Zapping

From TheKolWiki

Description

Zapping is the art of changing certain items into different yet related items. To zap items, players must acquire a wand. Here are the steps to acquire one:

1. Discover The Secret of the Dungeons of Doom
2. Adventure at The Dungeons of Doom until Izchak's Lighting Store shows up.
3. Purchase the cloak-like item priced at 5,000 Meat.
4. Defeat the Mimic that has been mimicking the cloak-like item.
5. Use the dead mimic to obtain a wand.
6. Start Zapping things!

There are five types of wands, but they all appear to have the same effects. Wands will break after 2-5 successful uses per day (see Cool-Down), so use your zaps wisely and be careful. You can use a wand once a day without any chance of it blowing up, but you will be pushing your luck to attempt a second zap, and the chances of four zaps in a day without breaking your wand are very much against you. The wand will always break after its fifth successful use in a single day. If a zap fails to affect the item, it is safe to reuse the wand that day. The five wands are: aluminum wand, ebony wand, hexagonal wand, marble wand and pine wand.

What Can Be Zapped

These are the zappable item groups discovered so far. When you zap an item in the group, it randomly turns into another item of that group. There are only two known exceptions. One is the ring of aggravate monster, the only item that is a member of two groups: the Outfit group Yendorian Finery, and the Equipment group Dungeon of Doom Rings. When zapped, the ring of aggravate monster will only zap into another member of the Dungeon of Doom Rings group. The other exception is the Daily Dungeon Room 10 Items group: if you don't already possess all three keys to The Hall of The Legends of The Times of Old, then zapping any item in this group will give you a key you don't have.

What Can't Be Zapped

Here's a short list of groups of things that can't be zapped. To check on individual items, click into the alphabetic link list below (there are too many individual items to list them all here). These are just general guidelines - you never know if there might be an exception to the "rule" until you exhaustively test.

• Advanced scrolls (e.g., 668 scroll, 64067 scroll)
• Boss items (e.g., Crown of the Goblin King, Boss Bat britches)
• Bounties for the Bounty Hunter Hunter (e.g., bundle of receipts)
• Chintzy jewelry (e.g., Chintzy accordion pin)
• Clingfilm equipment (e.g., clingfilm cap, clingfilm slippers, clingfilm trousers)
• Club jackets (e.g. Private Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Jacket)
• Crafting equipment (e.g., cocktailcrafting kit, tenderizing hammer)
• Clockwork gear, except for the Clockwork Apparatus
• Crimbo cookies (bell-shaped Crimbo cookie, tree-shaped Crimbo cookie, wreath-shaped Crimbo cookie)
• Dusty animal bones
• El Vibrato Relics (El Vibrato helmet, El Vibrato energy spear, El Vibrato leg guards)
• Epic hats (e.g., Ancient Saucehelm, Elder Turtle Shell)
• Epic weapons (e.g., Bjorn's Hammer, Pasta of Peril)
• Equipment from The Armory and Leggery
• Familiar Hatchlings (e.g., potato sprout, sabre-toothed lime cub, Cheshire Bitten, coffee sprite)
• Familiar Equipment (e.g., hypodermic needle, smile-sharpening stone)
• Gift shop items (e.g., Happy Birthday, Claude! cake, red balloon)
• Grimacite prizes (e.g., Grimacite garter, Grimacite goggles, Grimacite Bock, Grimacite greaves, Grimacite glaive, Grimacite gorget, Grimacite galoshes, Grimacite guayabera, wedge of gray cheese)
• Jewelry crafted through Jewelrymaking (e.g., porquoise bracelet, hamethyst necklace)
• Meat (meat paste, meat stack, dense meat stack, really dense meat stack)
• Meatsmithed weapons and armor including items crafted by Super-Advanced Meatsmithing or Armorcraftiness, except those which are part of an outfit
• Mr. Klaw "Skill" Crane Game rewards (stuffed angry cow, stuffed frozen gravy fairy and stuffed undead elbow macaroni tested)
• Mr. Store items (e.g., Mr. Accessory, Ms. Accessory, all Items of the Month, custom avatar form, Golden Mr. Accessory, as well as related items, such as Candy Hearts, snowcones, and summoned hilarious items) with the Lucky Tam O'Shanter as an exception
• Old money items (e.g., old coin purse, old leather wallet)
• Ore weapons (e.g., asbestos sword, linoleum staff)
• Mutant Couture items -- to prevent the creation of extra items (some of the outfit parts use fewer component parts than others)
• Pathed ascension rewards (Breathetastic™ Premium Canned Air, Retenez L'Herbe Paté, bottle of single-barrel whiskey)
• Pixel Potions and Pie (pixels however can be zapped)
• Plexiglass equipment (e.g., plexiglass pike pike, plexiglass pocketwatch)
• Pulverized powders, nuggets and wads or the rare elemental gems (e.g., steamy ruby, effluvious emerald)
• Quest Items (e.g., quantum egg, plus sign, Spanish fly, Spooky Temple map)
• Radio accessories (Radio KoL Antenna Ball, etc.)
• Sour sauces (stench and sour sauce, etc.)
• Scrumptious reagent potions (e.g., oil of stability, eyedrops of newt, phial of hotness)
• Scrumdiddlyumptious solutions potions (cologne of contempt, etc.)
• Rare items (e.g., spooky hockey mask)
• Some Mafia wines (Spasmi Dolorosi Del Rene Champagne, Ferita Del Petto Zinfandel)
• Specialized booze items (e.g., green beer)
• Stainless steel equipment (e.g., stainless steel shillelagh, stainless steel suspenders)
• Starcombining components (star, line, star chart)
• Toy parts (e.g., length of string, stick, spooky felt, reverse-oscillating klystron)
• Tiny plastic crimbo figures (e.g., tiny plastic Crimbo elf, tiny plastic sweet nutcracker)
• Ultra Rares (e.g., Talisman of Baio)
• Unique event items (e.g., red traffic cone, pirate hook, zombie pineal gland)
• Various food (e.g., basic pasta, all tacos)
• wads of dough and flat doughs
• Zapping Wands (aluminum wand, ebony wand, hexagonal wand, marble wand and pine wand)

What Can Only Be Obtained By Zapping

Certain items in the game can only be obtained by zapping, as listed below.

• lucky Tam O'Shatner can only be obtained by zapping a:
  • lucky Tam O'Shanter
    • These 2 items constitute the Equipment Lucky Tams zap group.
• sleeping snowy owl can only be obtained by zapping a:
  • yo-yo
    • These 2 items constitute the Miscellaneous Crimbo Workshop Items zap group.
• stuffed yo-yo can only be obtained by zapping a:
  • stuffed snowy owl
    • These 2 items constitute the Equipment Mr. Klaw Game Items zap group.
• Amphibious tophat can only be obtained(?) by zapping a:
  • Miniature tophat

When Used

• From inventory:
  • When the item is not zappable: The <item> shudders for a moment, but nothing happens.
  • When the item is zappable:

followed by:

The <wand> abruptly explodes, burning your hand pretty badly in the process.

You lose some hit points.

You don't have a <wand> anymore... How sad.

• Note that if the wand explosion causes you to be Beaten Up, you will be for 4 turns instead of the normal 3.

Cool-Down

As you can see from the "When Used" section, wands heat up with each use. Fortunately, they also cool down at rollover. The first use of a wand per day seems to add one "heat level" and show the "feels a little warm" message, but subsequent uses before rollover can add anywhere from 1 to 4 extra "heat levels." At "heat level" 5 and above, the wand explodes (if you're unlucky enough to have your second use of the day add 4, you lose the wand and 20+ HP). This means that at "heat level" n, the next zap has an n/4 chance to break the wand.

As of approximately Thursday, September 14, 2006, the Zapping window apparently now tells what "heat level" the wand is at.

Level 1: The <wand> feels warm to the touch...
Level 2: The <wand> gets really hot. You should probably be careful.
Level 3: The <wand> starts to vibrate. Wisps of smoke rise from the end. You should definitely be careful.
Level 4: The <wand> glows red-hot, and sparks fly out of it. You should seriously be careful.
Level 5+: The <wand> abruptly explodes, burning your hand pretty badly in the process.

Jick has confirmed on his radio show that if you only zap with a wand once per day, it will never explode.

Once a wand explodes, you can get another one 3 days later or on your next ascension, whichever comes first. (You will have to find the Dungeons of Doom, so ascending probably won't be the fastest way to acquire a new one.)

Also note that the Platinum Yendorian Express Card when used will cool your wand, in theory allowing you two safe zaps a day, or up to eight (very) unsafe zaps.

Notes

• Before April 16, 2008, ascension was the only way to get a new wand after the last one broke.

References

• This is a reference to "polypiling" in NetHack where a player would drop unneeded items onto the floor and zap them with a wand (or spell) of polymorph in hopes that the useless items will turn into similar (and less useless) items.
• The various names of the wands is also a reference to NetHack, where items that aren't yet identified are given these type of names.