Wand of death
| / | |
|---|---|
| Name | death |
| Appearance | random |
| Abundance | 0.5% |
| Base price | 500 zm |
| Weight | 7 |
| Type | ray |
| Maximum charges | 8 |
| Spell | finger of death |
| Monster use | May be used offensively by monsters. |
A wand of death is a powerful type of wand that appears in Nethack.
Contents
Generation
Wizards may be given a wand of death as the random wand in their starting inventory.[1]
Wands of death are among the rarest wands, and make up 1⁄200 (0.5%) of all randomly-generated wands. General stores and "quality apparel and accessories" shops can sell wands of death.
Orcus is always generated with a wand of death.[2]
Randomly generated monsters that have a monster difficulty of at least 8 have a 1⁄35 chance of receiving a wand of death as an offensive item.[3]
Wands of death are created with 4 to 8 charges.
Description
Zapping a wand of death in a given direction fires a ray of death magic, similar to the finger of death, that instantly kills almost any hero or monster it hits in its path: as with all ray-type wands, it can rebound, and there is a chance that it will miss. Death and any monster with magic resistance (e.g. from a cloak of magic resistance), reflection or death resistance will be completely unaffected—all major demons and nonliving monsters have death resistance, and Death in particular will actually be healed and become stronger. Monsters will use this wand, and hostile ones will zap it at the hero.[4][5]
A hero zapping a wand of death directly at themselves suffers an instadeath, ignoring magic resistance or reflection, but will be unaffected if they are polymorphed into any of the aforementioned unaffected monsters.[6]
Engraving with a wand of death produces a distinct message that is shared with the wand of sleep.[7]
Breaking a charged wand of death by applying it, or else wresting one last charge from an applied wand, will cause an explosion referred to as a "death field" that deals anywhere between 1 and (16×<charges>) damage.[8][9]
Strategy
- For the guaranteed wand from Orcus, see Orcus#Strategy.
Wands of death represent a potentially instant end to a hero's adventure unless they have a source of magic resistance or reflection, and are among the primary factors in the importance of obtaining those properties as soon as possible. While the fabled Gnome With the Wand of Death is very much an outlier scenario, it represents the much more likely possibility that any intelligent monster may find a wand that could end your game, to speak nothing of a wand of death specifically).
It may be ideal to snag whatever wands you see as soon as possible, if only to keep them out of other monsters' hands; if an early wand discovery happens to be a wand of death, it should be saved only for immediate emergencies where the alternative to not using a precious charge is a high risk of dying. Be especially careful of rebounds and monsters with reflection if you lack reflection or magic resistance yourself, particularly if you bring one to Sokoban.
Informally identifying a wand of death is not too difficult due to the message given when engraving: while zapping either type of wand that gives such a message will formally identify them, both rays can easily prove fatal even if sleep rays are less immediately deadly. The wand of death also has a base cost of 500zm, only shared with the wand of wishing. Identifying one in the possession of a monster is much more difficult for obvious reasons—if you learn that a monster has a wand of death without having been instantly killed by it, beware of bouncing rays and consider using an escape item immediately unless you have reflection or magic resistance. Having reflection in particular tends to trivialize most of the wand's danger, and if the reflected ray kills the user, you can then pick it up to preserve the remaining charges.
The wand of death is often employed in the late game to kill the Wizard of Yendor, both during the initial meeting and every reappearance after. This is done to minimize the risk of him stealing quest artifacts, especially ones that provide magic resistance. and also to prevent him from overwhelming the hero, particularly with summon nasties and other lethal spells. Make sure that @ isn't an Elvenking before taking your shot!
Pacifists with magic resistance or reflection may sometimes want to give a wand of death to a particularly dangerous monster in order to have them kill themselves with the rebounded/reflected ray—this is one of their primary strategies for dealing with Medusa, though she must be blinded first since killing her via reflection breaks the conduct.
History
The wand of death appears in Hack 1.21 and Hack for PDP-11, which are based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, and is also included in the initial item list for Hack 1.0.
Messages
- The bugs on the floor stop moving!
- You engraved with a wand of sleep or a wand of death.
- You irradiate yourself with pure energy!
- You die.
- You zapped a wand of death directly at yourself.[10]
- The wand shoots an apparently harmless beam at you.
- As above, but you are polymorphed into a form immune to death rays.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, a wand of death is always generated in the Spider Caves at level creation.
Various monsters that are not demons or nonliving have death resistance, which is implemented as a resistance attribute using the MR_DEATH flag and prevents them from being killed by death rays.[11][12] This includes a few monsters that would otherwise make enticing targets for a wand of death, such as the minotaur, forcing heroes to dispose of them through an alternate means—the property also offers no defense for a hero polymorphed into a monster that has it.
SporkHack
In SporkHack, death rays from the wand will still cause damage and reduce the hero's maximum hit points even if they have magic resistance or reflection—both damage and maximum HP loss are dramatically reduced if they have both properties.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, metroids that are hit by death rays from the wand will not only be unaffected, but use the energy to divide by budding—a hero that is hit by a death ray while polymorphed into a metroid is instead healed for 3d10 HP.
The Wand of Orcus is an artifact huge-sized wand of death that Orcus himself always generates with. It uses the mace skill when wielded as a melee weapon and has +1d20 to-hit, and on each hit it deals +1d12 damage and drains one level from non-drain resistant targets. The Wand of Orcus is also bloodthirsty, with a base 1⁄4 chance of passively attacking adjacent monsters each turn. The Wand of Orcus can be charged indefinitely, cannot be wrested or broken, and invoking the Wand allows it to be zapped as a wand of death without consuming a charge.
SpliceHack
In SpliceHack, the wand of wonder is capable of replicating the effects of a wand of death.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, wands of death function similarly to SporkHack, draining current and maximum HP even if blocked by magic resistance and/or reflection (Which reduces the draining), and they can only be recharged once.
Orcus does not generate with a wand of death, instead using the unique artifact Wand of Orcus (which his guaranteed wand in NetHack represents).
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, a wand of death is always generated in the Gnome King's Apiary variant of Mines' End at level creation—it is placed within a small 2x2 area on the west end of the map that is guarded by four hostile air elementals and is only accessible by phasing.
Hack'EM
In Hack'EM, wands of death function as in EvilHack, and the wand of wonder is capable of replicating the effects of a wand of death as in SpliceHack.
References
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 164
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 493
- ↑ src/muse.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1582
- ↑ src/muse.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1111
- ↑ src/muse.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1419
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2447
- ↑ src/engrave.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 716
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3353
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3366
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2458: This hard-coded message ("You die.") is different than the standard "You die..."
- ↑ zap.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 3536
- ↑ mondata.h in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 23
