# Alchemy smock

[   alchemy smock   

Appearance

apron

Slot

cloak

AC

1

Special

MC1acid resistancepoison resistance

Base price

50 zm

Weight

10

Material

cloth

The alchemy smock is a type of cloak that appears in NetHack. It is made of cloth and appears as an apron when unidentified.

Contents

1 Effects
2 Strategy
3 History
4 Messages
5 Variants

5.1 SLASH'EM
5.2 NetHack brass

6 References

Effects
When worn, an alchemy smock provides 1 point of AC along with acid resistance, poison resistance and MC1[1] - despite the name, it has no actual effects on alchemy. Reading an alchemy smock will generate one of many YAFMs similarly to T-shirts, most of which are cooking-related.[2][3]
Due to limitations in how object extrinsics are defined, acid resistance from the alchemy smock is handled specially internally.[4] As a result, it only applies to you: monsters wearing an alchemy smock will obtain poison resistance, but not acid resistance.

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

Per this commit, monsters now gain acid resistance from a worn alchemy smock.
Strategy
An early alchemy smock is quite useful, allowing non-orcish players to safely eat corpses of poisonous monsters such as killer bees and gain poison resistance as an intrinsic. Once you have poison resistance, the smock can be given to humanoid pets that lack the resistance.
The alchemy smock is also one of the few extrinsic sources of acid resistance, with the others being yellow dragon scales or the corresponding dragon scale mail. However, acid damage is infrequent and avoidable enough for players through other means that the alchemy smock is usually not required for this purpose, and pets cannot obtain acid resistance from it - it still has a few uses, such as a cloak for a mind flayer polyform to prevent the acid damage for each tentacle attack from piling up.

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

Pets can now gain intrinsics from eating corpses, providing other methods for humanoid pets to gain poison resistance. In addition, monsters can now gain acid resistance from worn alchemy smocks, making it a good choice of cloak for mind flayer pets.
History
The alchemy smock is introduced in NetHack 3.3.0. The ability to read alchemy smocks was added in 3.6.0.

Messages
The possible messages displayed from reading an alchemy smock are:

"Kiss the cook"
"I'm making SCIENCE!"
"Don't mess with the chef"
"Don't make me poison you"
"Gehennom's Kitchen"
"Rat: The other white meat"
"If you can't stand the heat, get out of Gehennom!"
"If we weren't meant to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?"
"If you don't like the food, I'll stab you"

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.
A new quote is added that is similar to an already-existing T-shirt message: "I am an alchemist; if you see me running, try to catch up..." The messages are both references to The Sum of All Fears, with the one on the alchemy smock tailored to be closer to the original quote.

This is notably also the second possible message on an alchemy smock that is not related to cooking in some manner.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, the alchemy smock is replaced with the lab coat, which provides the same properties but also grants MC3. The presence of more powerful acidic monsters such as giant shoggoths also make it far more desirable to seek out.

NetHack brass
In NetHack brass, the frilled apron also appears as just an apron when unidentified, though wearing a non-cursed apron can easily distinguish which of the two it is.

References

↑ src/do_wear.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 323

↑ apron_text in read.c

↑ include/obj.h in NetHack 3.6.6, line 325

↑ Cloak_on in do_wear.c