Talk:Invisible item

Purpose

So what's the point, other than annoying starting characters? --Tjr 01:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

The use of having invisible items? I imagine that monsters that can't see invisible will not walk over to invisible items, so it could be used to keep weapons away from intelligent monsters. I recall seeing that the disarm technique fails if the opponent's weapon is invisible and you can't see invisible. The same might apply for bullwhips, and might apply for bullwhips wielded by an enemy. I don't know of any kind of combat advantage to making your equipment/weapons invisible - I suppose it would make sense for a weapon to have a to-hit bonus if the monster can't see it coming (harder to dodge), or maybe armor working better if the enemy can't see it to avoid it. A quick search is showing what I believe to be a +3 to hit bonus if your weapon can't be seen by the enemy. -- Qazmlpok 02:35, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

It also slightly helps with wand identification: for wands which cause engravings to vanish, you can more easily and safely identify them by zapping an item, whereas in vanilla that requires zapping a monster. -Ion frigate 09:05, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Source code references

The wand of wishing in the castle is always invisible; line 683 of mkobj.c
There is a 1 in 1250 chance that a randomly generated object will be created invisible, unless it is a sokoban boulder, a mummy wrapping, or gold; line 430 of mkobj.c for the random chance, line 145 of obj.h for the exceptions. -- Qazmlpok 02:35, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Why they can be very powerful

Lately I always drop all of my ascension kit in a pile and zap it with the wand of make invisible. Bam, now all those nymphs and other item-stealers can suck it. :P --Bluescreenofdeath (talk) 11:03, 4 September 2017 (UTC)