Wand of cold
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Name | cold |
Appearance | random |
Abundance | 4% |
Base price | 175 zm |
Weight | 7 |
Type | ray |
Maximum charges | 8 |
Spell | cone of cold |
Monster use | May be used offensively by monsters. |
A wand of cold is a type of wand that appears in NetHack.
Contents
Generation
Wizards may be given a wand of cold as the random wand in their starting inventory.[1]
Wands of cold make up 1⁄25 (4%) of all randomly-generated wands. General stores and "quality apparel and accessories" shops can sell wands of cold.
Asmodeus is always generated with a wand of cold.[2]
Randomly created intelligent monsters may be generated with a wand of cold as a offensive item.[3]
Wands of cold are created with 4 to 8 charges.
Description
Zapping a wand of cold in a given direction emits a ray of cold that deals 6d6 damage to monsters that it hits unless they have cold resistance, while dealing an additional +6d3 bonus damage to monsters that have a cold vulnerability (i.e. they have fire resistance but not cold resistance).[4][5] The ray also has a 1⁄3 chance of freezing and shattering potions in the victim's open inventory, with additional damage dealt for each one. Like most rays, a wand of cold's rays will bounce when it hits walls or targets with reflection—it will also freeze any water it travels over into ice, destroys doors hit by the blast and cools and solidifies lava into normal rock floor. Monsters can use this wand, and hostile ones will zap it at the hero.
Engraving with a wand of cold will cause burned engravings to vanish, and always prints a distinct message after finishing the engraving action, but does not auto-identify the wand.
Breaking a wand of cold by applying it will create a damaging magical explosion of cold in a 3×3 square centered on the hero, auto-identifying the wand and dealing cold damage equal to (remaining charges)*d8, while also destroying potions in the open inventory of affected monsters.[6]
Strategy
The wand of cold is a very strong offensive item against most monsters, but it is also dangerous for the hero to encounter early on when most characters do not have a readily-identifiable source of cold resistance. Even for a hero with the wand, they should be careful of rebounds as with many other wand rays; rebounds can also be used deliberately to rack up damage against vulnerable monsters, especially ones with cold weaknesses. The wand remains applicable well into the late game, especially since most of Gehennom's denizens have a vulnerability to cold.
Wands of cold also have multiple uses outside of combat: destroying doors with rays of cold does not produce noise, allowing a hero to enter the Sokoban treasure zoo or similar rooms without waking the inhabitants. A wand of cold can also be used to construct land bridges across water or lava if the hero lacks a levitation source or water walking boots, e.g., gaining entrance to the Castle, entering the throne room in Fort Ludios or crossing the lower floors of the Valkyrie quest. When crossing water or lava using this wand, try to make the shortest ice bridges possible in order to conserve charges—for much larger crossings such as Medusa's Island, zapping a wand of digging downward may be a better idea. Additionally, ice squares will cause the hero to make noise while traversing them unless they are a Valkyrie or wearing snow boots, and most of them will eventually melt away: fire rays can melt them prematurely while you are still crossing, so be careful not to end up drowned!
The wand of cold is a valuable offensive and/or escape item against sea monsters: freezing the water they occupy will strand them on the surface, weakening them and preventing giant and electric eels from being able to drown the hero until they re-enter water. The wand can also be used to retrieve items from water or lava by freezing their squares—this is especially useful for retrieving any of the invocation items, which will automatically appear on top of ice or floor created this way.
History
The wand of cold first appears in Hack 1.21 and Hack for PDP-11, which are based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, and is included in the initial item list for Hack 1.0.
Message
- A few ice cubes drop from the wand.
- You engraved on the floor with a wand of cold.
Variants
In many variants of NetHack, engraving with the wand of cold will auto-identify it.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, Ice Mages start each game with a wand of cold.[7]
A wand of cold with 16 charges is generated in the locked chamber within the Cloud Bank of the Lawful Quest at level creation.
NetHack Fourk
In NetHack Fourk, which incorporates the Wands Balance Patch, unskilled usage of a wand of cold deals the lesser between 3d6 or 2⁄5 of the target's maximum HP in cold damage, and does not destroy items—the wand behaves as in NetHack at all other skill levels. This also applies to FIQHack.
SpliceHack
In SpliceHack, a wand of cold can be combined with a tooled horn at a furnace to create a frost horn.
References
- Jump up ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 164
- Jump up ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 772
- Jump up ↑ src/muse.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1611
- Jump up ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3642
- Jump up ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3649
- Jump up ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3371
- Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 98