Potion of sickness
! 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | sickness |
| Appearance | random |
| Base price | 50 zm |
| Weight | 20 |
| Monster use | Will not be used by monsters. |
A potion of sickness is a type of non-magical potion that appears in NetHack. The default randomized appearance associated with the potion is a "fizzy potion".[1]
Contents
Generation
Rogues start the game with an uncursed potion of sickness.[2] Wizards may be given a potion of sickness as any of the three random potions in their starting inventory.[3]
Potions of sickness make up 21⁄500 (4.2%) of all randomly-generated potions. General stores and liquor emporiums can stock potions of sickness.
Pestilence will always generate with a stack of several potions of sickness.[4]
Applying a charged horn of plenty has a 3⁄1000 chance (0.3%) of generating 1-2 potions of sickness.[6]
Alchemy
When performing alchemy by mixing two random types of potion that have no recipe, and the dipped stack of potions is not diluted, the result is a stack of potions of sickness 22.5% of the time.[7] Dipping a stack of fruit juice potions into a potion of sickness will 'contaminate' the stack, turning them into potions of sickness. Dipping a potion(s) of healing, extra healing, or full healing into a potion of sickness will turn them into potions of fruit juice.
Description
As indicated by alchemy and some of the messages associated with it, the potion of sickness is biologically contaminated fruit juice, and those messages use the name of that fruit when printed.
Quaffing a potion of sickness causes the hero to lose HP, lowers one of their attributes and possibly abuses their constitution, depending on the potion's beatitude and whether or not the hero has poison resistance[8] - it does not cause terminal sickness (e.g. as with food poisoning). A hero with the sustain ability property does not suffer attribute loss.[9]
The effects of beatitude on the potion are displayed below:
| Case | No poison resistance | Poison resistance |
|---|---|---|
| blessed | The hero loses 1 hit point. | The hero loses 1 hit point. |
| uncursed | The hero loses 1-10 hit points, one of their attributes is reduced by 3-6, and constitution is abused. | The hero loses 1 hit point, one of their attributes is reduced by 1, and constitution is abused. |
| cursed | The hero loses 1-15 hit points, one of their attributes is reduced by 3-6, and constitution is abused. | The hero loses 1 hit point, one of their attributes is reduced by 1, and constitution is abused. |
A Healer is completely protected from the above effects when quaffing the potion.[10][11] Quaffing the potion will also shock the hero out of hallucination and back to their senses.[12]
Pestilence will quaff potions of sickness to heal themselves like other monsters would with a potion of healing or similar potions, and hitting Pestilence with the potion will have the same effect.[13] Other monsters do not quaff or otherwise use potions of sickness.
Inhaling the vapors from a broken potion of sickness abuses constitution and causes the hero to lose 5 HP regardless of beatitude or poison resistance, setting their HP to 1 if they currently have less than 5, and has no effect on a Healer.[14]
Dipping
If the hero dips a unicorn horn into a potion of sickness or cancels the potion, it will become a potion of fruit juice.[15][16] Mixing one of a potion of healing, extra healing, or full healing with a potion of sickness will also produce fruit juice.[17]
If the hero dips darts, arrows, shuriken, or crossbow bolts into a potion of sickness, it will coat the stack of projectiles in poison, using up the potion and prompting the player to type-name it if the potion is unidentified. Poisoned weapons deal +d6 damage against targets that lack poison resistance, with a 1⁄10 chance of instantly killing them;[18] the weapon's poison has a weight-based chance of 1 in (10 - (weight/10))–which is always 1⁄10 in practice–of wearing off after each hit.[19] Poisoned weapons that are dipped into a potion of healing, extra healing or full healing will immediately lose their poison and use up the potion.[20]
Throwing and wielding
Hitting a monster with a wielded or thrown potion will reduce their hit points if successful: monsters with a sickness attack or poison resistance are immune, while other monsters have their current HP and maximum HP halved, each subject to separate rolls versus their MR score. if the monster's maximum HP is brought below the current HP, their current HP is reduced to the same as that new maximum.
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 43f42b35, the effect of hitting a monster with a potion of sickness no longer depends on monster MR, but only halves the current HP of monsters without poison resistance.Strategy
Potions of sickness are typically best used for poisoning projectiles, though lawful characters will take a -1 hit to their alignment record for each use of a poisoned weapon; alchemy makes it somewhat easy to procure more potions for poisoning projectiles with. There are many late-game monsters, up to and including some otherwise-powerful quest nemeses, that lack poison resistance and can be easily felled by something as simple as a stack of poisoned projectiles; Tourists in particular that hold on to their starting stack of +2 darts can poison them to use as an effective weapon against the Master of Thieves.
While a potion of sickness can be used as a hallucination cure if you can mitigate the HP and attribute loss (e.g. with poison resistance, a potion of restore ability, or a ring of sustain ability), they are only worth using for this purpose if you lack any other cure, such as potions of extra healing, full healing or a unicorn horn.
For players that have no interest in poisoned weapons, this potion is a good candidate for dilution or else converting to fruit juice for other purposes.
Identification
The potion of sickness is one of four 50zm potions, along with the potions of fruit juice, see invisible and booze—incidentally, all of the other potions can be made from fruit juice.
Potions of sickness can be easily identified by dip-testing with a unicorn horn, as discussed above; while cancelling them also turns them into fruit juice, cancelling the potion of see invisible has the same effect. Dipping a non-poisoned missile weapon into a potion of sickness will form a coating on it, which is reliable for informal identification.
History
The potion of sickness first appears in Hack for PDP-11, which is based on Jay Fenlason's Hack; Hack 1.21, which is also based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, has the somewhat-similar potion of poison. The potion of sickness is included in the initial item list for Hack 1.0, and the ability to poison weapons using the potion is introduced in NetHack 1.3d.
From the first versions of Hack to NetHack 2.3e, the hero only has strength as an attribute—the other five attributes are introduced in NetHack 3.0.0.
From NetHack 3.4.0 to NetHack 3.6.3, including some variants based on those versions, the case for alchemy with healing potions falls through to the unicorn horn case due to a missing break statement, causing the combination of healing and sickness to alchemize to fruit juice, and the combination of healing and hallucination, blindness, or confusion to alchemize to water.[21][22] This behavior is made explicit and intentional in NetHack 3.6.3 via commit c6b75407.[23]
Messages
- Yecch! This stuff tastes like poison.
- You quaffed a potion of sickness.
- (But in fact it was mildly stale <slime mold> juice.)
- This line is added if the potion was blessed.
- (But in fact it was biologically contaminated <slime mold> juice.)
- This line is added if you quaffed a non-blessed potion and have poison resistance; you only lose one attribute point.
- Fortunately, you have been immunized.
- You are a Healer, so you suffer no ill effects.
- You are shocked back to your senses!
- You were hallucinating, and were cured by quaffing 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.
- <The monster> looks rather ill.
- A monster without immunity was hit by a potion of sickness.
- <The monster> looks unharmed.
- A monster with a sickness attack or poison resistance was hit by a potion of sickness.
- <The potion> forms a coating on <the weapon>.
- You dipped a poisonable weapon into a potion of sickness.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, Healers start the game with knowledge of the potion of sickness.[24] Flame Mages, Ice Mages, Necromancers, and Wizards may be given a potion of sickness as any of the random potions in their starting inventories.[25][26][27][28]
Bladed and piercing weapons can also be poisoned in addition to the same projectiles as NetHack by dipping them into a potion of sickness.[29] As in NetHack, poisoned weapons are subject to a 1 in (10 - (weight/10)) chance of losing their poisonous coating.[30]
The Lawful Quest has two separate 2⁄5 chances of generating a cursed potion of sickness among the items found in the Chamber of Junk at level creation.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, slashing and piercing weapons (including the standard eligible projectiles from NetHack) can be poisoned by dipping them into a potion of sickness.
Black signet rings can be dipped into a potion of sickness to make it a poison injecting ring, which applies the poison when the hero performs an unarmed attack while wearing the ring without gloves.
The blood of a poisonous monster functions very similarly to potions of acid for various purposes, such as dipping a black signet ring like described above.
xNetHack
In xNetHack, black mold corpses and any brew-compatible corpses that are cursed can be used to brew a potion of sickness by dipping them in fruit juice, which eventually turns the juice into the potion.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, the potion of sickness will always appear as a dark green potion when unidentified. Drow Rogues start the game with a potion of drow poison replacing the role's potion of sickness.
Slashing and piercing weapons can be poisoned by dipping them into a potion of sickness.
Dipping a gray fungus corpse into a potion of fruit juice creates a potion of sickness, with the static appearance used to prevent wish farming.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, the Ninja starts each game with an uncursed potion of sickness. Drunks may start with a potion of sickness as any of the 15 non-booze potions in their starting inventory.
The Undertaker quest goal level has the same layout as the Lawful Quest, including the two separate 2⁄5 chances of generating a cursed potion of sickness in the Chamber of Junk at level creation.
Hack'EM
In Hack'EM, Healers start the game with knowledge of the potion of sickness as in SLASH'EM. Black mold corpses and any brew-compatible corpses that are cursed can be used to brew a potion of sickness by dipping them in fruit juice, similar to xNetHack.
The Chamber of Junk in the Lawful Quest has a 2⁄5 chance of containing two cursed potions of sickness as in SLASH'EM.
Encyclopedia entry
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (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 entry is added for venom and poison (including the potion of sickness) via commit f5bd6950.Fate intervened. Some of us, that day, she led inexorably
through the gates of death. Some of us, innocent and unsuspecting,
took, unwillingly, that one last step to oblivion. Some of us took
very little sugar.
by Shirley Jackson ]
References
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 814
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 127
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 166
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1312
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 813-L820
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2212: The code chooses a random potion, discarding magical potions; rnd_class(POT_BOOZE, POT_WATER) chooses the non-magical potions, but the loop around this rejects potions of sickness.[5]
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2058: Potions have a 1⁄10 chance of blowing up before this point. The remaining 9⁄10 of the time, 2⁄8 of random alchemy results from non-diluted potions become potions of sickness.
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 855
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 877
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 859
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 867
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 897
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1444
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1680
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1817-L1824
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1080
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1806-L1824: healing potion cases fall through to unicorn horn cases
- ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1137
- ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1117
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2125
- ↑ potion.c in NetHack 3.4.0, line 1303: mixtype() function; note the lack of breaks in the cases down to the unicorn horn case
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.2, line 1766-L1798: mixtype() function in 3.6.2 - the highlighting should make the lack of breaks more clear
- ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 3.6.3, line 1795: Newly added fall-throughs are marked via comments
- ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1075
- ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 66
- ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 96
- ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 137
- ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 246
- ↑ obj.h in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 200
- ↑ uhitm.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1335
