Hungerless casting
Hungerless casting and reduced-hunger casting are abilities that appear in NetHack and are applicable exclusively to the Wizard.[1]
Description
A Wizard hero that has at least 15 intelligence will burn less nutrition from spellcasting, with the degree of reduction dependent on their exact intelligence score:[2]
| Intelligence[3][4] | Reduction |
|---|---|
| 17 or more[5] | No hunger penalty |
| 16[6] | 25% hunger penalty |
| 15[7] | 50% hunger penalty |
| 14 or below | 100% hunger penalty |
The hunger cost after reduction is always floored (or rounded down), e.g. the nutrition cost for a Wizard casting a level 1 spell with 16 intelligence is 10⁄4, or only 2 nutrition. Reduced-hunger casting follows standard spellcasting rules for nutrition, i.e. the hero's nutrition is set to 3 if casting would leave them at 3 or less nutrition.[8]
Heroes that are not Wizards cannot employ hungerless casting.[1]
Though mostly unrelated to hungerless casting, the detect food spell can be cast without any base nutrition burn.[9][10]
Strategy
Hungerless casting is very useful, especially when attempting the foodless conduct.
For reference, the unreduced nutrition burnt for to cast a spell of each level with and without the Amulet of Yendor is described in the table below:
| Spell level | Normal hunger | Min with Amulet | Max with Amulet |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10 | 12 | 30 |
| 2 | 20 | 22 | 60 |
| 3 | 30 | 32 | 90 |
| 4 | 40 | 42 | 120 |
| 5 | 50 | 52 | 150 |
| 6 | 60 | 62 | 180 |
| 7 | 70 | 72 | 210 |
Variants
Wizards in NetHack variants often remain the sole heroes capable of using hungerless or reduced-hunger casting, with some exceptions.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, reduced-hunger spellcasting is made available to other heroes, and the intelligence thresholds required for reduced-hunger and hungerless casting have been adjusted accordingly.
Wizards with 15 intelligence will burn half the normal nutrition when casting spells, while Wizards with 16-19 intelligence burn 1⁄4 of the normal nutrition when casting, and Wizards with 20+ intelligence will not burn nutrition at all—this also applies to hedrow Healers, who are former drow Wizards. Other sources of hungerless casting function with a "penalty" applied for intelligence thresholds relative to those of the Wizard.
A non-Wizard hero that is wearing the Apotheosis Veil can employ hungerless casting at a -4 penalty (meaning 19 intelligence is required for a 1⁄2 reduction in nutrition burn), while a non-Wizard hero that has the spirit Paimon bound can use hungerless casting at a -6 penalty. The intelligence thresholds required for each level of hunger reduction are outlined in the color-coded table below:
| Wizard/Hedrow Healer | Apotheosis Veil | Paimon | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14 or below | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| 15 | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| 16 | 25% | 100% | 100% |
| 17 | 25% | 100% | 100% |
| 18 | 25% | 100% | 100% |
| 19 | 25% | 50% | 100% |
| 20 | 0% | 25% | 100% |
| 21 | 0% | 25% | 50% |
| 22 | 0% | 25% | 25% |
| 23 | 0% | 25% | 25% |
| 24 | 0% | 0% | 25% |
| 25 | 0% | 0% | 25% |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 src/spell.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 984: non-Wizard is always treated as 10 Int for specific purposes of hunger reduction when casting
- ↑ src/spell.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 983-L1003
- ↑ src/spell.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 983
- ↑ src/spell.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 986
- ↑ src/spell.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 987-995
- ↑ src/spell.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 998
- ↑ src/spell.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1001
- ↑ src/spell.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1011-L1013
- ↑ src/spell.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 932
- ↑ src/spell.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 967
