Hat of the Alchemist

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

A dirty hat. It bears signs of surviving many weird explosions, which suggests it may have means of protecting the head inside from the risks involved in alchemy experiments.

the -2 hat of the Alchemist

-2 hat

rF+
rC+
rElec
rPois
rN+
rCorr
+40 willpower (Will+)
rMut (66% chance to block mutations)

Desirability

Highly desirable. The hat of the Alchemist covers all six "major" resistances, gives willpower, and it blocks mutations too. Having all that in one slot is very nice; at the least, it allows you to use gear slots that would otherwise be used to gather resistances. If you have solid defenses, this is an all around great item.

However, wearing this hat means a net loss of 5-6 AC from a regular, +2 helmet. Thus, not all characters will want to wear it right away:

• In the early game (early/mid Dungeon, Lair...), resistances aren't particularly important, so the AC from a regular helmet can be more helpful than this hat.
• Species with limited armour slots, like Ogres and Spriggans, appreciate all the resistances in one slot, but the lack of AC hinders them more. Octopodes may wish to rely on its abundance of ring slots for resistances rather than this hat.
• If you happen to cover most/all resistances with other artefacts, this hat may be redundant.

Note that other equipment slots can make up for the AC loss. For example, wearing the hat of the Alchemist with a ring of protection is better than having a plain +2 hat with a ring of willpower.

History

• In 0.18, the amulet of resist mutation was removed, leaving this artifact as one of the few remaining sources of mutation resistance.
• Prior to 0.16, it provided only rF+, rC+, rElec, and MR+, but had a +2 enchantment.