# Ring of slow digestion

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Name

slow digestion

Appearance

random

Base price

200 zm

Weight

3

Probability out of rings

3.57%

Probability out of items in:

containers

Rogue level

Gehennom

Elsewhere

0.179%

0.179%

0.286%

0.107%

The ring of slow digestion is a ring that appears in NetHack.

Contents

1 Effects
2 Strategy

2.1 Identification

3 Messages

Effects
When worn, the ring nullifies the ordinary consumption of one nutrition per turn. Nutrition consumption from all other sources, including the ring hunger from the ring itself, is unaffected; in practice, this means that a non-spellcasting player can go without being hungry twenty times longer than normal. Wearing two rings does not cause the effect to stack.
If a monster attempts to engulf and digest you while you are wearing this ring, you will be expelled immediately (i.e. the ring slows your digestion).
A cursed ring still has its effect. 

Strategy
With two rings of slow digestion, and good technique, the player can go indefinitely long without losing any nutrition, because the ring hunger for each hand is calculated on different turns. Normally, this is counterproductive due to the higher nutrition consumption from multiple rings, since the effect does not stack; however, ring hunger for your left hand is calculated turn 4 (mod 20), while right hand hunger is calculated on turn 12 (mod 20). The idea is to wear both rings, but removing one of the rings for the turn that its hunger is calculated. No known ascensions have made use of this trick alone to ascend with the foodless conduct intact.

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.

The dual ring of slow digestion trick no longer works, as ring hunger is now random.
Identification
The ring of slow digestion is somewhat difficult to informally identify. Dropping it into a sink does not consume the ring, and produces a message about the ring being "regurgitated", and you can them name it in a prompt. The ring can also be formally identified by testing for it while inside a digesting monster, as indicated above, though this is naturally much riskier.
You can identify a ring of slow digestion by its nutrition-cancelling property, though the process is complicated slightly if you are extensively testing rings. As soon as your nutrition level crosses a visible threshold (i.e. the display no longer shows you as Satiated or you become hungry, put on the (ideally noncursed) ring being tested and eat something that provides low nutrition, such as a fortune cookie (with a nutrition of 40). If you go a long time (e.g. as many as 800 turns for a fortune cookie) without recrossing that boundary, the ring is probably slow digestion.

Messages
You get regurgitated! Obviously the 

<foo> didn't like your taste.
You were engulfed by a digesting monster while wearing a ring of slow digestion.
The ring is regurgitated
You dropped a ring of slow digestion into a sink. If unidentified, this will prompt you to name it.

This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.
It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.4. Information on this page may be out of date.
Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-364}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.

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