Magic cancellation

Magic cancellation, or, shortly, MC, is a property of some pieces of armor which protects against a wide variety of special melee attacks. Having maximum magic cancellation means that only 1/50 of these attacks will succeed (assuming they would hit otherwise). It is related to zapping a monster with a wand or spell of cancellation, which, among its effects, causes these attacks to always fail. Magic cancellation is different from the extrinsic magic resistance.

Protects Against

Magic cancellation reduces the chance of success of melee attacks that can be considered of a magical nature. It protects against the following:

• Fire (e.g. fire ant burning attack)
• Cold (e.g. winter wolf breath)
• Shock (e.g. homunculus bite)
• Sleep (e.g. electric eel bite)
• Poison (e.g. killer bee sting)
• Paralysis (e.g. guardian naga bite. Note that it does NOT protect against paralyzing passive attacks nor gaze attacks, which include the attacks of floating eyes and Medusa)
• Drain life (e.g. vampire bite)
• Sticky attack (e.g. large mimic bite)
• Lycanthropy (e.g. the werejackal bite when it is in animal form)
• Slowing attack (e.g. Shade touch)
• Teleport by the quantum mechanic claw
• Sliming by the green slime touch
• Disenchanting by the disenchanter claw (note that it does not protect against the passive disenchanting attack)
• Power draining by the energy vortex
• Constitution draining poison by the rabid rat bite
• Dexterity draining poison by the quasit claw

Does NOT protect against

Magic cancellation does not protect against the following attacks (although cancelling the monster will protect against some):

• Ordinary physical damage including weapons, spitting, exploding and tentacle attacks
• Spells
• Gaze attacks
• Breath attacks
• Grabbing attacks
• Engulfing
• Passive attacks (such the floating eye paralysis attack and the disenchanters passive attack)
• Erosion attacks (rusting, corroding and rotting)
• Drowning attacks
• Blinding attacks
• Confusion attacks
• Hallucination attacks
• Stunning attacks
• Petrification attacks
• Acid attacks
• Seduction
• Mindflayer intelligence drain
• Leprechaun gold stealing
• Nymph item stealing
• Wizard of Yendor amulet stealing
• Gremlin intrinsic-stealing
• Xan leg attack
• Nurse healing attack
• Juiblex disease attack
• Special attacks of the Riders

Effectiveness

Magic cancellation is a whole number from zero (no reduction in the chance of special attacks succeeding) to 3 (special attacks have 2% of their normal chance of success). The relationship between MC level and chance of special attack success is as follows:

• Magic Cancellation 0 = 100%
• Magic Cancellation 1 = ~67%
• Magic Cancellation 2 = ~35%
• Magic Cancellation 3 = 2%
• Monster cancelled by wand or spell = 0%

All cloaks, some pieces of body armor and the cornuthaum provide non-zero magic cancellation. Note that magic cancellation is not cumulative - your magic cancellation is the maximum of that provided by any single piece of your armour. The following items have maximum magic cancellation (3):

• Elven mithril-coat
• Dwarvish mithril-coat
• Elven cloak
• Oilskin cloak
• Robe
• Cloak of protection
• Cloak of magic resistance

Most players like to have maximum magic cancellation, but some favour the benefits conferred by a cloak of displacement (MC 2).

This page is based on a spoiler by Dylan O'Donnell. The original license is:

Redistribution, copying, and editing of these spoilers, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. The original contributors to any spoiler must continue to be credited.
2. Any modifications to the spoiler must be acknowledged and credited.

References

• Source:Mhitu.c
• Source:Monattk.h

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