Reflection

Reflection is a property in NetHack that causes magical rays to bounce back from whatever they hit.

Description

If a ray of any type hits you or a monster with reflection, it will have no effect and be rebounded back in the direction it originated from. Reflection does not protect against beams.

Reflection also protects against floating eyes' passive paralysis gaze and Medusa's stoning gaze: Medusa is also special-cased so that if she can see you or a monster that reflects her gaze, she turns to stone instead.

Sources

Reflection can be obtained extrinsically from the following items:

• Amulet of reflection
• Shield of reflection
• Silver dragon scales or silver dragon scale mail
• Wielding the Longbow of Diana, the Ranger quest artifact
• Wielding Dragonbane

The item must have the property of reflection, rather than merely being reflective; crystal plate mail and mirrors cannot grant reflection. The only way to obtain intrinsic reflection is to polymorph into a silver dragon.

The top level of Sokoban has a ¹⁄₂ chance of containing an uncursed amulet of reflection. In the variation of Medusa's Island that generates a titan, the statue of Perseus has a ¹⁄₄ chance of containing a cursed +0 shield of reflection, and has a ³⁄₄ chance on other maps.

If you have multiple sources of reflection, only one of them will be triggered when a ray hits you. Rays will reflect first from a shield, then from a wielded artifact weapon, then from an amulet, then from body armor, and finally from the silver dragon polymorph form.

Strategy

Reflection is a high priority in the early game, and the preferred means of obtaining it are usually an amulet of reflection or silver dragon scale mail (SDSM). Players who get a wish from a magic lamp in the Gnomish Mines often use it for SDSM (see GDSM versus SDSM); dragon scale mail does not interfere with spellcasting, making it ideal for roles such as Wizards. A shield of reflection hinders spellcasting and prevents two-weapon combat and use of two-handed weapons, making it the preferred wish for characters in roles that cannot use or do not seek to use either skill, e.g. a Caveman. While multiple worn sources of reflection are almost always redundant, the order that reflection sources activate in when reflecting rays may become relevant if you are trying to identify the amulet of reflection.

Reflection is especially important for dealing with high-damage wands and breath weapons, particularly ones such as the black dragon's breath attack that can result in instadeath otherwise - while disintegration resistance also offers protection against black dragon breath specifically, it is very difficult to obtain without killing a black dragon first. Later in the game, reflection's protective uses against rays are somewhat superseded with enough elemental resistances and magic resistance, but remains critical to prevent inventory damage from those rays, especially wands and rings.

History

Dragonbane's reflection property is added in NetHack 3.6.1.

Messages

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

"This doesn't list all reflection messages yet."

But it reflects from your <foo>!

A ray hitting you was reflected.

For some reason you are not affected.

As above, while you are blind.

But it reflects from <monster>'s <foo>!

A ray hitting a monster was reflected.

It reflects from your <foo>!

A lightning bolt from an angry god was reflected.

For some reason you're unaffected.

As above, while you are blind.

<Monster>'s gaze is reflected by your <foo>.

A reflectable gaze attack against you was reflected.

Medusa doesn't seem to notice that her gaze was reflected.

Medusa's reflected gaze attack had no effect because she can't see the reflection.

The gaze is reflected away by <its> <foo>!

A reflectable gaze attack against a monster was reflected.

Variants

SLASH'EM

Nighthorn grants reflection while wielded.

SporkHack

In SporkHack, reflection only partially deflects damage from reflected rays, with the remaining damage subject to the relevant resistance for that ray's damage type - this also means that reflection does not always prevent inventory damage from rays.

SporkHack also introduces a spellbook of reflection.

dNetHack

In dNetHack and notdNetHack, normal reflection does not reflect the breath weapons of dragons, as well as those of half-dragon monsters that have an experience level or monster level of at least 14 - the exception is the black dragon, whose breath is a disintegration beam. Dragon armor and some artifacts confer "dragonbreath reflection" that additionally reflects these breath weapons, and functions the same as reflection normally does in NetHack.

FIQHack

In FIQHack, dragon breath weapons and rays from wands used at Skilled or higher ignore most sources of reflection with the exception of dragon armor.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, reflection functions as it does in SporkHack, and the spellbook of reflection is also available. Reflection is also available to monsters as a monster spell.