Potion of sickness

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

The potion of sickness is biologically contaminated fruit juice.

Quaffing effects

If you are a neither a Healer nor have sustain ability intrinsic from ring of sustain ability then you are subject to the following effects:

Case	You have no poison resistance	You have poison resistance
blessed	You lose 1 hit point.	You lose 1 hit point.
uncursed	You lose 1-10 hit points, one of your attributes is reduced by 4-6, abuse constitution.	One of your attributes is reduced by 1, abuse constitution.
cursed	You lose 1-15 hit points, one of your attributes is reduced by 4-6, abuse constitution.	One of your attributes is reduced by 1, abuse constitution.

If you are not a Healer but you have the sustain ability intrinsic, you are subject to the effects above except that your attributes are not reduced.

If you are a Healer, you are completely protected from the effects above.

If you are hallucinating then you are shocked to your senses. This is the only good effect of this potion, and the only effect it causes for a Healer.

Despite its name, this potion does not cause the terminal condition known as sickness (which is instead caused by food poisoning or demonic attacks).

Throwing

The potion can be thrown at monsters to possibly reduce their hitpoints. There is no effect if the monster possesses a sickness attack or has poison resistance, and throwing the potion at Pestilence will heal him instead as per throwing a potion of healing at another monster. If a potion of sickness hits a monster that is not immune, the monster's current HP and maximum HP are both cut in half, with separate chances of resisting. If the monster's maximum HP is brought below the current HP, the current HP is reduced to the new maximum HP.

Dipping

You can #dip darts, arrows, shurikens and crossbow bolts into potion of sickness to coat the projectile weapon in poison. Poisoned weapons do d6 extra damage and have a 10% chance of instant kill for non-resistant monsters. However, the poison has a 10% chance of wearing off on each successful attack. In vanilla NetHack this does not work on daggers, in SLASH'EM all bladed weapons can be poisoned, however heavier weapons will lose their poison faster (1 in [10 - (weight/10)] chance).

If you #dip a unicorn horn into potion of sickness, it becomes fruit juice.

If you #dip fruit juice into a potion of sickness, it turns to potion of sickness.

Like almost any potions, fruit juice becomes diluted when #dipped into fountain, moat, or uncursed water (if already diluted, it becomes uncursed water), and polymorphs when #dipped into potion of polymorph (there is 5% chance of resisting).

If you dip potions into another potion, and the result is not defined otherwise, you have 10% chance for explosion. If there is no explosion, you have 1/4 chance to turn the dipped potions into potions of sickness (other possibilities are: 1/2 chance for one of each evaporates, 1/8 chance for random potion, 1/8 chance for water). This is called random alchemy.

Usage

You may use a potion of sickness to poison your weapon (see the Dipping section).

You may directly throw it to a non-immune monster.

You may use it to identify a fruit juice by dipping unicorn horn into it.

You may use it in random alchemy.

If you are hallucinating, and have no (non-cursed) unicorn horn, you may quaff it for curing hallucinations, especially if:

• you are a Healer - no ill effects at all
• the potion is blessed - the only ill effect is losing 1 hp
• you have a ring of sustain ability - it will protect you reducing one of the attributes, which is probably the worst ill effect
• you have a (non-cursed) potion of restore ability - it will restore your attribute
• you are poison-resistant - one of your attributes will be reduced by 1 only, which is not that bad
• you are polymorphed - as long as you return to the human form, you attributes and hp will be restored

(Note however that potions of extra-healing and full healing also cure hallucination. Hallucination may also be cured by pray, considered a minor problem.)

You may dip it twice into fountain or a moat to turn it into a water.

You may polymorph it into a random potion.

Messages

Message	Reason
"Yecch! This stuff tastes like poison."	You always receive this message.
"But in fact it was mildly stale <slime mold> juice.)"	The potion was blessed.
"(But in fact it was biologically contaminated <slime mold> juice.)"	The potion was not blessed, but you have poison resistance, so you only lost one point from one of your statistics.
"Fortunately, you have been immunized."	You are a Healer, so you suffer no ill-effects (hallucination is still cured).
"You are shocked back to your senses!"	You were hallucinating, and were cured by 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.
"<monster> looks rather ill"	A monster without immunity was hit by a potion of sickness, or Pestilence was hit by a potion of healing.
"<monster> looks unharmed"	A monster with a sickness attack or poison resistance was hit by a potion of sickness.

Identification

Potions of sickness can be identified by #dipping a unicorn horn into them, which turns them into fruit juice. Zapping with a wand/spell of cancellation also converts to fruit juice.

However, if neither of those are available, dipping a non-poisoned missile weapon into a potion of sickness will form a coating on it.

References

This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-343}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.