Potion of extra healing

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! Pink potion.png
Name extra healing
Appearance random
Base price 100 zm
Weight 20
Monster use May be used defensively by monsters.

A potion of extra healing will heal you.

Generation

The potion of extra healing can be generated as a defensive item. Therefore it will be seen in the starting inventories of many monsters, who know very well how to use it.

Effects

A blessed one heals 8d8 HP when quaffed, an uncursed one 6d8 HP, and a cursed one 4d8 HP. If this would bring your HP above its maximum, your maximum will increase by 2 for an uncursed potion, or 5 for a blessed potion. The potion will also cure hallucination and blindness, exercise constitution and strength,[1] and, if noncursed, cure sickness.

Inhaling vapors (of potion of any beatitude) will heal you 2 HP, up to your maxHP, and exercise constitution.[2] If you're polymorphed, health of your base form is adjusted as well.

You can alchemize potions of extra healing with gain level or gain energy to get a full healing. Conversely, one can make potions of extra healing by dipping a potion of healing in a potion of gain energy, gain level, or speed.

Strategy

Boosting maximum HP

Some players, especially pacifists or protection runners, might quaff this potion right away for the maximum HP boost. For players who don't immediately need the HP boost, it is better for them to wait until they can alchemize it to full healing. Even those who don't have the time or ability to alchemize the potion should try to bless it first, since it gives over twice as much maximum HP that way.

Alchemy

With the new alchemy stacking rules introduced in 3.6.0, turning this potion into full healing may not always be desirable. Dipping a (sufficiently large) stack of extra healing potions will alchemize only 5.5 of them on average; there's further 10% chance of them exploding, losing any potential HP boost, and 90% chance of obtaining full healing, which gives you 3 more max HP per potion. That means, on average, you only get extra 12.1 max HP per dip, compared to just drinking extra healing directly. As each dip uses up either a gain energy or a gain level potion, these 12.1 HP need to be weighted against 10.5 average max energy boost from blessed gain energy or various useful effects from gain level (which gives less than 12 max HP on average, but increases max energy as well, and also has other uses). For spellcasting roles, or those characters who already have decent HP but are lacking in energy, the trade-off may be undesirable now.

Emergencies

The potion of extra healing is decent as an emergency item, but again, the potion of full healing is preferable for this task. Not only does it heal many more HP, but even used when low on HP it is quite likely to still give extra max HP, unlike the potion of extra healing.

If using extra healing potions when hurt, whenever possible be sure that you will heal past full, so the maximum HP boost is not wasted.

BUC Range Mean Std. Dev. (zσ) 90% Confidence (>-1.28155σ) 99% Confidence (>-2.32635σ) 99.9% Confidence (>-3.09023σ)
Blessed 8-64 HP 36 HP 6.481 HP 27.69427445 HP 20.92292565 HP 15.97221937 HP
Uncursed 6-48 HP 27 HP 5.612 HP 19.8079414 HP 13.9445238 HP 9.65762924 HP

In practice, this means that for a blessed potion of extra healing, you are likely to heal at least 27 HP (19 HP for uncursed), and virtually guaranteed to heal at least 15 HP (9 HP for uncursed).

Unpoisoning weapons

If you happen to want to unpoison a poisoned weapon, dipping it in this potion will neutralize the poison and use up the potion, just like the other healing potions.

References

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

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.1. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-361}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.