Glowing dragon scale mail
| [ glowing dragon scale mail | |
|---|---|
| Appearance | glowing dragon scale mail |
| Slot | body armor |
| AC | 5 |
| Special |
|
| Base price | 900/1200 zm |
| Weight | 40 |
| Material | dragon hide |
Glowing dragon scale mail is a type of body armor that appears in UnNetHack—in DynaHack, it is known as gold dragon scale mail. They are made of dragon hide like all dragon scale mail.
Contents
Generation
Glowing dragon scale mail is not randomly generated, but can be wished for using a wand of wishing, or else found in bones.
Reading a non-cursed scroll of enchant armor that targets worn glowing dragon scales will convert them into mail, with a blessed scroll adding a point of enchantment.
Description
While worn, glowing dragon scale mail grants 5 base AC and act as a light source, along with granting the appropriate elemental resistance property for the corresponding dragon that is randomized to appear as a glowing dragon—e.g., if the glowing dragon has a fire breath weapon, then its scales will grant fire resistance and act as a light source. Uncontrolled polymorph while wearing glowing dragon scale mail will revert them to scales and turn the wearer into a glowing dragon.
Strategy
All dragon scales and dragon scale mail in UnNetHack and DynaHack have randomized powers and appearances in each game: in order for a hero to wish for dragon armor or scales based on their corresponding power, either type of armor must be formally identified first, e.g. by using a scroll of identify on dropped dragon scales (which identifies the matching scale mail along with it) or by witnessing the dragon use its breath weapon. Additionally, as a magical item it can only be wished for using a wand of wishing.
In other words, it is possible to wish for the scales (or the scale mail) of a particular dragon by the name of that dragon without any of the above being necessary, but the armor will not always grant the same primary property between games—glowing dragon scales (and by extension scale mail) are something of an exception, in that they will always be a light source in addition to their randomized property. This makes the scales generally useful across games and worthwhile as a wish candidate to manually create glowing dragon scale mail from, especially if they happened to also randomize into magic dragon scales or reflecting dragon scales.
History
In early versions of UnNetHack, glowing dragon scales and scale mail always grant stoning resistance while worn. This is changed in version 5.1.0, where the breath types and resistances of all dragons (except the chromatic dragon) are randomized, including the resistances granted by each dragon's scales.
