Unwinnable

While any given game of NetHack may be very difficult to complete, it is generally understood that every game is winnable — that is, no game is created that the player cannot win.

However, there are a few methods to render a game unwinnable, most of which are related to the Quest. This may happen by accident, but can also occur through very deliberate action on the player's part. These are the ways in which a game can become unwinnable:

1. Before getting permission from the quest leader or proceeding down afterward, converting your alignment at an altar (exception: you are non-neutral and the quest portal is still present)
2. Before permission, the quest leader dies or levelports down
3. Before permission, getting expelled by angering the quest leader or failing the alignment test seven times (exception: neutral non-wizard)
4. With the Amulet of Yendor remaining in the quest dungeon branch, getting expelled (exception: leader still alive; must be a wizard, neutral, or able to convert to neutral)
5. On the Astral Plane, after offering the Amulet of Yendor to your god but before ascending, saving the game via hangup

The exceptions are what can be overcome using the Eye of the Aethiopica and/or a helm of opposite alignment.

These actions make it impossible to obtain the Bell of Opening from the quest nemesis, or to get the Amulet of Yendor back out of the quest branch, or perform the Invocation - all of these are necessary to win.

The best a player can do in an unwinnable situation is to escape the dungeon with the Candelabrum of Invocation, the Book of the Dead and any other sources of bragging rights.

Converting your alignment

If the player unsuccessfully performs an altar conversion by sacrificing at a cross-aligned altar with negative alignment record, he or she is converted to the alignment of the altar. That means permission to proceed down cannot be obtained from the quest leader at all. A player's alignment cannot be converted back to any previously held alignment by means of an altar, and the quest leader will "see through" a helm of opposite alignment.

You cannot go down or level teleport from the quest home level, even with prior permission, if you are not of your original alignment. This can be overcome with a helm of opposite alignment.

Note that simply putting on a helm of opposite alignment does not render the game unwinnable -- removing the helm (after uncursing, if necessary) restores the character's previous alignment. You cannot put on the helm in the quest branch. The message you get if you try, "You narrowly avoid losing all chance at your goal", is somewhat misleading.

Getting expelled

A second case is if the quest portal has been removed because you have angered the quest leader, or have failed their alignment record test seven times. Don't throw the silver bell or the Amulet of Yendor at them!

In this case, you will not be able to enter the quest branch at all by normal means. If you do branchport in, you will have to pacify your quest leader before you can get permission to go down.

If you threw the Amulet of Yendor at the quest leader, it is trapped in the quest branch. Once the portal is gone, the only way to get it out is to get expelled again while carrying it. The quest leader still has to be alive for this to work.

Entering the quest at all requires the player is neutral, is not a wizard, and has previously entered the quest branch: the player can wish for the Eye of the Aethiopica to branchport to the quest. (You have to have visited the quest once already because the Eye will not open a portal to a branch you haven't been to, and it will only drop you as deep as you have already gone before.)

Dead quest leader

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.

You can gain access to the Quest by killing your Quest Leader. Doing so gives +7 to god anger and -20 to Luck, and causes your Luck to time out to -4. You also forfeit the alignment record bonus from killing your Quest Nemesis.

If the quest leader is killed or level teleports before you get permission to go down, the game will also be unwinnable. (Monsters will read scrolls of teleportation when they are low on hit points.) Luckily, the leader is generated meditating, and a peaceful one will only be attacked by pets under conflict, so a levelporting leader is extremely rare. Due to a bug, a petrified quest leader brought back with stone to flesh or one that has been revived will not grant permission. Additionally, only the actual monster can grant or deny permission; a doppelganger imitating them through some means (e.g. using stone to flesh on a statue of a quest guardian or leader) does not count.

The same restrictions apply to expulsion from the quest, in case you are trying to leave it with the Amulet.

History

In NetHack 3.4.3, the Candelabrum would become permanently unusable if you turned it on with fuel for exactly one more turn and you are not on the vibrating square. This is Bug C343-424, and it was fixed in August 2011.

In 3.4.3, it is possible to destroy the Book of the Dead by walking into lava without fire resistance. Doing so will destroy every fire-vulnerable item in your inventory, and the Book of the Dead is not exempt - a character that survives via an amulet of life saving will find the Book lost forever. This was fixed in NetHack 3.6.0, where the Book is specifically protected against damage from lava.

Variants

SLASH'EM

SLASH'EM does not actually add any new ways to make the game unwinnable, although it certainly adds ways to make it nearly so. For example, although one needs two of the three alignment keys to reach Vlad the Impaler, lacking them, it is possible to wake him up with a mind flayer's psychic blast, or to summon spheres via the flame sphere or freezing sphere spells enough times such that one of them is created next to Vlad, explodes at him and thereby wakes him up. He will then teleport to meet the player, and be carrying with him the Candelabrum. Also, locking vital items behind the doors and destroying the keys doesn't make the game unwinnable either. One can retrieve the Amulet or any Invocation item by luring an appropriate covetous monster into the third level of Vlad's Tower, and the monster will then retrieve the items for the player.

Sporkhack

If the quest leader dies, the stairs are automatically unlocked, to avoid issues with unwinnable games.

dNetHack

One of the artifacts, The Silver Key, can be used to perform the Invocation instead of the Bell of Opening. This lets the game become winnable even if blocked from the quest.

This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.1. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-361}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.