you the aggravate monster intrinsic, which applies regardless of whether it was a former pet.
• Personally killing a pet incurs a penalty of -15 alignment and -1 luck.
• Sacrificing pets that have died while tame also gives bad effects including the aggravate monster intrinsic, and should be avoided.

Magic

Wizards are better at reading spellbooks

This one is more half-true than anything: the formula that determines the chance of successfully reading a spellbook is the same for all heroes, and is primarily reliant on intelligence among other things. Wizards are one of a few roles that start with quite high intelligence on average, and the quality that actually gives Wizards in particular an advantage when reading spellbooks is that they are given a warning when attempting to read an uncursed spellbook with less than a 100% chance of success, and are prompted whether or not they want to continue reading—this has no effect on the actual success chance itself. On the note of role-specific advantages, Wizards are better at writing unknown scrolls and spellbooks than other roles.

The player should not wear metal armor if intending to cast

This is true in the broad strokes: metallic armor does tend to hinder spellcasting in a general sense, but some types of metallic armor have much less effect than many players may think—shields and metallic body armor tend to interfere with casting the most across the board, and even then certain roles may deal with less interference from wearing metallic armor in a given slot than some others. For example, a Wizard with 18 intelligence can wear a metal helmet, boots, or gloves and can still cast low-level spells with 0% failure, and will only see a small increase in fail rate for higher-level spells.

Behavior and conducts

A chaotic hero can kill anything without penalties of any kind

Heroes of chaotic alignment take alignment and luck penalties for most of the same things that heroes of other alignments do—this includes killing coaligned peaceful monsters or killing always-peaceful humans. While those penalties themselves may not be as stiff in the case of a chaotic hero, their alignment is not license to do whatever they please and otherwise behave in a "Chaotic Stupid" manner. See the alignment record article for more details on alignment penalties and bonuses.

Offering a human corpse is bad

If you are playing as a non-chaotic human, this is generally true. That said, there is no specific penalty (or bonus, for that matter) for the sacrifice of human corpses: it's sacrificing one's own race that is a special case, and which is almost always a bad idea for non-chaotic adventurers.

Attributes

Gauntlets of power are required to maximize carrying capacity

Carrying capacity is specifically based on the hero's strength and constitution—gauntlets of power can obviously help with maximizing this value (which has an upper limit of 1000), but are not remotely required. Specifically, the formula is ((Str + Con) * 25) + 50—a combined strength and constitution of 38 grants maximum carrying capacity, with strength values of 18/32–18/81 being considered equivalent to 20, so all races of hero other than elves can reach this maximum without gauntlets of power or any other additional equipment.