Potion of sickness

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!
Name	sickness
Appearance	random
Base price	50 zm
Weight	20
Monster use	Will not be used by monsters.

A potion of sickness is a type of non-magical potion that appears in NetHack.

Generation

Rogues start the game with an uncursed potion of sickness.

Potions of sickness make up ²¹⁄₅₀₀ (4.2%) of all randomly-generated potions. General stores and liquor emporiums can sell potions of sickness.

Pestilence will always generate with a stack of several potions of sickness.

Applying a charged horn of plenty has a 0.3% chance of generating a potion of sickness.

Alchemy

When performing alchemy by mixing two random types of potion that have no recipe, and the dipped stack of potions is not diluted, the result is a stack of potions of sickness 22.5% of the time. Dipping a stack of fruit juice potions into a potion of sickness will 'contaminate' the stack, turning them into potions of sickness. Dipping a potion(s) of healing, extra healing, or full healing into a potion of sickness will turn them into potions of fruit juice.

Description

As indicated by alchemy and some of the messages associated with it, the potion of sickness is biologically contaminated fruit juice, and those messages use the name of that fruit when printed.

Quaffing a potion of sickness will cause the hero to lose HP, lower one of their attributes and possibly abuse constitution, depending on the potion's beatitude and whether or not the hero has poison resistance - it does not cause terminal sickness (e.g. as with food poisoning). A hero with the sustain ability property does not suffer attribute loss.

The effects of beatitude on the potion are displayed below:

Case	No poison resistance	Poison resistance
blessed	The hero loses 1 hit point.	The hero loses 1 hit point.
uncursed	The hero loses 1-10 hit points, one of their attributes is reduced by 3-6, and constitution is abused.	The hero loses 1 hit point, one of their attributes is reduced by 1, and constitution is abused.
cursed	The hero loses 1-15 hit points, one of their attributes is reduced by 3-6, and constitution is abused.	The hero loses 1 hit point, one of their attributes is reduced by 1, and constitution is abused.

A Healer is completely protected from the above effects when quaffing the potion. Quaffing the potion will also shock the hero out of hallucination and back to their senses.

Pestilence will quaff potions of sickness to heal himself like other monsters would with a potion of healing or similar potions, and hitting Pestilence with the potion will have the same effect. Other monsters do not quaff or otherwise use potions of sickness.

Inhaling the vapors of a potion of sickness abuses constitution and causes the hero to lose 5 HP regardless of beatitude or poison resistance, or else sets their HP to 1 if they currently have less than 5, and has no effect on a Healer.

Dipping

If the hero dips a unicorn horn into a potion of sickness or cancels the potion, it will become a potion of fruit juice.

If the hero dips darts, arrows, shuriken, or crossbow bolts into a potion of sickness, it will coat the stack of projectiles in poison, using up the potion and prompting the player to type-name it if it is unidentified. Weapons poisoned this way deal +d6 extra damage against monsters that lack poison resistance, with a ¹⁄₁₀ chance of instantly killing them; the poison has a ¹⁄₁₀ chance of wearing off on each successful attack.

Throwing and wielding

Hitting a monster with a wielded or thrown potion will reduce their hit points if successful: monsters with a sickness attack or poison resistance are immune, while other monsters have their current HP and maximum HP halved, each subject to separate rolls versus monster MR. if the monster's maximum HP is brought below the current HP, the current HP is reduced to the new maximum HP.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.

As of commit 43f42b35, the effect of hitting a monster with a potion of sickness no longer depends on monster MR, but only halves the current HP of monsters without poison resistance.

Strategy

Potions of sickness are typically best used for poisoning projectiles, though lawful characters will take a -1 hit to their alignment record for each use of a poisoned weapon; alchemy makes it somewhat easy to procure more potions for poisoning projectiles with. There are many late-game monsters, up to and including some otherwise-powerful quest nemeses, that lack poison resistance and can be easily felled by something as simple as a stack of poisoned projectiles; Tourists in particular that hold on to their starting stack of +2 darts can poison them to use as an effective weapon against the Master of Thieves.

While a potion of sickness can be used as a hallucination cure if you can mitigate the HP and attribute loss (e.g. with poison resistance, a potion of restore ability, or a ring of sustain ability), they are only worth using for this purpose if you lack any other cure, such as potions of extra healing, full healing or a unicorn horn.

For players that have no interest in poisoned weapons, this potion is a good candidate for dilution or else converting to fruit juice for other purposes.

Identification

The potion of sickness is one of four 50zm potions, along with the potions of fruit juice, see invisible and booze - incidentally, all of the other potions can be made from fruit juice.

Potions of sickness can be easily identified by dip-testing with a unicorn horn, as discussed above; while cancelling them also turns them into fruit juice, cancelling the potion of see invisible has the same effect. Dipping a non-poisoned missile weapon into a potion of sickness will form a coating on it, which is reliable for informal identification.

History

The potion of sickness first appears in Hack for PDP-11, which is based on Jay Fenlason's Hack; Hack 1.21, which is also based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, has the somewhat-similar potion of poison. It is included in the initial item list for Hack 1.0.

In versions prior to NetHack 3.6.3, including some variants based on those versions the case for dipping healing potions fell through to the unicorn horn case due to a missing break statement, causing the combination of healing and sickness to alchemize to fruit juice, and the combination of healing and hallucination, blindness, or confusion to alchemize to water. This behavior is made explicit and intentional in NetHack 3.6.3 via commit c6b75407.

Messages

Yecch! This stuff tastes like poison.

You quaffed a potion of sickness.

(But in fact it was mildly stale <slime mold> juice.)

This line is added if the potion was blessed.

(But in fact it was biologically contaminated <slime mold> juice.)

This line is added if you quaffed a non-blessed potion and have poison resistance; you only lose one attribute point.

Fortunately, you have been immunized.

You are a Healer, so you suffer no ill effects.

You are shocked back to your senses!

You were hallucinating, and were cured by quaffing the potion.

You feel weaker.

Your strength was lowered.

Your muscles won't obey you.

Your dexterity was lowered.

You feel very sick.

Your constitution was lowered.

Your brain is on fire.

Your intelligence was lowered.

Your judgement is impaired.

Your wisdom was lowered.

You break out in hives.

Your charisma was lowered.

<The monster> looks rather ill.

A monster without immunity was hit by a potion of sickness.

<The monster> looks unharmed.

A monster with a sickness attack or poison resistance was hit by a potion of sickness.

<The potion> forms a coating on <the weapon>.

You dipped a poisonable weapon into a potion of sickness.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, Healers start the game with knowledge of the potion of sickness.

Bladed weapons can be poisoned in addition to piercing projectiles using a potion of sickness, and poisoned weapons are also subject to a weight-based chance (i.e. 1 in [10 - (weight/10)]) of losing their poisonous coating.

The Chamber of Junk in the Lawful Quest has a ²⁄₅ chance of containing two cursed potions of sickness.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, black signet rings can be dipped into a potion of sickness to make it a venom-injecting ring, which applies the poison when the hero performs an unarmed attack while wearing the ring without gloves. Slashing and piercing weapons can be poisoned using a potion of sickness.

xNetHack

In xNetHack, black mold corpses and any brew-compatible corpses that are cursed can be used to brew a potion of sickness by dipping them in fruit juice, which eventually turns the juice into the potion.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, the potion of sickness is given a constant randomized appearance, always appearing as a dark green potion when unidentified. Slashing and piercing weapons can be poisoned using a potion of sickness. Drow Rogues start the game with a potion of drow poison replacing the role's potion of sickness.

Dipping a gray fungus corpse into a potion of fruit juice creates a potion of sickness (with the defined random appearance used to prevent wish farming).

SlashTHEM

In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, all Ninja start the game with an uncursed potion of sickness.

Hack'EM

In Hack'EM, Healers start the game with knowledge of the potion of sickness as in SLASH'EM. Black mold corpses and any brew-compatible corpses that are cursed can be used to brew a potion of sickness by dipping them in fruit juice, similar to xNetHack.

The Chamber of Junk in the Lawful Quest has a ²⁄₅ chance of containing two cursed potions of sickness as in SLASH'EM.