Poison resistance
Poison resistance is considered one of the most essential intrinsics in the game. This resistance protects against the harmful effects of poison, including instadeath. For example, a dart trap might shoot out a deadly poisoned dart.
Contents
Sources
Many corpses that offer poison resistance are themselves poisonous or otherwise dangerous (a notable exception is the corpses of shriekers, which can usually be found early). There are, however, many safe ways of acquiring poison resistance. For example, rings and amulets both include one that protects you against poison. Green dragon scale mail also protects against poison.
Barbarians, healers and orcs have a natural poison resistance. Monks get a natural poison resistance when they reach experience level 3 and tourists at level 20. Poison resistance is also granted when you are crowned.
You can safely obtain poison resistance from a corpse in one of the following ways:
- Eat a non-poisonous corpse that grants the intrinsic.
- Use a tinning kit to make a poisonous corpse safe (bear in mind that not all poisonous monsters grant poison resistance).
- Wear an item that grants poison resistance. This could be a ring of poison resistance, an amulet versus poison, an alchemy smock, or green dragon scale mail or scales.
- Use a unicorn horn to negate the strength drain caused by eating a poisoned corpse (this works because unlike poisoned attacks, corpse poison cannot cause instadeath, although it causes some HP loss).
- Wear a ring of sustain ability to avoid the strength drain from eating a poisonous corpse.
- If you know you can pray, get drained 4 strength, pick up junk to be overtaxed, and pray.
Safe corpses
The following corpses provide a chance (given) of gaining poison resistance, and are not dangerous to eat. In this table and the next, corpses which break vegan but not vegetarian conduct are marked with a (v), while those which are safe for vegans are marked with a (V):
| Monster | Probability |
|---|---|
| black unicorn | 27% |
| blue jelly (V) | 13% |
| brown mold (V) | 3% |
| cave spider | 7% |
| centipede | 13% |
| flesh golem | 12% |
| golden naga | 67% |
| golden naga hatchling | 20% |
| gray unicorn | 27% |
| guardian naga hatchling | 20% |
| pyrolisk | 20% |
| quasit | 20% |
| quivering blob (V) | 33% |
| red mold (V) | 3% |
| red naga | 20% |
| red naga hatchling | 10% |
| shrieker (V) | 20% |
| white unicorn | 27% |
Unsafe corpses
The following corpses are among those that provide poison resistance, but are mildly dangerous:
| Monster | Danger | Probability |
|---|---|---|
| black naga | Acid | 53% |
| black naga hatchling | Acid | 20% |
| Chromatic Dragon | Poison | 17% |
| cobra | Poison | 40% |
| giant beetle | Poison | 33% |
| giant spider | Poison | 33% |
| green dragon | Poison | 100% |
| gremlin | Poison | 33% |
| guardian naga | Poison | 80% |
| homunculus | Poison | 7% |
| jellyfish | Poison | 20% |
| killer bee | Poison | 30% |
| Master Kaen | Cannibalism (for humans) | 100% |
| nurse | Cannibalism (for humans) | 73% |
| pit viper | Poison | 40% |
| queen bee | Poison | 60% |
| scorpion | Poison | 50% |
| Scorpius | Poison | 100% |
| snake | Poison | 27% |
| soldier ant | Poison | 20% |
| tengu | Teleportitis | 13% |
| violet fungus (V) | Hallucination | 20% |
| water moccasin | Poison | 27% |
| Wizard of Yendor | Cannibalism (for humans) | 25% |
| xan | Poison | 47% |
| yellow mold (V) | Poison + Hallucination | 7% |
Very unsafe corpses
Unless you are polymorphed into a stoning-resistant form, eating any of these corpses will instantly result in YASD. If, however, you are in a stoning-resistant form before getting poison resistance, these corpses can provide it permanently. Note that tinning them does not make them safe to eat.
| Monster | Danger | Probability |
|---|---|---|
| chickatrice | Stoning when touched or eaten | 27% |
| cockatrice | Stoning when touched or eaten | 33% |
| Medusa | Stoning when eaten | 100% |
Messages
The following messages are associated with poison resistance:
- "You feel healthy(!)"
- You received poison resistance by eating a corpse or tin, or by reaching level 3 as a monk (the exclamation point is present in that last case).
- "You feel especially healthy."
- You received poison resistance by eating a corpse or tin, while having extrinsic poison resistance (from a ring, amulet, etc.), or poison resistance from level gain.
- "You feel hardy!"
- You received poison resistance by reaching level 20 as a tourist.
- "You feel a little sick!"
- You lost poison resistance due to a gremlin's attack.
- "You feel less healthy!", "You feel less hardy!"
- You lost poison resistance through level drain, as a monk/tourist.
- "You seem unaffected by the poison", "The poison doesn't seem to affect you."
- These messages indicate that you were poisoned, but suffer no adverse effects due to poison resistance.
External links
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It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.
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