Hat of Pondering

Version 0.29: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

The favourite hat of the slug wizard Gastronok, stained with reddish slime and enchanted to aid in his arcane pondering. It has been specially enchanted to protect against the desiccating effects of salt.

the +3 hat of Pondering

+3 hat

Ponderousness ego
+40 Willpower
+5 Intelligence
+10 MP

Desirability

The hat of Pondering provides extremely useful bonuses to any character's spellcasting and willpower, but the movement penalty has the potential to be very dangerous. Luckily, this hat is most beneficial to those who are likely to have the means to speed themselves up, i.e. mages with spells like Swiftness or Blink. It may also be useful to followers of Cheibriados, who are already slow and gain a piety advantage by being even slower.

The lightning scales' running ego will counteract the ponderousness -- for Palentongas, moving at greater-than-average-speed is a very strong perk which would be lost in favour of this hat's magical capabilities. Tengu are put in a similar position -- their inherent speed bonus while flying is canceled out by the ponderousness. A tengu mage will appreciate the increased magical capabilities and high enchantment granted by this hat, but will have to sacrifice the ability to freely escape from many fights in order to wear it.

Spriggans, meanwhile, will still outspeed average-speed monsters and won't mind being slowed down as much as other species, but they will no longer be able to outrun those monsters if said monsters have been hasted.

True to its lore, the hat of Pondering is sometimes found on Gastronok (10% chance).