Touchstone
* 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | touchstone |
| Appearance | gray stone |
| Damage vs. small | 1d3 |
| Damage vs. large | 1d3 |
| To-hit bonus | +0 |
| Weapon skill | sling |
| Size | one-handed |
| Base price | 45 zm |
| Weight | 10 |
| Material | mineral |
A touchstone is a type of gem that appears in NetHack. It appears as a gray stone when unidentified.
Contents
Generation
All Archeologists start the game with an uncursed touchstone and knowledge of the touchstone's appearance.[1][2]
Touchstones make up 1⁄125 (0.8%) of all gems randomly generated on the ground, within solid rock or as death drops. General stores and jewelery shops can stock touchstones.
The shopkeeper of a jewelery shop is always generated with a touchstone.[3]
A mimic disguised as a touchstone is generated on The Mimic of the Mines map of Mines' End at level creation.
Description
Applying a touchstone will prompt the player to select a gem in the hero's inventory, or any item if the touchstone is not identified—the #rub extended command can also be used to rub an item on the touchstone.
The effect of applying a touchstone to a gem or rubbing the gem on it varies depending on the gem type and the touchstone's beatitude:[4][5]
- For an uncursed touchstone, applying it to a valuable gem will leave streaks of that gem's color on the touchstone, while worthless glass will instead leave scratch marks.[6][7][8][9] Doing this with any other type of gray stone will leave colored scratch marks on the stone.[10]
- For a blessed touchstone, applying it to a gem will immediately identify it, auto-identifying the touchstone as well if applicable, and a hero that is an Archeologist or a gnome can use uncursed touchstones as though they were blessed.[11] Using an uncursed or blessed touchstone while hallucinating will produce YAFM with no other effect.[12]
- A cursed touchstone behaves as an uncursed one does, but has a 1⁄5 chance of shattering any gem other than a gray stone that is rubbed on it, unless that gem is also an artifact (though no applicable artifact gems currently exist).[13] Doing so while hallucinating will have the same effect with a different message.[14]
If the hero applies a touchstone to any item made of iron or rubs such an item on a touchstone, it will produce a distinct noise:[15][16]
- "scritch, scritch"
If the hero is blind, this noise will also occur when applying a touchstone to any kind of gem or rubbing the touchstone on that gem.[17] Gemstone and mineral rings will produce the same messages as valuable gems when used with a touchstone.[18][7] Items made of materials other than iron will produce distinct messages when they are rubbed on a touchstone or one is applied to them, with no effect on either item otherwise—see the messages section for details.
Strategy
Touchstones can significantly ease inventory management even when uncursed: worthless glass can be informally identified, type-named and then subsequently discarded to save space in your pack (including containers you are carrying); this at minimum saves resources in formally identifying valuable gems by other means. A blessed touchstone allows you to sell fully-identified valuable gems for full price and get the full luck bonus for throwing them to unicorns.
Touchstones also have some limited use in distinguishing iron pieces of armor from others in their object class using the signature noise that it produces. This can be used to informally identify gauntlets of power and kicking boots, or else eliminate them as the identity of non-iron gloves and boots, though gauntlets of power can also be worn to auto-identify them if they are known to be non-cursed.
Identification
The most reliable means of identifying a touchstone is to apply it to an iron item or rub the item on it as described above, watching for the signature "scritch, scritch". Price identification is also reliable for identifying touchstones, as they are the only gray stone with a base price of 45zm.
While hallucinating prevents you from actually using a touchstone to properly identify gems, attempting to do so will produce a specific message that can indirectly identify an uncursed gray stone as a touchstone.
History
The touchstone first appears in NetHack 3.4.0. From this version to NetHack 3.4.3, including some variants based on those versions, Archeologists start out at Basic skill level in slings as a result of their starting touchstone, which is considered sling ammunition. This is bug C343-355, which is fixed for NetHack 3.6.0 in May 2008 via commit d5ca34a4.
Origin
A touchstone is a small tablet of dark stone, such as slate or lydite, that is used as an assaying tool to test for precious metal alloys, and allows anyone to easily and quickly determine the purity of a metal sample. It has a finely grained surface on which soft metals leave a visible trace. The touchstone has been used for testing the purity of metals as far back as the Harappa period of the Indus Valley civilization ca. 2600–1900 BC, and was also used in ancient Greece. The touchstone is also employed as a metaphor for any physical or intellectual measure by which the validity or merit of a concept can be tested, not unlike an acid test or a litmus test in politics—this usage was introduced into literary criticism by Matthew Arnold in 1853.
For gold objects, drawing a line with the item on a touchstone will leave a visible trace, a use case that led to the widespread adoption of gold as a standard of exchange since ancient times. Although mixing gold with less expensive materials was common in coinage, using a touchstone one could easily determine the quantity of gold in the coin, and thereby calculate its intrinsic worth; because different alloys of gold have different colors (see gold), the unknown sample can be compared to samples of known purity. In modern times, additional tests can be done as well: a gold trace will react in different ways to specific concentrations of nitric acid or aqua regia, thereby identifying the quality of the gold; 24 karat gold is not affected, but 14 karat gold will show chemical activity.
Messages
- "scritch, scritch"
- You used a touchstone with an iron item while not blind, or used any gem with a touchstone while blind.[15]
- You see <color> streaks on the stone(s).
- You rubbed a valuable gem on an uncursed touchstone or stack of touchstones.[7] This message also occurs if you apply any gray stones to an item of a flimsy material, or else rub it on the stone.[19]
- You make scratch marks on the stone(s).
- You rubbed a piece of worthless glass on an uncursed touchstone.[6]
- Oh wow, man: Fractals!
- You tried to use a touchstone while hallucinating.[12]
- You make <color> scratch marks on the stone(s).
- You rubbed a gem on a non-touchstone gray stone.[10]
- A sharp crack shatters <one of> the <gem(s)>.
- You destroyed a gem by rubbing it on a cursed touchstone.[13]
- You feel something shatter.
- As above, while blind.[13]
- Oh, wow, look at the pretty shards.
- As above, while hallucinating.[13]
- <The touchstone(s)> <look(s)> a little more polished now.
- You used a touchstone or stack of touchstones on a cloth item.[20]
- <The touchstone(s)> <is/are> a little wetter now.
- You used a touchstone or stack of touchstones on a liquid item.[21]
- You must think this is a wetstone, do you?
- YAFM from doing the above with an unidentified touchstone or stack.[22]
- You see <waxy/wooden> streaks on the stone(s).
- You rubbed a wax or wood item on any type of gray stone.[23][24]
- You make <golden/silvery> scratch marks on the stone(s).
- You used a touchstone or stack of touchstones on a gold or silver item.[25][26]
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, identified touchstones can only be used on gems:[27][28][29] attempting to use an unidentified gray stone on a weapon or tool will act as if the stone is a whetstone (which is new to SLASH'EM and designed for use with weapons), and the attempt will always fail if the gray stone is not a whetstone.
The result is that it is somewhat harder to informally identify touchstones by applying or rubbing, since iron weapons and tools will not produce the characteristic "scritch, scritch" message—this also makes it trickier to identify iron armor that has randomized appearances using a known touchstone. Iron wands and armor will behave as normal with unidentified gray stones, as will any amulet made of iron (i.e. all of them, except the Amulet of Yendor or its cheap plastic imitation).
Dipping a touchstone into a potion of amnesia will turn it into a flint stone. This makes it a bad idea to use up the hero's only touchstone this way, since they cannot be made by upgrading any gray stone—however, it also provides a potential use for excess touchstones, by converting them to flint and then upgrading them into luckstones or healthstones.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, giant heroes can use uncursed touchstones as though they are blessed ones—they also start the game with knowledge of all worthless glass, making identifying valuable gems a matter of which ones they start with among other factors.
notdNetHack
In notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, Cavepeople can make touchstones into spearheads: a spear using a touchstone spearhead inflicts +3d5 study on each hit.
Encyclopedia entry
"Gold is tried by a touchstone, men by gold."
References
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 37
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 676
- ↑ src/shknam.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 676
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2346
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2409
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2423
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2428
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2470
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2474
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2463
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2413
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2393
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2376: Of note is that The Heart of Ahriman is the only artifact gem in the game, and due to being a luckstone it is already immune to shattering.
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2381
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2349
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2476
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2391
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2403
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2456
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2433
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2439
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2437: per the comment, the message uses a pun and not a misspelling of "whetstone"
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2442
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2445
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2448
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2452
- ↑ apply.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 2223
- ↑ apply.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 2231
- ↑ apply.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 2241
