Potion of invulnerability

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! Pink potion.png
Name invulnerability
Appearance random
Base price 300 zm
Weight 20
Monster use Will not be used by monsters.

A potion of invulnerability is a type of potion that appears in SLASH'EM, SlashTHEM and Hack'EM.

Generation

In addition to random generation, potions of invulnerability can appear on various levels:

Description

Quaffing a potion of invulnerability will causes the player to become invulnerable for a few turns, with the duration depending on the potion's beatitude: a blessed potion makes you invulnerable for 12–15 turns, an uncursed one will make you invulnerable for 8–11, and a cursed potion only makes you invulnerable for 4–7.

The invulnerability from this potion is not the same as the "invulnerability" offered by a successful prayer, and only protects from hit-point loss. A player made invulnerable via this potion will still be vulnerable to beheading, due to its calculations using your maximum HP without inflicting direct HP loss; they are also still susceptible to petrification, illness and other methods of instadeath.

Strategy

Despite the powerful defense it offers, the potion often sees little use outside of specific combat situations. Monsters in variants of NetHack tend to inflict slow but steady damage over many turns, rather than a large amount in a short period of time - it is in the latter situations where invulnerability becomes applicable, and even then its usefulness relies on your character's ability to take out the offending monster(s) in the limited amount of time it lasts for.

For almost all other such situations in SLASH'EM, a burned Elbereth square is often more than sufficient.

References