Wishing Guide

👉 In GnollHack, a wish can ask for item qualities, affixes, multiple quantities, and artifacts, each with its own chance of success.

📦 Quantities

How many items you get when you wish for several at once, such as "3 potions of healing" or "20 +2 arrows", depends on the item type:

Item Type	Maximum Quantity
Ammunition & Missiles	Up to 20 per wish, always (e.g., arrows, bolts, rocks).
Candles	Up to 7 per wish, always.
Gems	1 per wish, although they stack.
Non-stackable Items	1 per wish (e.g., weapons, armor, most tools, artifacts).
Other Stackable Items	Up to 5 per wish, with a chance to get only one (e.g., potions, scrolls).

For other stackable items, the game rolls once against the chance below. If the roll fails, you get exactly 1 item:

Requested Quantity	Success Chance
1	100%
2	67%
3	50%
4	33%
5	17%

⚔️ Weapon Qualities

Elite, Celestial, Primordial, and Infernal weapons need non-negative luck. If the roll fails, you get a weapon of normal quality.

Quality Level	Success Chance
Exceptional	100%
Elite	80%
Celestial / Primordial / Infernal	25%

🛡️ Armor Qualities

Armor gets a quality less often than weapons do. All armor qualities need non-negative luck, except that armor with the double chance gets Exceptional at any luck. Gauntlets, shoes, kicking boots, spiked boots, and spiked shields count as weapons here: they use the chances under Weapon Qualities, so they also get Exceptional at any luck. A wish cannot give a quality to helmets, cloaks, shirts, robes, bracers, dragon scale mail, or dragon scales. If the roll fails, you get armor of normal quality.

Quality Level	Standard Chance	Double Chance	Half Chance
Exceptional	50%	100%	50%
Elite	25%	50%	12.5%
Celestial / Primordial / Infernal	5%	10%	2.5%

These armors have the double chance: splint mail, banded mail, chain mail, scale mail, studded leather armor, ring mail, and leather armor. Armor made of mithril, adamantium, orichalcum, or hard crystal has the half chance. The half chance lowers only Elite and the higher qualities; Exceptional stays at 50%.

🪄 Wand Qualities

Only wands of nothing, striking, magic missile, fire, cold, and lightning can have a quality, and then only Exceptional or Elite; every other wand always comes out normal. You need non-negative luck, and if the roll fails, the wand is of normal quality.

Quality Level	Success Chance
Exceptional	50%
Elite	25%

🪄 Elemental Enchantments

On weapons and armor that can have one, you can wish for an elemental enchantment: freezing, flaming, electrified, or death-magical. You always get it if your luck is non-negative. If you ask for death-magical on an item that cannot have it, you get electrified instead.

🔮 Mythic and Legendary Affixes

Keeping two affixes and getting a Rare affix both need non-negative luck. With negative luck, a wish that names its affixes keeps at most one of them, and only if it is Common.

Random Affixes

Request Type	Success Chance	Failure Consequence
Random Mythic (One Affix)	100%	N/A
Random Legendary (Two Affixes)	33%	Item is generated with only one random affix.

Specific Affixes

A wish that names its affixes treats Common and Rare affixes differently. The Rare ones are of elemental protection, of the Last Alliance, of banishment, of sharpness, Stygian, Witch-King's, Olympian, Jotunheimian, and Melnibonean.

With one named affix (Mythic), a Common affix always succeeds and a Rare one only 33% of the time. If it fails, the item has no affix.

With two named affixes (Legendary), the game first rolls a 33% chance to keep both. If that roll fails, only one of the two remains. Each remaining affix is then checked on its own (100% for Common, 33% for Rare). The chance to get both affixes is:

Requested Affixes	Chance to Get Both
Two Common Affixes	33%
One Common + One Rare Affix	11%
Two Rare Affixes	~3.7% (1/27)

When the roll for both, or one of the affix checks, fails, the item ends up with one of the affixes (Mythic) or none (Normal).

🪢 Belts of Giant Strength

The stronger the belt of giant strength you wish for, the less likely you are to get it. If the roll fails, you get a Belt of hill giant strength instead.

Belt Type	Success Chance
Belt of hill giant strength	100%
Belt of stone giant strength	83%
Belt of frost giant strength	67%
Belt of fire giant strength	50%
Belt of storm giant strength	33%

👑 Artifact Wishing

The chance to get an artifact from a wish depends on how many artifacts the current game has already generated.

Generated Artifacts	Success Chance
0 to 2	100%
3	67%
4	50%
5	40%
6	33%
7	29%

With 3 or more artifacts already generated, the chance is 2/n, where n is the number of those artifacts.

The same chance applies to the quest artifacts of the other roles. The quest artifact of the role you are playing can never be wished for, and the wish is still used up; see Quest Artifacts.

🛠️ Item Conditions and Modifiers

Words such as blessed or rustproof in front of the item name set its condition, as in "blessed rustproof long sword". Some always work. Others fail, or even backfire, if your luck is negative. The chance of getting the enchantment you ask for, such as +3, is on Enchantment Wishing Chances.

Modifier Type	Wishing Terms	Success Chance & Rules
Beatitude	blessed, uncursed	100% chance if your luck is non-negative. ⚠️ Warning: If you wish for these with negative luck, the item will be generated as cursed instead (unless it cannot be cursed).
Damage Proofing	rustproof, fireproof, corrodeproof, rotproof, fixed	100% chance if your luck is non-negative. If your luck is negative, the request is ignored and the item generates normally.
Poisoned	poisoned	100% chance on applicable weapons if your luck is non-negative. If your luck is negative, the request is ignored.
Greased	greased	100% chance, regardless of luck.
Material	silver, adamantium and other wishable materials	Takes effect only when the item type accepts that material. A boomerang, dart or shuriken accepts no material other than its own, so the word is ignored: silver dart gives an iron dart and adamantium boomerang a wooden one. Materials that cannot be wished for, such as wax and ice, are not recognized, nor are wood and lead (write wooden and leaden). A wish like wax dart, wood boomerang or silver wand of digging is refused with Nothing fitting that description exists in the game.

📝 Examples

Wish	What You Get
3 potions of full healing	All 3 with a 50% chance, otherwise 1.
20 arrows	Always 20 arrows.
exceptional long sword	Always Exceptional.
elite splint mail	Elite with a 50% chance (double chance).
elite dwarvish mithril-coat	Elite with a 12.5% chance (half chance).
blessed elite wand of fire	Elite with a 25% chance, if your luck is non-negative.
freezing long sword	Always freezing, if your luck is non-negative.
long sword of orc slaying	Always has the affix, which is Common.
Witch-King's plate mail of fire resistance	Both affixes with an 11% chance (one Rare, one Common).
Frost Brand	Always, if 0 to 2 artifacts have been generated so far.
blessed rustproof long sword with negative luck	A cursed long sword that is not rustproof.
greased cursed long sword	Always exactly what you asked for.
blessed +3 exceptional freezing long sword	Exceptional always (a weapon), and freezing always with non-negative luck.
uncursed celestial splint mail of lightness	Celestial with a 10% chance instead of 5%, because splint mail has the double chance. The Common suffix always applies.
blessed celestial Witch-King's plate mail of fire resistance	Celestial with a 5% chance and both affixes with an 11% chance. The two rolls are independent.