Talk:Dragon scale mail

This article suggests making money by reverse genociding for dragon scale mail to sell in shops. From my experience as a player, I can't imagine any situation when this strategy would make sense. Early in the game, the dragons are likely to kill you, and late in the game, money is not very useful, whereas a scroll of genocide is an extremely valuable item with many potential uses other than getting dragon scale mail (to say nothing of scrolls of enchant armor, which are also more valuable than gold in the mid game). If nothing else, you can always reverse genocide wraiths (for experience) or nurses (for hit points), and either one is likely to be more useful than money.

Even if you do desperately need money for some reason, a character who can kill a dragon can almost certainly engineer any number of ways to part a shopkeeper from his money. Perhaps the most straightforward method is to have a pet strong enough to kill shopkeepers. That way you get all the gold and all the items, and suffer no penalties for murder. Other methods easily come to mind as well (selling gems, robbing the shop, killing the shopkeeper, etc.). Again, this entire paragraph is purely hypothetical, because I can't imagine any realistic scenario where a character is both strong enough to kill dragons and desperate for money from shops, given the vast quantities of gold that are available in vaults and (in most games) in Fort Ludios. Djao 06:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I wonder why it was put there in the first place. It makes no sense to reverse-genocide dragons for gold, no matter how you look at it. --Someone Else 09:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I removed the sentence advising to sell dragon scale mail for profit, since it isn't good advice. Djao 05:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Polymorph Question

I drank a potion of polymorph while wearing Silver Dragon Scale Mail, and the result was that the mail embedded itself into my skin and I became a silver dragon. I haven't been playing long enough to know if this is always (or probabilistically favorably) the case when wearing dragon scale mail, or if I just got "lucky" and polymorphed into a silver dragon by chance. If the former, perhaps we should mention that here?

Thoughts?

This is not random. As long as you are not wearing a ring or polymorph control wearing dragon scale mail while polymorphing changes you to the type of dragon of your mail. Kinda annoying if you are trying to keep a cloak or robe, but at least you get to keep you DSM.

I've had it happen to me too, and AFAIK no polymorph potions, wands or traps or polymorph rings were involved... I had a ring of polymorph CONTROL, but I did not have it on when the transformation occurred.

Offtopic: Wikipedia has an article...

Wikipedia:Dragon Skin body armor. Maybe the Pinnacle Armor guys have been playing NetHack too much for inventing that kind of a name for their product? :) ZeroOne 19:06, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

grey or silver? why not red?

as wizard i always wish for the blessed red dragon scales. because the amulet of reflection i get from a shop or sokoban; or is otherwise often found in the early game.

the cloak of magic resistance is in my starting inventory; the first gift from sacrificing is magicbane and the quest artifact the eye of aethiopica even gives magic resistance. knowing about the fire traps in the deeper dungeons makes it for me the most wanted DSM. is there something i had better thought of?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.187.243.115 (talk • contribs)

Most players not playing vegetarians will want to gain fire resistance by eating the slain dragon. It's not possible to gain magic resistance or reflection from a corpse.--Ray Chason 19:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Amulet of Life Saving for me, please, and Silver Dragon armor. --Ckbryant 21:25, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

To elaborate, the only dragon scale mail that provide resistances normally unavailable to the player are gray, silver, and yellow. Since magic resistance and reflection are considered so valuable if you do not already possess them, or reflection is considered more valuable as armor than as an amulet (prevents life-saving) or shield (ruins spellcasting), they are naturally the most popular. If you have both reflection and MR, are unconcerned with the benefits of moving your reflection to the armor slot, and already have decent armor (mithril, hopefully) then I'd recommend spending your wish elsewhere and enchanting the first set of scales you come across. And if you feel compelled to wish for DSM anyways, might as well go for the yellow so you can kick back and down some booze while chilling in an ochre jelly. --SigmaJargon 23:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Could this be a effective equipment Setup (SLASH'EM).

I killed a Shimmering Dragon and got their Scales, I know that Silver and Grey are the two best, but would using a Shimmering dragon scale mail, Cloak of magic resistance and a amulet of reflection a decent replacement for Silver and Grey SMs?.... --Maha Bufu 04:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Tjr 16:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. You could also just as easily have a grey dragon scale mail and a cloak of displacement, and mathematically this is a much more likely eventuality: cloaks of magic resistance are, as near as I can tell, one of the rarest pieces of equipment in the game (unless you start as a wizard--different story), and there are two *guaranteed* GDSMs in the game--the cursed one at the Arch-Lich statue in the Lawful Quest (just dip it in a sparkling potion) and the one One-Eyed Sam wears. I tend to plan my ascension kit around that. But if something falls in your lap, take it.Ih fek 17:47, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

other colors for foodless uncrowned

The most important extrinsic is poison, followed by sleep and fire. They can all be gained by race, role, various jewelry, and some artifacts. IMHO, green is best, followed by orange and red. Sleeping traps have killed much more of my 12-conduct attempts than fire or poison effects. Fire traps reduce maxHP, which can be replenished with alchemy. Tjr 16:35, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I would say go ahead and change it, as you almost certainly know more about the matter than I do. I just wanted to get the idea of using other colors into the article; the article before made it seem one would only use GDSM/SDSM. -Ion frigate 20:06, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Making scale mail from the scales mistake?

So I stepped onto a polymorph trap while wearing a blessed +4 SDSM without resistance and it turned into a blessed +4 SDS. I read a blessed scroll of enchant armor to make it a scale mail again and enchant it to +5 as is written on this wiki page, but it evaporated instead due to overenchantment (?). Apparently the claim that blessed scroll of enchant armor turns SDS to +1 SDSM is wrong since +5 should not be a subject to overenchanting. --Const (talk) 10:17, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

The maximum safe starting enchantment for non-elven armor is +3. Since yours was at +4, it evaporated. As the article says, "If the dragon scales are enchanted above +3, it is possible that they will evaporate while attempting to return them to dragon scale mail." ——Darth l33t (talk) 14:32, 12 August 2021 (UTC)