My caveman is doing fine with his +7 Vorpal Blade and +2 Magicbane, and I have enough armor and equipment for another fully-dressed dwarf lord to really do some damage with my +7 Sceptre of Might. The wiki says that Rodney won't harm pets, but wants my artifact (if it's in MY inventory). Is the artifact safe from theft in my pet's hands?

  • I'm not sure about your specific case, but I know that Rodney's steal attack never worked against the High Priest of Moloch to steal the Amulet; he'd teleport into the inner sanctum and fight the HPoM, but couldn't steal from him. My guess would be the steal attack only ever works against the player, but that he'd attack any monster carrying any of the items he covets. – Wooble Feb 15 '17 at 13:47
  • The actual question is general, but in the stated case, it's particularly important because of the MR the Sceptre provides. I have lots of death wands that would become all-but-useless. – slowball16 Feb 15 '17 at 18:47

Actually, it may be a moot question if my Wizard mode tests indicate correctly. I can't seem to get any aligned pet to pick up any Quest artifact, if it's that role's QA. Tried Caveman/Sceptre, Healer/Staff,Samurai/Tsurugi, and Priest/Mitre several times each. Pets pick up, then drop consistently (blessed highly enchanted). Even when disarmed/naked, they will not use that role's QA, but will use other QAs. I don't know if it happens in=game, though.

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  • Oddly, I'm not seeing it in the source code. There's code to keep your pet from eating the quest artifact, but if there's anything to keep your pet from picking it up, I'm not finding it. – Mark Feb 17 '17 at 0:56
  • I'd have thought it was a safety feature to prevent having to kill your pet for the quest artifact. Or that some monsters show preferences in weapons despite what the wiki says. I've had pets drop high enchantment artifacts for cockatrice corpses, or mattocks--very annoying to find your artifact got dropped somewhere. – slowball16 Feb 17 '17 at 18:16
  • 2
    Found it: if I'm reading touch_artifact() correctly, a pet will refuse to pick up anybody's quest artifact. – Mark Feb 18 '17 at 7:08

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