Hat of Pondering

Version 0.28: 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.

Should a Naga or Palentonga find both this and the lightning scales, the running ego will counteract the ponderousness. For the latter, moving at greater-than-average-speed is a very strong ability, lost in exchange for the hat's magical capabilities. Spriggans, who will still outspeed regular speed monsters, won't mind as much; but without external buffs, you'll now be slower against an hasted average speed monster.

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