# Talk:Towel
Based on an experiment I tried in Wizard Mode, a wet towel, despite its low weight, does make a great Vladsbane. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samt45 (talk • contribs) 18:41, 15 September 2012‎
does engraving with a towel break illiterate conduct? --194.116.198.185 11:59, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Whether or not engraving breaks illiterate conduct doesn't depend on the implement used, only on what you engrave: engraving anything other than a single "X" or "x" breaks it.  -Ion frigate (talk) 21:43, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
Towel Day (UnNetHack)
In UnNetHack, players are guaranteed to have a towel in the starting inventory on May 25 (Towel Day)
--Ozymandias (talk) 21:21, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks; I added it to the article. —bcode&nbsp;talk&nbsp;|&nbsp;mail 21:39, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
Wet towel
NetHack 3.6.0 adds the ability to use a wet towel as a weapon. Quick overview of what I'm seeing, if I'm not misreading the source:

Wetting can be done with a potion of water or any water source, including accidental wetting from a trap. This adds 1-7 "points" of wetness, with a maximum of 7. Weapon.c, line 811. Called by water_damage in trap.c, line 3325.
Towels still have a base damage of 0, which is then increased by the wetness. However, the final non-weapon damage is rnd(tmp), so a +7 towel should do 1-6 damage (a roll of 7 becomes a 6). Additionally, the towel being wet will suppress the "you begin bashing monsters ..." message until it dries out.
Applying or engraving with a towel will dry it one point. Hitting a monster will dry it out by 1, unless rn2(wetness+1) is 0 (50% chance at 1 wetness, 66% at 2, etc). Fire damage will drain several stages.
So yeah, it can be used as a weapon, just probably not a very good one. -- Qazmlpok (can't login from here).
Are you sure that the towel changes to moist at 1 point, not 2, as I've previously edited? After some testing it seems to me that either it's at 2 or wiping a message doesn't always subtract one point. -- 62.4.105.221 02:50, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

objnam.c, 312. Condition for moist vs wet is 'obj-&gt;spe &lt; 3' (spe being wetness). For engraving, engrave.c, line 822. It calls dry_a_towel directly whenever you "engrave" with a wet towel. I don't see any kind of randomness or conditionals being applied here. -- Qazmlpok (talk) 15:34, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
Well there you go, a 'spe &lt; 3' condition should be satisfied at 'spe == 2'. Also, the information that applying a wet towel will dry it was removed by me, because I could not replicate this behavior ingame. After a glance at the code I now realise that this doesn't apply in cases when "your hands and face are already clean" – the towel has to be used to actually wipe something away for it to dry out, so I don't think this is a viable way of deliberately drying the towel. Not that these things matter a great deal – after all, wetness only matters to players who use the towel as a weapon, which I imagine is not a lot at all. -- 62.4.105.221 00:07, 4 March 2016 (UTC)