Sickness

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This article is about the property that causes a hero to become "deathly sick". For the potion, see potion of sickness.

Sickness is a property in NetHack that can induce a delayed instadeath after a set amount of turns.

Description

There are two distinct types of sickness, each with their own status line indicator:

  • Food poisoning (or FoodPois), which primarily occurs from eating very old corpses and globs.
  • Illness (or Ill), which is mostly inflicted by monster attacks.

Both conditions are not mutually exclusive of each other, and are distinguished by whether or not they can be cured via vomiting[1]—food poisoning is considered a "vomitable" sickness, while illness is not, and any reference to "vomitable" and/or "non-vomitable" forms of sickness will specify the appropriate illness type. The hero will abuse constitution upon contracting sickness, and will also abuse constitution once every 5 actions while they are sickened.[2][3][4] An amulet of life saving will revive a hero killed by any form of sickness.

Immunity to sickness (or sickness resistance) is a property that prevents the hero from contracting either form of sickness, though they cannot obtain it unless they polymorph themselves into a ghoul, fungus or mold.[5] Only the hero is subject to sickness in either form: monsters cannot become sickened by other monster attacks, and only tame monsters will eat corpses at all, with the exception of gelatinous cubes that will "eat" and dissolve corpses (and most other organic items) without becoming sick.[5]

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.

Per commit ef1eeed7, green dragon scales and green dragon scale mail grant immunity to sickness while worn.

Per commit 017a8687, which addresses issue #594, The Riders' unique touch attacks and other monsters with similar damage types can now affect other monsters with those attacks in combat.

Food poisoning

Food poisoning occurs if the hero eats a tainted corpse or glob, unless they are in the form of a ghoul:[6] corpses and globs are considered 'tainted' if their age at the time of eating equal to or greater than (6+x)*(9+1d20) turns, where x is 2 if the object is blessed, -2 if the object is cursed, and 0 if the object is uncursed.[7] The corpses of lichens and lizards cannot become tainted from aging in this way, while the corpses of acid blobs cannot cause food poisoning even though they can still rot away from age.[8][6][9]

A hero that lacks immunity to sickness and acquires food poisoning will die in 10-19 turns, unless the ailment is cured or else they become immune[9]—if this occurs while the hero is already sick, the timer will use the lower of the two values between the current timer and the new timer.

Despite the name, food poisoning is completely unrelated to standard poison and is unaffected by poison resistance, though they can occur simultaneously if eating an old enough corpse that belongs to a poisonous monster.

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.

Per commit 63d3d7b6, a hero has a constitution-in-100 chance of surviving food poisoning, and if the hero survives food poisoning this way, they will also abuse constitution and silently have it decreased by 1.

Illness

Illness can occur from a hero applying a cursed unicorn horn has a 2⁄13 chance of becoming ill.[10] The hero can also become ill if they are hit by a disease attack from any of the following monsters:[11]

Pestilence's attack uses the AD_PEST damage type flag, while all others use the AD_DISE damage type flag.[12][13][14] A hero that lacks immunity to sickness and is hit by these attacks will take damage and contract illness, with the turns-to-live timer set to between 20 and (19+Con) turns before they die, and subsequent hits from the attacks will divide the remaining turns-to-live by 3.[15][16] In the cases of Demogorgon and Pestilence, if the hero is already made ill by the first of their disease attacks that round, the second one will instead stun them.[17]

Monsters hit by these attacks will not become sickened.[5]

Remedies

Sickness from either source can be cured by the hero using any of the following methods:

  • Applying a non-cursed unicorn horn has a chance of curing sickness, with a higher chance for a blessed one.[18]
  • Quaffing a blessed potion of healing, or a non-cursed potion of extra healing or full healing, will cure sickness.[19][20][21][22][23]
  • Quaffing a potion of holy water as a lawful or neutral hero will cure sickness.[24]
  • Successful prayer to the hero's god will pause the timer for the three turns it takes to complete[25]—sickness is considered a major trouble, and a prayer that succeeds will cure it.[26][27]
  • Successfully casting the cure sickness spell will cure any sickness the hero has.[28]
  • Eating a non-cursed eucalyptus leaf will cure any sickness.[29]
  • The act of vomiting, e.g. as a result of nausea from eating tripe or a rotten egg, will cure food poisoning but not illness[30]—a hero vomiting while they have both illness and food poisoning will double their turns-to-live timer, and only the food poisoning will be cured.[31]
  • Invoking The Staff of Aesculapius successfully will cure any sickness.[32][33][34]
  • A hero that polymorphs into a ghoul, fungus or mold will obtain immunity to sickness and cure any existing sickness.[5][35] A hero that attempts to polymorph into a monster that is not a valid form or else is of the same race of them, or else if the hero "fails" a polymorph into another valid monster with a 1⁄20 chance, will have sickness cured as a result of feeling like a "new <person>".[36]
  • A hero that is hit by a nurse's attack and meets the conditions to be healed by it (i.e., they are wearing no armor and not wielding any weapons) will have any sickness cured.[37]
  • Sitting on a throne has a 1⁄13 chance of causing the hero to feel "much, much better", which cures sickness among its other healing effects.[38][39]

Strategy

In theory, one of the easiest ways to deal with any potential sickness from food poisoning is to avoid eating tainted corpses in the first place—in practice, player error can easily cause the hero to ingest a tainted corpse, such as a typo when entering a command or selecting an item to eat, or else simply forgetting how long a corpse was laying around for. Additionally, some players may have their hero eat corpses left by zombies or mummies in particular if they are either desperate for nutrition–which can happen in some early-game situations for certain roles–or else attempting to obtain an intrinsic from them (i.e. elf and giant corpses left by zombies and mummies): assuming such a corpse is eaten immediately, they have a roughly 2⁄5 chance of the corpse being old enough to cause food poisoning. Old corpses can always be rendered safe to eat by applying a tinning kit to make a tin out of them.

Should a hero ever contract sickness by any means, it should be cured post-haste using one of the remedies listed above—the most reliable of these cures are listed as follows:

  • Non-cursed eucalyptus leaves, which take only one action to eat.
  • Successful prayer, if it is safe to do so (which will not be the case in Gehennom).
  • Casting the cure sickness spell with a 0% failure rate.
  • Polyself into the hero's own race—polymorphing to obtain sickness resistance is generally not advisable, as only ghouls and fungi are applicable and they are very weak polyforms.

While a blessed unicorn horn is fairly reliable and accessible for all character builds, it is not 100% guaranteed to cure any trouble, and may also cure present troubles other than sickness, such as lowered stats or stunning.[40] As such, it is generally wise to keep one of the above methods or other remedies available when facing off against any of the monsters that can cause disease: Juiblex acts slowly enough that a unicorn horn can suffice in most cases, but using one is riskier when dealing with the likes of Demogorgon or Pestilence.

Similarly, non-cursed potions of extra healing and full healing are very reliable cures (arguably moreso than unicorn horns), though they are subject to destruction from fire or cold damage, and smoky and milky potions that are extra healing and/or full healing can produce a ghost or djinni at a very inopportune time and lead to an avoidable YASD. Keeping a set of spare potions or remedies in a bag of holding or a secondary container kept on-hand (e.g. in case your primary bag of holding is un-blessed or even cursed and slows you down) is generally wise for occasions where you are wracked with sickness—this is especially handy for dealing with Demogorgon or Pestilence, where you are just as likely to have items cursed, or else be stunned and thus unable to cast the cure sickness spell.

Emergency caches of holy water are common to carry on a hero's person, and a non-chaotic hero may consider quaffing one as a guaranteed cure for sickness if they want to preserve other items or else lack many reasonable options.

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.

Green dragon scale mail is viable as a means of preventing illness outright, and may be worth employing for a player that seeks to hunt Demogorgon in particular or else wants to minimize the worst effects of encountering Pestilence on the Astral Plane.

History

Sickness is first introduced in Hack 1.0 alongside the ability to eat corpses.

Messages

Ulch - that <food type> was tainted!
You ate a corpse or glob that was old enough to cause food poisoning.
You feel deathly sick.
You have contracted food poisoning.
It doesn't seem at all sickening, though...
As above, but you have immunity to sickness.
You feel <much/even> worse.
Your sickness has worsened and further shortened your time to live, using "much" if it was reduced by at least half.
You die from your illness.
You were killed by sickness.[41]
You feel somewhat better.
You had both food poisoning and illness and cured the former by vomiting, doubling your time to live.
You are no longer ill.
You successfully cast the cure sickness spell and cured any sickness.
You feel cured. What a relief!
You have fully cured your sickness by another means.
You look peaked.
You applied a mirror to yourself while you have a sickness.
You are sick from food poisoning.
You are sick from illness.
You have sickness from one or both sources, as viewed via enlightenment.
You are immune to sickness.
You have immunity to sickness, as viewed via enlightenment.

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.

The following message is added as part of commit 63d3d7b6.

You have recovered from your illness.
You survived your sickness with a constitution-based chance, and will also abuse constitution and lose a point of constitution.

Variants

Variants of NetHack often introduce additional means of contracting and curing sickness. For obtaining immunity to sickness in the first place and what sources are available in variants, check in that section within the appropriate article.

SLASH'EM

SLASH'EM adds the following sources of sickness:

  • Rot worms have an illness-inducing bite attack.
  • Ingesting a pill from an applied medical kit that fails to work may cause sickness in the hero.

SLASH'EM also adds the following remedies for sickness:

  • Sitting on a toilet will cure food poisoning, lowering the hero's nutrition as well.
  • Fully eating a holy wafer can cure sickness.
  • The healing hands and surgery techniques can cure sickness, though surgery requires a carried scalpel.
  • A hero ingesting a pill from a medical kit can cure sickness if that pill works successfully.
  • Quaffing a blessed potion of amnesia can cure sickness (though it will also inflict amnesia among other effects).

The following changes affect the ability to inflict or cure sickness:

  • The odds of applying a unicorn horn successfully curing at least one trouble is dependent on its enchantment as well as its beatitude.

NetHack brass

NetHack brass adds the following sources of sickness:

  • Applying a cursed bandage has a 1⁄13 chance of the bandage being "badly contaminated" and inducing sickness.

GruntHack

GruntHack adds the following sources of sickness:

  • Zombies have a brain-eating attack that can cause illness among other effects, and eating their corpses will always cause illness in addition to the normal effects of eating an old corpse—dying from zombie-borne illness will turn the fallen hero into a zombie if a bones file is created.

SporkHack

SporkHack adds the following sources of sickness:

SporkHack also adds the following remedies for sickness:

dNetHack

dNetHack adds the following sources of sickness:

  • Weapons and armor can be 'poisoned' with substances that cause illness if those items are eaten or used to hit non-immune targets—these items are referred to as filth-encrusted, and can be poisoned this way as a result of random generation, purchasing coatings via shopkeeper services, being subjected to the filth monster spell, or wishing for a filth-encrusted item.
    • Similarly, black signet rings can store multiple doses of disease-inducing 'poison', becoming filth injecting and applying the poison when the hero performs an unarmed attack while wearing the ring without gloves.
  • Mummy curses from killing a priest mummy or pharaoh can inflict sickness.
  • The plague monster spell can inflict sickness.
  • Several monsters are given disease-inducing attacks, with more notable ones listed below.
  • Some artifacts can also inflict sickness:
    • Invoking Plague treats arrows fired from it as filth-encrusted for 13 turns, and those arrows have a 1⁄5 chance of inflicting instant death upon hitting a target that lacks immunity to sickness—a target killed this way produces an explosion whose radius depends on the physical size of the slain monster and deals 6d6 illness damage to monsters caught in it.
    • The Scorpion Carapace has an upgrade that grants the wearer an illness-inducing sting attack.

dNetHack also adds the following remedies for sickness:

  • Quaffing a potion of starlight can cure sickness, unless the hero is a lycanthrope (in which case they take damage and the lycanthropy is cured instead).
  • Nurses that are not hostile will offer an "antibiotics" service that cures sickness.
  • One of the invoke effects for the Rod of Seven Parts cures sickness alongside a few other maladies, which uses up 3 points from the artifact's current enchantment and requires a minimum enchantment of +3.
  • A hero that has the spirit Buer bound can use the "Gift of Health" active power to cure sickness.

xNetHack

In xNetHack, sickness behaves as it does in NetHack 3.7.0.

Copper as an object material has some anti-sickness properties: copper weapons and armor used in attacks deal bonus damage to fungi and monsters with disease or decay attacks, while worn copper armor has a 1⁄5 chance (20%) of blocking sickness (which stacks per piece of applicable armor).

SpliceHack

SpliceHack adds the following sources of sickness:

  • Weapons can be 'poisoned' with substances that cause illness if those items are used to hit non-immune targets—these items are referred to as filth-crusted, and a weapon can be poisoned this way by dipping it into a potion of filth.
  • A hero quaffing a potion of filth will be given food poisoning, while a hero hit by a thrown potion of filth will be afflicted with illness.
  • Locusts behave as they do in SporkHack and other variants, retaining their illness-causing bite.
  • Marrashi have illness-inflicting bite attacks, and generate with a special filth-crusted arrow.
  • Grave trolls have an illness-inflicting bite as well.
  • Filth dragons have two illness-inflicting claw attacks.

Copper as an object material has some anti-sickness properties: copper weapons and armor used in attacks deal +d6 damage to fungi and monsters with disease attacks, while worn copper armor has a 1⁄5 chance (20%) of blocking sickness (which stacks per piece of applicable armor).

notdNetHack

In notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, in addition to dNetHack details, invoking the Talisman of Buer can cure sickness among other beneficial effects.

EvilHack

EvilHack adds the following sources of sickness:

  • Several monsters are given disease-inducing attacks, with more notable ones listed below.
    • Locusts behave as they do in SporkHack and other variants, retaining their illness-causing bite.
    • Zombies have a brain-eating attack that can cause illness among other effects, and eating their corpses will always cause illness instead of the usual effects of eating old corpses, in contrast to GruntHack's implementation—dying from zombie-borne illness will turn the fallen hero into a zombie if a bones file is created.
    • Gray fungi have a passive illness attack, as in other variants.
    • Draugr have a brain-eating attack that can cause illness.
  • Grimtooth has a 1⁄6 chance of inflicting illness upon non-immune targets on each hit.

EvilHack also adds the following remedies for sickness:

  • A hero successfully casting the critical healing spell at themselves or monsters has a 1⁄4 chance of curing any sickness.

The following changes affect the ability to inflict or cure sickness:

  • The cure sickness spell can now be cast in other directions as opposed to solely self-targeting, allowing the hero to cure other monsters with the spell.
  • Monsters that are ill will attempt to cure themselves with whatever means they have available—for example, intelligent monsters will use a unicorn horn if they are carrying one, and monsters will eat eucalyptus leaves to cure sickness.
  • Polymorphing into a monster with immunity to sickness works as before, but many more viable polyforms are available for this purpose.

SlashTHEM

In addition to SLASH'EM details, SlashTHEM adds the following sources of sickness:

References

  1. ↑ src/you.h in NetHack 3.6.7, line 304: the two types of sickness are SICK_VOMITABLE and SICK_NONVOMITABLE—the third "type" is used exclusively in the context of items or actions that cure both forms simultaneously
  2. ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 165
  3. ↑ src/attrib.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 499
  4. ↑ src/attrib.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 506
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 src/polyself.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 77: monsters defined as sick-resistant; hero cannot transform into monsters with disease attacks and AD_DISE has no cases laid out in mhitm.c, so disease attacks have no effect on monsters
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 src/eat.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1606
  7. ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1609
  8. ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 52: corpses defined as non-rotting
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 src/eat.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1616
  10. ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1923: deafness has half the odds of occurring compared to non-deafness cases
  11. ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 817: diseasemu function
  12. ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1048
  13. ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1625
  14. ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1992
  15. ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 824: calls make_sick() in potion.c
  16. ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 113: make_sick() function
  17. ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 291
  18. ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2039
  19. ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 995: healup() call for healing potions
  20. ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1001: healup() call for extra healing potions
  21. ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1010: healup() call for full healing potions
  22. ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1162: healup() function
  23. ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1185: healup() sets (curesick) depending on the call to the function and whether the conditions specified for it by the potion are applicable
  24. ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 675: make_sick() call for holy water to cure sickness
  25. ↑ src/timeout.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 506
  26. ↑ src/pray.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 199
  27. ↑ src/pray.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 373
  28. ↑ src/spell.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1176
  29. ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2247
  30. ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3200
  31. ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 143
  32. ↑ src/artifact.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1455
  33. ↑ src/artifact.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1461
  34. ↑ src/artifact.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1471
  35. ↑ src/polyself.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 680
  36. ↑ src/polyself.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 347
  37. ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1504
  38. ↑ src/sit.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 179
  39. ↑ src/sit.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 191
  40. ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2030: A comment above this line displays the odds that a given amount of troubles are cured, and according to this the hero has a 77.3% chance of curing at least one trouble.
  41. ↑ src/timeout.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 571
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