Does #loot’ing unpaid bags cost money

nethack

My level 6 human wizard fell its way to an hardware shop in the Gnomish Mines. She wanted to buy a bag he saw in there when the shopkeeper commented,

"Just 5,355 zorkmids for you, good lady."

Puzzled, she figures out there must be something very special about that bag — or rather, inside that bag. However, she can't quite tell if there is something inside the bag without opening it.

Problem is, she only had the chance to collect 235 gold. She's afraid that #looting it might trigger some kind of charges against her, just like reading an unpaid scroll means you must pay for it before you can continue. Chances are she can't afford them. She'd hate that.

Is it safe for her to #loot that bag so she can just purchase the empty bag, which she should be able to afford?

Best Answer

It is traditionally safe to #loot items from containers in a store. It's also free to pick their locks if you have a lockpick or similar such. Looking at the contents of the container is perfectly free. If you do successfully take an item out, then you can put it back in the store like any other item; it does not need to go back in the container. There are only two caveats to watch out for.

  1. A bag of tricks doesn't actually carry stuff, and #looting will cause you to get bitten for a minor amount of damage. This auto-identifies the bag, though, and does not cost any extra gold. So it's actually a pretty good thing to have done.
  2. A cursed bag of holding has a 1/13 chance of the item you try and take out vanishing. Which means that you won't be able to put it back in the store. This is fairly rare, though, as from my experience most bags of holding in stores are empty.
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