Tool
| Item classes | ||
|---|---|---|
| " Amulets | [ Armor | |
| % Comestibles | $ Coins | |
| * Gems | ! Potions | |
| = Rings | ? Scrolls | |
| + Spellbooks | ` Statues | |
| ( Tools | ` Boulders | |
| ) Weapons | / Wands | |
A tool, represented by (, is a type of item that appears in NetHack. Tools as object type are comprised of the miscellaneous items that do not fall into any other category, and include containers, light sources, and musical instruments. The hero can use most tools by applying them via a.
Contents
Generation
Tools compose 8% of all randomly-generated items in the main dungeon and 12% in Gehennom.
The Gnomish Mines have one guaranteed tool on each filler level, and the maps for Mines' End besides the Catacombs contain two random tools. Many maps of Minetown can be generated with shops that sell tools.
Lighting sources, cans of grease, crystal balls, and figurines can be generated as any beatitude - other tools created by normal random generation are always uncursed. Bones levels can have blessed or cursed tools in the former hero's pile of items, and the "fake bones" generated on early traps can include tools among their cursed items.
List of tools
| Name | Cost | Weight | Cost:weight ratio | Use (where not obvious) | Prob (‰) | Creation | Magic? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Character accessories | ||||||||
| blindfold | 20 zm | 2 | 10 | Blinds you | 50 | No | ||
| towel | 50 zm | 5 | 10 | Blinds you, cleans face and hands | 50 | No | ||
| lenses | 80 zm | 3 | 27 | Spellbook reading | 5 | No | ||
| The Eyes of the Overworld | 2500 zm | 3 | 833 | Enlightenment | 0 | Monk quest artifact | No | |
| Pet accessories | ||||||||
| leash | 20 zm | 12 | 1.67 | Keeps pets nearby | 65 | No | ||
| saddle | 150 zm | 200 | .75 | Riding | 5 | No | ||
| Containers | ||||||||
| sack | 2 zm | 15 | 0.133 | 35 | Contains 0-1 items | No | ||
| bag of holding | 100 zm | 15 | 5.67 | Makes items lighter | 20 | Contains 0-1 items | Yes | |
| oilskin sack | 100 zm | 15 | 5.67 | Prevents blanking | 5 | Contains 0-1 items | No | |
| chest | 16 zm | 600 | 0.027 | 35 | Contains 0-5 items | No | ||
| large box | 8 zm | 350 | 0.023 | 40 | Contains 0-3 items | No | ||
| ice box | 42 zm | 900 | 0.047 | Keeps corpses fresh | 5 | Contains 0-20 corpses | No | |
| Tonal instruments | Passtune | |||||||
| bugle | 15 zm | 10 | 1.5 | Aggravates nearby soldiers | 4 | No | ||
| tooled horn | 15 zm | 18 | 0.83 | Scares monsters | 5 | No | ||
| fire horn | 50 zm | 18 | 2.78 | Ray of fire | 2 | Yes | ||
| frost horn | 50 zm | 18 | 2.78 | Ray of frost | 2 | Yes | ||
| wooden flute | 12 zm | 5 | 2.4 | Pacifies snakes | 4 | No | ||
| magic flute | 36 zm | 5 | 7.2 | Lulls monsters to sleep | 2 | Yes | ||
| wooden harp | 50 zm | 30 | 1.67 | Pacifies nymphs | 4 | No | ||
| magic harp | 50 zm | 30 | 1.67 | Tames monsters | 2 | Yes | ||
| Atonal instruments | ||||||||
| bell | 50 zm | 30 | 1.67 | Wakes monsters, summons nymphs | 2 | No | ||
| Bell of Opening | 5000 zm | 10 | 500 | Invocation | get from quest nemesis | Yes | ||
| leather drum | 25 zm | 25 | 1 | Wakes and scares monsters | 4 | No | ||
| drum of earthquake | 25 zm | 25 | 1 | Causes earthquake that creates pits, scares monsters and angers peacefuls | 2 | Yes | ||
| tin whistle | 10 zm | 3 | 3.33 | Calls pets | 100 | No | ||
| magic whistle | 10 zm | 3 | 3.33 | Teleports pets to you | 30 | Yes | ||
| Light sources | ||||||||
| brass lantern | 12 zm | 30 | 0.67 | 30 | No | |||
| oil lamp | 10 zm | 20 | 0.5 | 45 | No | |||
| magic lamp | 50 zm | 20 | 2.5 | Possible wish | 15 | Yes | ||
| tallow candle | 10 zm | 2 | 5 | Invocation | 20 | stack of 1 (4/7 prob.) or 2-7 (1/14 prob. each) | No | |
| wax candle | 20 zm | 2 | 10 | Invocation | 5 | stack of 1 (4/7 prob.) or 2-7 (1/14 prob. each) | No | |
| Candelabrum of Invocation | 5000 zm | 10 | 500 | Invocation | get from Vlad | Yes | ||
| Traps | ||||||||
| beartrap | 60 zm | 200 | 0.3 | 0 | No | |||
| land mine | 180 zm | 200 | 0.9 | 0 | No | |||
| Unlocking tools | ||||||||
| skeleton key | 10 zm | 3 | 3.33 | 80 | No | |||
| The Master Key of Thievery | 3500 zm | 3 | 1166 | 0 | Rogue quest artifact | No | ||
| lock pick (osaku to Samurai) | 20 zm | 4 | 5 | 60 | No | |||
| credit card | 10 zm | 1 | 10 | 15 | No | |||
| The Platinum Yendorian Express Card | 7000 zm | 1 | 7000 | Charging | Tourist quest artifact | No | ||
| Weapon-tools | ||||||||
| grappling hook | 50 zm | 30 | 1.67 | 5 | No | |||
| pick-axe | 50 zm | 100 | 0.5 | Digging | 20 | No | ||
| unicorn horn | 100 zm | 20 | 5 | Cure status effects, various other | 0 | Yes | ||
| Miscellaneous | ||||||||
| bag of tricks | 100 zm | 15 | 6.67 | Summoning monsters | 20 | 1-20 charges | Yes | |
| can of grease | 20 zm | 15 | 1.33 | Protects against mind flayers, drowning attacks, and water damage | 15 | 1-25 charges | No | |
| crystal ball | 60 zm | 150 | .4 | 15 | 1-5 charges | Yes | ||
| The Orb of Detection | 2500 zm | 150 | 16.7 | Invisibility | 0 | Archeologist quest artifact | No | |
| The Orb of Fate | 2500 zm | 150 | 16.7 | Level teleport | 0 | Valkyrie quest artifact | No | |
| expensive camera | 200 zm | 12 | 16.7 | Scare monsters | 15 | No | ||
| figurine | 80 zm | 50 | 1.6 | Summons a monster | 25 | Yes | ||
| horn of plenty | 50 zm | 18 | 2.78 | Produces food or some potions | 2 | Yes | ||
| magic marker | 50 zm | 2 | 25 | Writes scrolls and spellbooks | 15 | 30-99 charges | Yes | |
| mirror | 10 zm | 13 | .77 | Nymph and foocubus control, Luck management, scare monsters | 45 | No | ||
| The Magic Mirror of Merlin | 1500 zm | 13 | 115.385 | 0 | Knight quest artifact | No | ||
| stethoscope | 75 zm | 4 | 18.3 | Get monster status information, detect secret doors/corridors | 25 | No | ||
| tin opener | 30 zm | 4 | 7.5 | 35 | No | |||
| tinning kit | 30 zm | 100 | .3 | Prevents troll resurrection, tins corpses for intrinsics | 15 | No | ||
Identification
Bags
A bag is either of the four: bag of tricks, sack, bag of holding, or oilskin sack.
If you see an unknown bag, first try to loot it, unless you are low on HP (say, HP<25). If it is a bag of tricks, it "develops a huge set of teeth and bites you!", causes 1-10 points of damage, and becomes identified. Otherwise, you loot it like any container.
If it is not a bag of tricks, it is either a sack (7/12 chance), a bag of holding (4/12 chance), or an oilskin sack (1/12 chance). (The chances are for randomly generated bag.)
Since sack costs 2, and all other bags cost 100, you can identify the sack with price identification.
To identify the bag of holding, pick up just enough stuff to be burdened, but if you drop a small object, you are not burdened anymore. Then put a lot of stuff into your bag. If you are not burdened anymore, it is a bag of holding.
Oilskin sacks are rare, and can be identified by not belonging to other types.
If you found a bag in a 1*1 room at the last level of Sokoban, it is a bag of holding.
If you found a bag in a bones pile, it may well be a bag of holding, and has 80% chance of being cursed. When you open a bag of holding, each item has 1/13 chance of disappearing. You may want to uncurse the bag (wand of cancellation, holy water, scroll of remove curse) before looting it.
Lamp
Each lamp is either a magic lamp or an oil lamp. A randomly generated lamp has 1/4 chance of being magic.
Magic lamp costs 50 zm, while oil lamp costs 10 zm, so you can use price identification.
If a lamp "flickers", "flickers considerably", "seems about to go out", or "has gone out", or "has no oil", it is an oil lamp.
If an unknown lamp is blessed, and in case it is magic, you want to use it for a wish immediately, just try to rub it (don't forget to snuff it before) until you see a djinnie. If you rubbed it 20 times, and each time you got the message "Nothing happens", you have less than 1/320 (about 1 in 3.5 billion) chance it is a magic lamp.
Whistle
A whistle is either a tin whistle or a magic whistle. A randomly generated one has 3/13 chance to be a magic whistle.
Price identification doesn't work for whistles, as both of them cost 10 zm.
To identify a whistle, apply it. If you produce a "high whistling sound" or a "shrill whistling sound", it is a tin whistle. If you produce a "strange whistling sound", a "normal whistling sound", a "high-pitched humming noise", or a "high-frequency vibration" it is a magic whistle. (Sometimes the word "very" is added, or the sound is both strange and high-pitched).
Applying a tin whistle, or sometimes a cursed magic whistle, wakes up nearby monsters and scares some of them, so use with caution.
Even if a whistle is shop property, you can still apply it for free.
Horn
A horn is either a tooled horn (5/11 chance), a frost horn, a fire horn, or a horn of plenty (2/11 chance each).
Tooled horn costs 18 zm, while all other horns cost 50 zm. You can use price identification to distinguish the tooled horn from the others.
You can identify a horn by applying it:
- If it produces food or a potion, it is a horn of plenty.
- If it asks "Improvise?", it is either a tooled horn, fire horn, or frost horn. Answer "yes".
- If it asks for a direction, it is either a fire horn or a frost horn: specify a direction to determine which one it is. Unless you have reflection, you will want to aim down a big corridor or at the opposite end of a large room, in order to avoid hurting yourself – also be careful not to hurt your pets or peaceful monsters.
- If "nothing happens", it is a horn of plenty without charges.
- In the other cases, it is either a tooled horn, or a fire or frost horn without charges (which act like tooled horns).
If you apply a horn which is unpaid, except for a tooled horn, you will be charged a usage fee. You may want to buy it before applying, as all three magic horns are useful.
A unicorn horn also looks like the other horns if you have been blind continuously since you obtained it. It will immediately self-identify as a unicorn horn once your character is no longer blind, and can also be distinguished from the other horns via price identification (it has a base price of 100zm, twice as much as the next-most-valuable horn) or via the way it generates (they only naturally generate upon killing a unicorn).
Flute
It is either a magic flute or a wooden flute. 1/3 of randomly generated flutes are magic.
Magic flute costs 36 zm, while wooden flute costs 12 zm, so price identification works.
When played (answer yes to "Improvise?"), a wooden flute "trills" or "toots", while a magic flute produces "soft music" or "piped music".
Uncharged magic flute behaves as a wooden flute.
Harp
It is either a magic harp or a wooden harp. 1/3 of randomly generated harps are magic.
Both cost 50 zm, so price identification does not work.
When played (answer yes to "Improvise?"), wooden harp "twangs" or produces a "lilting melody", while magic harp with charges "produce very attractive music".
If you are deaf, you instead feel vibrations, which are "soothing" for a wooden harp, and "very soothing" for a magic harp.
Uncharged magic harp behaves as a wooden harp.
Drum
It is either a drum of earthquake or a leather drum. 1/3 of randomly generated drums are drums of earthquake.
Both cost 25 zm, so price identification does not work.
While you can identify a drum by applying it, do it with caution, as the effects of the drum of earthquake are rather strong.
When applied, a leather drum would "beat a deafening row!", awake and scare nearby monsters. A drum of earthquake would "produce a heavy, thunderous rolling!", awake and possibly scare all monsters on the level, anger nearby peaceful monsters, create pits around and possibly under you, and destroy fountains, altars and other dungeon features around you.
Uncharged drum of earthquake behaves as a leather drum.
Candle
There are two kinds of these, a wax candle and a tallow candle. The only differences between wax and tallow candles are their lifespans (400 turns for wax and 200 turns for tallow), their prices, and the fact that eating tallow candles violates vegetarianism. So, you probably don't need to identify a candle. If you still want to, use price identification. Tallow candle costs 10 zm, and wax candle costs 20 zm.
Tallow candles are much more common. They constitute 4/5 of all randomly generated candles, or stacks of candles, are tallow.
