# Resistance
In NetHack, resistances are properties that protect you against several harmful effects that you may encounter in the dungeon. A resistance can be either intrinsic, meaning a natural resistance, or extrinsic, meaning a resistance gained by wearing or wielding a certain item. Many intrinsic resistances can only be gained by polymorphing into a certain creature, which is not very convenient.

Contents

1 Intrinsic resistances
2 Extrinsic resistances
3 Summary
4 See also

Intrinsic resistances
One of the most common ways to gain intrinsic resistances is through the eating of corpses. Of special note are dragon corpses, as they are guaranteed to give resistances based on their color as specified below, with the exception of yellow, gray and silver. Other monsters also provide intrinsic resistances if their corpses are eaten, details of which can be found in the individual monster descriptions.

Extrinsic resistances
Extrinsic resistance is obtained, by definition, through items. Dragon scale mail and the lower dragon scales provide reliable methods for many resistances. Artifacts also often provide resistances, some of which are hard to obtain otherwise.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.

Resistances conferred by worn or wielded items have a 99% chance of protecting your inventory; see this commit.
Summary
A non-exhaustive table of the resistances and methods to obtain them is as follows:

Resistance
Dragon corpse
Dragon scales
Item
Polymorph form (see Monster resistances)

Acid resistance
None
Yellow
Alchemy smock
Any acidic-corpse monster (e.g. acid blob)

Cold resistance
White
White
Many
Many "cold" monsters

Disintegration resistance
Black
Black
None
(baby) black dragon

Fire resistance
Red
Red
Many
Many "hot" monsters

Magic resistance
None
Gray
Cloak of magic resistanceMany Quest artifacts
(baby) gray dragon

Poison resistance
Green
Green
Ring of poison resistance, amulet versus poison, Alchemy smock
Undead, demons, many "poisonous" monsters

Shock resistance
Blue
Blue
Ring of shock resistance
&nbsp;

Sleep resistance
Orange
Orange
&nbsp;
Undead, elves

Hallucination resistance
None
None
Grayswandir
&nbsp;

Drain resistance
None
Deep(SLASH'EM only)
ExcaliburThe Staff of AesculapiusStormbringer
Any undead or demon

Stoning resistance
None
chromatic (UnNetHack only)
&nbsp;
Acidic or stone-based creatures (e.g. gargoyles, stone golems)

Sliming resistance
None
None
&nbsp;
Green slime, fiery (not merely "hot") creatures

Sickness resistance
None
None
&nbsp;
Ghoul, fungi

See also
Monster resistances
Monster resistances (UnNetHack)