[slashem] Toilets

[Janis Papanagnou]

The Wiki says about toilets:
"Dipping objects into a toilet wets them; this poisons edged weapons,
rust iron objects and rots food. Dipping potions works the same as
with dipping them into a fountain, though the toilet will never dry
up."

I spent a lot of time dipping potions of water to obtain unholy water
to no avail. Was I just unlucky or is the Wiki not accurate?

Janis

[B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson]

I guess, the wiki entry "works the same" referred just to the diluting
(or exploding in case of acid) from wetting.

Cursing an item is a special fountain function, not linked to the wetting.
You won't get this from wetting by toilet, a swamp, and the like.

BeAr
--
===========================================================================
= What do you mean with: "Perfection is always an illusion"? =
===============================================================--(Oops!)===

[Klaus Kassner]

You can get uncursed water by dipping potions into a toilet and will
never lose the toilet. I think it should have said that dipping potions
works the same way as dipping them into a non-magical fountain or
dipping them into a moat. The toilet does not have any magical effects,
so it will not make unholy water. Its poisoning effects are entirely
non-magical, obviously...

[B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson]

On Wed, 18 May 2022 18:55:41 +0200, Klaus Kassner wrote:

[Dipping in toilet never curses items (among them: potions)]

> I think it should have said that dipping potions
> works the same way as dipping them into a non-magical fountain

Dipping objects into fountains does not differentiate between it being
a magical or non-magical fountain. Only quaffing from it does. Cursing
objects can occur with any type of fountain.

Maybe, it should work the other way round: Because a "magic" fountain is
actually labeled a "blessed" fountain inside the code, cursing a dipped
object (and other negative outcomes from dipping) should probably rather
be prevented in such cases. - It seems like a slight oversight/bug in
game consistency... ;-)

[Janis Papanagnou]

On 18.05.2022 19:24, B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson wrote:
>
> Dipping objects into fountains does not differentiate between it being
> a magical or non-magical fountain. Only quaffing from it does. Cursing
> objects can occur with any type of fountain.
>
> Maybe, it should work the other way round: Because a "magic" fountain is
> actually labeled a "blessed" fountain inside the code, cursing a dipped
> object (and other negative outcomes from dipping) should probably rather
> be prevented in such cases. - It seems like a slight oversight/bug in
> game consistency... ;-)

Using fountains is the primary way to create unholy water for me and
I wouldn't want to miss it. The naming of "magic" would include both
outcomes, good and "bad". Of course, as we learned, "bad" may be very
useful; I use it (unholy water) for scrolls of teleport (level-port),
potions of gain level (escape shortcuts during the home-run), scrolls
of destroy armor (fireproof/rustproof), genocide (get dragon armor or
a missing intrinsic, some use it for HP enhancement), etc.

Janis

[B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson]

On Thu, 19 May 2022 02:33:10 +0200, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

> On 18.05.2022 19:24, B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson wrote:
>>
>> Dipping objects into fountains does not differentiate between it being
>> a magical or non-magical fountain. Only quaffing from it does. Cursing
>> objects can occur with any type of fountain.
>>
>> Maybe, it should work the other way round: Because a "magic" fountain is
>> actually labeled a "blessed" fountain inside the code, cursing a dipped
>> object (and other negative outcomes from dipping) should probably rather
>> be prevented in such cases. - It seems like a slight oversight/bug in
>> game consistency... ;-)
>
> Using fountains is the primary way to create unholy water for me and
> I wouldn't want to miss it.

The non-cursing would only apply to magic (= "blessed") fountains. And
you can always convert these to normal ones by repeated quaffing, until
the "wisp of vapor" is gone.

> The naming of "magic" would include both outcomes, good and "bad".

Yes. But as it happens, the cursing effect is not an effect linked to
/magic/ fountains, but to any kind.

[Klaus Kassner]

Am 19.05.2022 um 19:01 schrieb B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson:
> On Thu, 19 May 2022 02:33:10 +0200, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>
>> On 18.05.2022 19:24, B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson wrote:
>>>
>>> Dipping objects into fountains does not differentiate between it being
>>> a magical or non-magical fountain. Only quaffing from it does. Cursing
>>> objects can occur with any type of fountain.
>>>
>>> Maybe, it should work the other way round: Because a "magic" fountain is
>>> actually labeled a "blessed" fountain inside the code, cursing a dipped
>>> object (and other negative outcomes from dipping) should probably rather
>>> be prevented in such cases. - It seems like a slight oversight/bug in
>>> game consistency... ;-)
>>
>> Using fountains is the primary way to create unholy water for me and
>> I wouldn't want to miss it.
>
> The non-cursing would only apply to magic (= "blessed") fountains. And
> you can always convert these to normal ones by repeated quaffing, until
> the "wisp of vapor" is gone.
>
>> The naming of "magic" would include both outcomes, good and "bad".
>
> Yes. But as it happens, the cursing effect is not an effect linked to
> /magic/ fountains, but to any kind.

That may be true regarding the in-game definition of magic, as applied
to magic fountains. But with a more general view, it is "magic", if a
potion is cursed by a fountain. Cursing something is a magical process
(unless you consider it a legitimate part of religious practice, but for
all except purely symbolical purposes -- i.e. purely symbolic blessing
and/or cursing, having no actual effect on the object, it would be
magical), so a fountain that actually curses something should be
considered magical.

I know that this is not the way magical fountain is defined in the game,
but I was trying to give a role-playing rationale. Toilets are not
normally magical, fountains may be. A fountain that can curse or bless
objects would be magical for the hero of the story, though not for the
nethack program. And as I hear, magical fountains are indeed not
"magical" but "blessed" in the code, so the notion was not even intended
by the programmers.

[B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson]

On Mon, 23 May 2022 09:58:09 +0200, Klaus Kassner wrote:

> Am 19.05.2022 um 19:01 schrieb B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson:
>> On Thu, 19 May 2022 02:33:10 +0200, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

[...]

>>> Using fountains is the primary way to create unholy water for me and
>>> I wouldn't want to miss it.
>>
>> The non-cursing would only apply to magic (= "blessed") fountains. And
>> you can always convert these to normal ones by repeated quaffing, until
>> the "wisp of vapor" is gone.
>>
>>> The naming of "magic" would include both outcomes, good and "bad".
>>
>> Yes. But as it happens, the cursing effect is not an effect linked to
>> /magic/ fountains, but to any kind.
>
> That may be true regarding the in-game definition of magic, as applied
> to magic fountains. But with a more general view, it is "magic", if a
> potion is cursed by a fountain.

I did not say otherwise. Problem is a longstanding labeling difference
between spoilers ("magic fountain") and code ("blessed fountain") when
referring to the same subset of fountains in general. And linked to that
the (slight) inconsistency, that bad (though sometimes desired) results
can come from a source labeled as "blessed".

Earliest spoiler reference I found was inside "WCST v800 Beta (1994)":
| A new type of fountain has been added to Nethack 3.1. This is a special
| type of fountain called a "blessed" or a "magic" fountain. Whenever a
| fountain is generated, there is a 14.3% chance (1 in 7) that it will
| be a blessed fountain.

"Magic fountain" obviously stuck more than "blessed fountain".

The "fountain" source code of NH310 refers to "blessed" only. (Not to
"magic".) That's been the case, ever since. AFAICT.

> I was trying to give a role-playing rationale. Toilets are not
> normally magical

JKR tends to disagree. - But that's a different kind of lore... ;-)