Wishing

In NetHack, you may not always encounter the items necessary for a good Ascension Kit. Fortunately, Nethack has a system of wishing. Whenever you receive a wish, you may ask for an item and you will receive it, with some restrictions.

Methods of wishing
There are several ways to obtain a wish in NetHack, including:


 * Zapping a wand of wishing (guaranteed, provided (luck + d5 >= 0))

(Zapping a wand of wishing is the only guaranteed method. The others are not guaranteed and may have negative side effects.)


 * Rubbing a magic lamp, preferably blessed
 * Quaffing a smoky potion, preferably blessed
 * Quaffing from (or dipping in) a fountain, a small chance
 * Sitting on a throne, a small chance

The castle always has a wand of wishing in a chest in one of the four corner rooms. Unless you are trying for wishless conduct, you should be able to do some wishing before you enter Gehennom.

Restrictions on wishing
You may not wish for a wand of wishing, or a magic lamp. This is to guard against infinite wishes. You also cannot wish for your own quest artifact, although you may wish for those of other roles. Note that wished-for quest artifacts will "evade your grasp" unless your alignment matches the artifact – check Hugo/O'Donnel NetHack Artifacts Spoiler for artifact alignments. You cannot wish for the Amulet of Yendor or for any of the unique items required to obtain it (the Bell of Opening, the Candelabrum of Invocation and the Book of the Dead).

When wishing, you may specify an amount of an item or a specific enchantment - for instance, 2 of an item instead of 1, or +1 rather than +0. However, the more or higher you wish for, the more chance you have of getting only one or +0. Most players wish for 2 items or +2 enchantment, or 3 items or +3 enchantment. (The NetHack Wishing Spoiler includes a table of probabilities.)

Artifact wishing
If you wish for an artifact, your chance of receiving it depends on the number of artifacts already in existence:

Wishing for your own quest artifact will never succeed.

If you wish for a quest artifact, you might receive it, but find yourself unable to use it. (See intelligent artifacts for more details.)

Note that wishing for an artifact will break the artifact-wishless conduct, regardless of whether you actually receive it.

Wishing for quantities
If wishing for a stackable item, you may wish for more than one. If the amount you wish for is less than the roll of a d6, you get the desired amount, otherwise you get only one. (If you wish for more than one of a non-stackable item, you get only one.)

Exceptions to this rule are candles (up to 7 are guaranteed), projectiles (up to 20), and gold pieces (up to 5000).

Most players wish for 2 or 3 items. Wishing for 3 gives more items when averaged over many wishes/games, but wishing for 2 is more likely to increase the effectiveness the current wish.

Wishing for enchantment
Similarly, if wishing for an item that can be enchanted, you may specify the enchantment. If the enchantment you wish for is less than or equal to the roll of a d5, you get the desired enchantment, otherwise you get ±0.

You can wish for negatively-enchanted equipment, with the same chance of success as the equivalent positive enchantment. It's not clear why anyone would want to do this, however.

Be warned that if your luck is negative, any enchantment higher than +2 will automatically become negative. (This check takes place after the game decides whether it will grant you your specified enchantment.)

As with quantities, most players wish for +2 or +3 equipment.

Wishing for BUC
You can specify whether the item should be blessed, uncursed, or cursed. If your luck is zero or greater, your preference will be respected.

If your luck is negative, explicitly wishing for a "blessed" or "uncursed" item will yield a cursed one instead. (Wishing for a "cursed" item still works.)

If you do not specify a BUC, the item will default to uncursed (regardless of luck), unless its enchantment is negative (including -0).

You should almost always wish for blessed items, unless you have negative luck, or specifically want a cursed potion or scroll. Magic markers should be uncursed, so that cursed paper will produce cursed scrolls. If you desire both cursed and blessed copies of an item (such as scrolls of genocide or potions of gain level), consider wishing for cursed ones, since it is easier to bless items than it is to curse them.

Wishing for erosion-proofing
You can ask for an item to be "rustproof", "erodeproof", "corrodeproof", "fixed", "fireproof", or "rotproof". If your luck is non-negative, and the item is subject to erosion (or is a crysknife), your preference will be respected.

NetHack does not discriminate between the different types of erosion-proofing, so you may wish for "corrosion-proof speed boots" or a "fireproof crysknife", and the game will substitute the appropriate type of protection. Thus, some players recommend adding "fixed" to every wish, to reduce the chance of mistakenly not erosion-proofing something.

You can also explicitly request an eroded item; in this case, erosion-proofing will not be applied.

Wishing for a monster type
When wishing for a tin, corpse, figurine, egg, or statue, you can specify what type of monster it should be.

If you wish for a tin containing a monster that has been genocided, you get an empty tin. Wishing for a tin containing a unique monster, a monster that cannot leave a corpse, or a monster giving zero nutrition (such as a wraith) will instead produce a random tin. Note that you can also wish for tins of spinach.

You may not wish for the corpse of a unique monster, or a monster that cannot leave a corpse; doing so will produce a random corpse. Wishing for the corpse of a quest guardian will instead produce a corpse of the corresponding role monster.

If you wish for a figurine of a unique monster, any kind of human, or a mail daemon, you will instead receive a random figurine.

If you wish for an egg from a monster that cannot lay eggs, you will get a random kind of egg. You can wish for an egg from a genocided species, but the egg will never hatch.

You can wish for a statue of any monster, including unique and genocided ones. Bear in mind, however, that casting stone to flesh on a statue will not always produce that monster—for example, animating a statue of a unique monster or quest guardian will instead produce a doppelganger disguised as that monster.

Other options
You can also specify the following options:


 * "holy", "unholy" (sets BUC, even if not potion of water)
 * "lit", "burning", "unlit", "extinguished" (for lamps, candles, and potions of oil)
 * "unlabeled", "unlabelled", "blank" (for scrolls and spellbooks)
 * "poisoned" (for poisonable weapons, containers, and comestibles)
 * "greased" (any item)
 * "partly eaten" (for comestibles)
 * "historic" (for statues)
 * "diluted" (for potions other than water)
 * "empty" (for tins)

Most of these are useless or worse, but "greased" can be a life-saver for body armour and containers, and "poisoned" can increase the effectiveness of weapons.

What to wish for
If using the wand, your first wish could be "2 blessed scrolls of charging". (A wand of wishing (0:0) can be recharged exactly once, and if you have 2 scrolls then you keep the other one.) However, the NetHack Wishing Spoiler reminds you that you might instead wish for an "uncursed magic marker", so you can write your own scrolls. (You would need to have already identified the scroll of charging, and you would also need a supply of scroll of blank paper and holy water.)

Wishing for objects oftens aims to complete the ascension kit.

Many NetHack players like to obtain gray or silver dragon scale mail. Which color they get depends on their specific situation:
 * "blessed +2 gray dragon scale mail" provides magic resistance
 * "blessed +2 silver dragon scale mail" provides reflection

A Wizard, for example, starts the game with a cloak of magic resistance, and can also obtain magic resistance by carrying the Quest artifact, the Eye of the Aethiopica, or by wielding the first gift from sacrificing, Magicbane. So the silver dragon scale mail is the best choice. For a character who found the amulet of reflection in Sokoban, but has no source of magic resistance, gray dragon scale mail is best. (Later, when the player wants to wear an amulet of life saving, he or she can swap the AoR for a shield of reflection.)

With a wish, you can be wearing a dragon scale mail (which also reduces your AC considerably) long before you are able to kill a dragon of the appropriate color and enchant the scales to scale mail.

If you want, you can just join #nethack on Freenode and ask them to suggest what to wish for.

Wishing for quest artifacts
If you are a Neutral character and want a quest artifact, there are at least two good choices:
 * "blessed rustproof Eye of the Aethiopica" (if you are not a Wizard) to regenerate power for spells
 * "blessed Platinum Yendorian Express Card" (if you are not a Tourist) to #invoke for charging

If you play Lawful or Chaotic, do not wish for the Eye or PYEC; it will "evade your grasp" because it is the wrong alignment and the wrong class. (A helm of opposite alignment also will not help.) The only way to use the Eye or PYEC when your are Lawful or Chaotic is if it is your quest artifact, in which case (as usual) the game adjusts the alignment of the artifact to match that of your character.

What not to wish for
The NetHack Wishing Spoiler has a list of good items to obtain "Without Wishing". Here are a few more:


 * unicorn horn – This is a very common item after you find unicorns. Early in the game, if you have no unicorn horn but find a wish, you probably want dragon scale mail.
 * food ration – You are fainting, cannot #pray, and there is no food around? Prefer wishing for a horn of plenty. If you're not fainting yet but out of food regardless, wishing for a ring of slow digestion may be better - NetHack is usually plentiful enough on food that you can find a monster or food item soon enough with the decreased hunger.
 * potion of holy water – ... unless you are playing an atheist, in which case you might not be able to do a water prayer. Of course, if you are playing a wishless atheist, then this is not an option.