Punishment

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Punishment is a state that occurs in NetHack when a hero has a heavy iron ball attached to them by an iron chain.

Punishment only occurs through one of two methods:

Description

Reader beware!

When being punished, a heavy iron ball and iron chain are attached to the hero in order to weigh them down: 0_@

If a hero is punished while they are polymorphed into an amorphous, whirly or unsolid monster, the ball and chain will appear but fall off immediately.[4]

If punishment from a scroll of punishment would occur while the hero already has a heavy iron ball chained to them, the ball's weight is increased by 160 if the scroll is uncursed, or 320 otherwise.[5] If an angry god would smite the hero with punishment while they are already punished, they will instead inflict a curse items effect.[6]

The heavy iron ball will follow the hero for as long as it is chained to them. While punished, the following applies to the hero:

  • The iron chain cannot be picked up, but the heavy iron ball can.
  • Dragging an iron ball one square takes at least 2 turns regardless of enhanced speed, and also prevents use of the travel, rush or run commands.
  • The hero cannot swap places with a pet while punished.[7]
  • Throwing the iron ball will cause it to pull the hero along with them.
  • Falling down with an iron ball in any context may cause the hero to take significant damage or else drop items—this is detailed properly in the section below.

Falling with an attached iron ball

Falling into a pit, spiked pit, or trap door with an attached iron ball will cause them to drop the iron ball, and it can fall in on top of the hero's head, dealing 25–31 damage with a uniform distribution and an average of 28):[8][9][10] this is subject to half physical damage, the base damage is reduced to 3 if they are wearing a metallic helm, and a death caused by this is livelogged as "crunched in the head by an iron ball".[11][12][13]

When a punished hero is going down stairs regardless of their encumbrance level, they will always stumble and fall for the usual 1d3 damage unless they have flying[14][15][16][17][18]—if the hero is wielding the iron ball, or else is carrying it and not wielding anything, or with a 2⁄3 chance otherwise, they will lose their grip on the iron ball and drop it from their inventory, with one of the following outcomes occurring next:[19][20]

  • There is a 5⁄6 chance of the hero falling forward, taking 1d6 damage and possibly dropping items that are neither currently worn nor cursed loadstones[21]—heavier items are more likely to drop out of the hero's inventory than lighter ones.[22]
  • Otherwise, there is a 1⁄2 chance (effectively 1⁄12) of the iron ball smacking into the hero, which deals 1d20 damage and abuses strength.[23]
  • Regardless of whether the iron ball hits the hero, the iron ball will then drag them down the stairs for 1d6 damage with a 1⁄6 chance if the ball previously hit them and a 1⁄2 chance otherwise, also causing them to drop items and abuse strength.[24]

Removing the chain tethering the iron ball to the hero ends punishment[25]—punishment also ends if the hero successfully destroys the iron ball itself.

Strategy

A mass majority of the strategy surrounding punishment revolves around either avoiding it or ending it as soon as feasibly possible. Some enterprising players do occasionally make use of the iron ball itself as an improvised weapon that can deal d25 damage, with a heavier ball dealing more consistently high damage, and throwing an iron ball has a +2 to-hit bonus, exercises strength and may also exercise dexterity[26][27][28]—a thrown chained iron ball can also pull the hero along with it, and has a maximum range of five squares, allowing it to be used as a means of escaping traps and even crossing moats in limited circumstances. This is the primary reason that heroes can still start a game with scrolls of punishment.[29]

With all this in mind, the weight of 480 aum is also one of its most significant downsides, and even for those planning to keep the iron ball as a main weapon, becoming unchained from it is still a good idea—other players will only consider using it as a weapon in a pinch, and will ditch it at the first possible opportunity. Even for a hero that elects to remain chained and use it to cross water, they must be extremely careful: if the thrown ball lands in water, you will be pulled down into the water with it and most likely drown.

Of note is that the punished conduct seeks to go through as much of the game as possible while punished—there is one known recorded ascension.

Ending punishment

There are a number of ways to end punishment.

  • Zap a wand of opening or casting a knock spell down at the chain.
  • Read a scroll of remove curse of any beatitude while not confused.
  • Pray successfully—punishment counts as a minor trouble, and this is obviously not an option if your god is the one that punished you..
  • Have it stolen by a nymph while taken into inventory.
  • Have it eaten by a metallivore, such as a rock mole or rust monster.
  • Polymorph into a nymph and remove it using the #monster command.
  • Polymorph into a metallivore and eat the ball away.
  • Polymorph into an amorphous, whirly or non-solid monster and thus slip out of the chain.
  • Ring the blessed Bell of Opening.
  • Crush the ball or chain in a drawbridge.
  • Shatter the chain by triggering a land mine explosion.
  • Drop the ball in a pit and fill the pit with a boulder:
    • This will tether you to a 3×3 square around where the ball was buried. Attempting to move outside this area will use up a turn, but after 20–70 turns of struggling, you will "finally wrench the ball free" and will no longer be punished.[30]
    • It is also possible to bury the ball and walk into a bear trap, which will immediately end punishment.
    • Of note is that attempting to sit in this state will fail and increase the duration the hero is stuck for by one turn.[31]

Dropping, dragging, or throwing the iron ball into lava does not end punishment; the ball will not be visible while in the lava, but moving away will drag it back out.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.

"Wrenching free" of a buried iron ball no longer ends punishment.

History

Punishment first appears in Hack 1.0 with the scroll of punishment and the heavy iron ball.

In NetHack 3.4.3 and some earlier versions, including some variants based on those versions, burying an iron ball by filling a pit will immediately end punishment. This is changed in NetHack 3.6.0.

Messages

You are being punished for your misbehavior!
You read a non-blessed scroll and had a heavy iron ball chained to your leg.
Your iron ball gets heavier.
As above, but you were already punished at the time.
A ball and chain appears, then falls away.
As above, but you are in the form of an amorphous, unsolid or whirly monster.

Variants

A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:

"DynaHack, *dNetHack, EvilHack, SlashTHEM and Hack'EM"

The Convict patch and variants of NetHack that incorporate it make some changes to punishment which radically alter its significance to gameplay.

All Convicts start the game punished, with a negative alignment record that prevents them from praying to obtain their freedom immediately. As a sort of compensation, the patch encourages use of the iron ball as a weapon by tying it to the flail skill: while only Convicts can actually advance the skill by attacking with a wielded iron ball, but any role that can train flails benefits from to-hit and damage bonuses at higher skill levels. A heavy iron ball thus incentivizes use of an otherwise-overlooked skill, and can potentially compare well with other high-damage weapons such as the dwarvish mattock and crysknife. The patch's quest artifact, the Iron Ball of Liberation, is an artifact heavy iron ball that can be reattached to the hero as a side-effect of its invoke ability, and which players may or may not choose to wield after acquiring.

The intent is to make scrolls of punishment not only potentially useful, but highly rewarding, though how well this is achieved naturally varies, and some variants of NetHack that adapt the patch forego this aspect in favor of other spins on the concept of the Convict.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, there is another means of becoming punished: a gypsy reading the hero's fortune may draw the 10 of Trumps (Punishment), which aptly chians an iron ball to the hero.

In addition to the methods discussed above, punishment can be ended by burying the ball as in NetHack 3.4.3. Doppelganger heroes can use their liquid leap technique to shift out of the clasp that the ball is chained to.

UnNetHack

UnNetHack adds the Convict role as described above.

The Punisher is a monster that is only randomly generated in the Sheol branch, and is named for its ability to cast a unique melee-range monster spell that causes punishment. Reading a non-blessed scroll of punishment while confused will generate a Punisher adjacent to the hero, making it a bad idea to do so.

SlashTHEM

In addition to SLASH'EM details, SlashTHEM adds the Convict role as described above.

A wand of punishment can inflict punishment upon the hero, and is also one of the random effects of a wand of wonder that can occur with a 1⁄21 chance.

References

  1. ↑ src/read.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1689
  2. ↑ src/read.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2345: punish() function
  3. ↑ src/pray.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 711
  4. ↑ src/read.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2359
  5. ↑ src/read.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2354
  6. ↑ src/pray.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 715: punishment only occurs if hero is not already punished, and other falls through to item curses
  7. ↑ uhitm.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 353
  8. ↑ src/ball.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 44: ballfall() function for damage
  9. ↑ src/do.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1256: goto_level() function for trap doors
  10. ↑ src/trap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 900: dotrap() function
  11. ↑ src/ball.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 52
  12. ↑ src/ball.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 56
  13. ↑ src/ball.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 62
  14. ↑ src/do.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1514
  15. ↑ src/do.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1518
  16. ↑ src/do.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1521
  17. ↑ src/do.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1529
  18. ↑ src/ball.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 997
  19. ↑ src/ball.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1010
  20. ↑ src/ball.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1012
  21. ↑ src/ball.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 977: litter() function
  22. ↑ src/ball.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 984
  23. ↑ src/ball.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1025
  24. ↑ src/ball.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1033
  25. ↑ src/read.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2390: unpunish()
  26. ↑ src/dothrow.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1473
  27. ↑ src/dothrow.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1735
  28. ↑ src/weapon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 304: it adds 1d(extra weight/40) to base 1d25 damage, which is then capped at 25
  29. ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 992
  30. ↑ src/dig.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1833
  31. ↑ src/sit.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 110
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