Poison

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This article is about the damage type related to the potion of sickness. For sickness from consuming tainted corpses, see food poisoning.

Poison is a damage type that appears in NetHack and can be hazardous or even potentially lethal to both heroes and monsters.

Description

Poison damage can occur from various hazards, attack methods, items, and other sources:

Poison is generally capable of weakening a hero or monster that it afflicts, usually in the form of additional HP damage along with damage to one of the hero's physical attributes, and also has a chance of outright killing their victims in some instances—the game will print a message indicating when the effects of poison from any source occur.[3][4] The sections below detail what deleterious effects can be inflicted by poisoning and their sources, as well as how those effects can be resisted, among other information.

General effects

For a hero without poison resistance, poison from spiked pits, poisoned weapons, poison clouds, and poisonous attacks from monsters have a chance of inflicting bonus HP damage and may drain points from one of their attributes (typically strength by default)[5][6]—for monsters, which do not have attribute scores, poison inflicts additional HP damage (usually +1d6 or 6-15 HP, but sometimes more) to monsters that lack poison resistance, with a chance of killing them outright depending on the source.[7] The chance of attribute loss or instant death from poison is applied per exposure, rather than per source, so multiple poisonous attacks or poisoned projectiles each have an independent chance of inflicting their poison.

A hero without poison resistance that is hit by poison takes extra damage, up to 6 HP for thrown weapons and 6–15 HP otherwise, and has a chance of one of their physical attributes (strength by default) being drained by 2-4 points, which is reduced to 1 for poison inflicted from weapons.[8] Each time the hero is poisoned this way, there is a chance of them suffering "severe" poisoning that inflicts 6 + 4d6 (10-30) HP worth of damage, subtracts half of the resulting value from the hero's maximum HP, and always drains 3 points of constitution in addition to other affected attributes.[9] The probability of severe poison is always five times that of the normal bonus damage from poison.

Resisting poison

Main article: Poison resistance

Poison resistance is a property that can prevent the hero from suffering poison damage or attribute loss via most sources of poison, and also lowers the severity of the effects from other sources of poison, such as quaffing a potion of sickness or being poisoned upon failing to read a spellbook.[10][11][1] For monsters, poison resistance blocks additional poison damage from weapons or attacks and can prevent it from causing instant death.[12] Further details can be viewed in the article on the property linked at the top of this section, and each section below this one will also specify which effects can be blocked fully by poison resistance and which can be reduced.

Poisonous attacks

Poison attacks can have one of three damage types:

All three types of poison attacks use the same handling.[19] Magic cancellation can block the poison of melee attack types from taking effect (including weapon attacks that use poisoned weapons or the poison damage type), but it cannot block the effects of non-melee attack types such as breath weapons or spitting attacks.

A hero taking physical damage from a poison attack which is not blocked by magic cancellation has a 1⁄8 chance of the poison triggering if the attacker is not cancelled.[20] If poisoning occurs, there is a 1⁄6 chance of the hero losing 2-4 points in the affected attribute, a 1⁄30 chance of inflicting severe poison that drains constitution in addition to the affected attribute, and otherwise the poison deals 6–15 extra damage.[8][9] Poison resistance blocks all of these effects, with a message printed accordingly.[11] A monster that is hit by a poison attack and does not block it with magic cancellation has a 1⁄8 chance of taking 6-15 additional HP damage, printing a message if they are killed by the damage.[21][22][7] Poison resistance blocks all effects other than the physical damage in both cases.

Poisoned weapons

Main article: Poisoned weapon

Various projectile weapons can be poisoned by dipping them in a potion of sickness, and under some circumstances can also generate as poisoned. The artifact Grimtooth is permanently poisoned, and each hit landed with the weapon against targets without poison resistance has a 1⁄4 chance of dealing harsher poison damage, with a further 1⁄10 chance of causing instant death. The article linked at the top of this section contains more details on how poisoned weapons function, including how a hero can create poisoned weapons of their own.

Heroes without poison resistance that are hit by poisoned projectiles take extra damage from the poison, with a 4⁄5 chance of draining 1 point of strength and a 1⁄30 chance of severe poison damage.[23][8][9][11] A monster without poison resistance that is hit by a hero's poisoned weapon takes up to 6 more points of damage, with a 1⁄10 chance of the poison being fatal[24][25][7]—a monster hit with a poisoned weapon or projectile thrown or shot by another monster takes +1d6 damage with a 1⁄30 chance of the poison being fatal.[26][7] Poisoned weapons and projectiles that hit a hero or monster ignore magic cancellation, and poison resistance blocks all adverse effects of poisoned weapons other than physical damage.

Poison breath

Poison breath weapons leave a trail of poison clouds behind when used that cover the path of the ray, with the exception of any walls that it hits and any targets that deflect the ray with reflection.[27][28][29]

A hero that is directly hit by a ray of poison will take damage and has a 1⁄15 chance of suffering severe poison, a frac 1⁄3 chance of draining 2-4 points of dexterity (despite the attack using the AD_DRST flag), and will otherwise deal 6–15 extra damage, with poison resistance blocking any damage and other effects frmo the ray.[30][8][9][11] A monster that is directly hit by a ray of poison takes damage if they do not have poison resistance.[31] Even if a hero or monster is not hit by a ray of poison or else resists its effects, they may be damaged, blinded or otherwise afflicted if they remain inside the poison cloud, though reflecting the ray does not place a poison cloud on the square it was reflected from.[32]

Other poison attacks

Two monsters–the erinys and the Master Assassin–each have a weapon attack that inflicts strength-draining poison, and generally does so regardless of whether they use a poisoned weapon (or any weapon):[33][34] erinyes in particular can gain a second such attack if the hero has committed a sufficient amount of alignment abuse.[35][36][37] These poison attacks generally behave the same as poisoned attacks from other monsters do, with one exception:[8][9][11][7] if the attacker is either cancelled or else is wielding a footrice corpse, Vorpal Blade or Stormbringer, then the poisoned weapon attack will deal normal physical damage (along with applying the effects of the wielded weapon) unless the attacker has another weapon attack that already deals physical damage.[38] This is not applied to an attacking hero, although it is impossible for them to polymorph into either of the relevant monsters regardless.

The spitting attack of the guardian naga uses the AD_DRST damage type flag, even though it behaves as non-damaging blinding venom does upon hitting a hero or monster—poison resistance therefore does not block this effect.

Poison clouds

Main article: Poison cloud

Poisonous breath, scrolls of stinking cloud, certain container traps, and lava plumes on the Plane of Fire can all produce poison clouds that cause any heroes and monsters caught within them to take constant poison damage unless they have poison resistance or move outside of the cloud, and even if they have poison resistance the clouds can also inflict coughing and blindness unless the hero or monster is eyeless or unbreathing.[29][32] The linked article at the top of the section covers the qualities of poison clouds in detail.

Poisonous monsters

Several monsters are poisonous to consume, whether through eating their corpse or glob, or else by consuming them directly with a digestion attack: the M1_POIS monster flag used within monsters.h governs whether or not a monster is poisonous to eat.[39] The hero has a 4⁄5 chance of being poisoned from eating a poisonous monster or its corpse, which causes up to 15 HP of damage and drains 1-4 points of strength[40]—this does not apply to tins of poisonous monsters, presumably due to the most edible parts being preserved by the tinning process (including ones that the hero makes by applying a tinning kit).[41] Poisoned metallic items (e.g. from dipping in a potion of sickness) are treated the same as poisonous corpses for a hero that is polymorphed into a metallivore:[42] while poisoned wooden weapons (i.e. elven arrows) also behave the same way, only gelatinous cubes (or heroes polymorphed into cubes) can eat them, and gelatinous cubes possess innate poison resistance.

Poison resistance blocks the effects of eating a poisonous monster, corpse or item, and a pet will avoid eating poisoned corpses, globs or other items that are edible for them unless that pet has poison resistance. Food appraisal will warn the hero if they are about to eat a poisonous corpse.[43] While eating a poisonous corpse, glob or other does not have a chance of instant death or severe poison occurring, HP loss and strength drain will always occur if the hero lacks poison resistance and rolls the 4⁄5 chance of being poisoned by the corpse or glob, and the resulting damage can still kill them normally—poisoned metallic weapons will always poison a hero that eats them while in a metallivorous form.

A monster's corpse or body being poisonous is independent of that monster granting poison resistance when eating it, let alone the monster having poison resistance themselves or even an attack that inflicts poison—see the list of poisonous monsters below for details. Additionally, a corpse being poisonous is independent of food poisoning that occurs from eating an old corpse: both hazards are separate and each check for poison resistance versus immunity to sickness respectively, though food appraisal will warn of both hazards and they can also occur simultaneously, e.g. when eating a kobold corpse left by a kobold zombie or mummy.[44][45] [46]

The following monsters are considered poisonous to eat or digest directly.

Poison traps

Four different types of trap, including container traps, can poison the hero and sometimes other monsters:

  • Container traps can release noxious gas which deals damage and abuses constitution while spreading poison clouds around the container's square, with a 1⁄3 chance of draining strength, a 1⁄15 chance of severe poison and otherwise dealing 6–15 damage.[47] Poison resistance prevents instadeath and blocks damage to HP or attributes, and there is a luck-dependent chance of the gas blowing away before it can do any harm.[48][49]
  • Container traps can also fire a poisoned needle which abuses constitution, and will deal damage with a 1⁄2 chance of draining constitution, a 1⁄10 chance of severe poison and otherwise dealing 6–15 damage.[50] Poison resistance prevents instadeath and blocks damage to HP or attributes, and there is a luck-dependent chance of the needle missing.[48][51]
  • Dart traps that activate and fire a dart at a hero or monster have a 1⁄6 chance of the dart being poisoned.[52][53][54] As with thrown poisoned darts, a poisoned dart from a trap that hits the hero has a 1⁄6 chance of draining a point of constitution and a 1⁄30 chance of inflicting severe poison, and otherwise deal +1d6 damage.[8][9][11][23] A monster hit by a poisoned dart from a trap has a 1⁄30 of being instantly killed, and otherwise takes +1d6 poison damage.[26][7] Poison resistance blocks all of these effects other than the dart's physical damage.
  • Spiked pits have a 1⁄6 chance of poisoning the victim each time they fall into one, including falling into the same spiked pit repeatedly or plunging into a spiked pit deliberately[55]—for the hero, the poison from the spikes has a 5⁄8 chance of draining strength and a 1⁄8 chance of inflicting severe poison, and otherwise deals 6–15 additional points of damage. Poison resistance blocks all of these effects, and wearing boots that are made of iron will prevent the spikes from inflicting damage at all.[56][57]

Poisoned spellbooks

While not a "trap" in the traditional or mechanical sense, one of the failure effects of reading a spellbook for a spell that is level six or higher is the hero being subjected to a "contact poison" on the spellbook:[1] as it is a randomized failure effect, this poison cannot be detected preemptively, and it causes the hero to lose up to 10 HP along with draining 3–6 points of strength—this is reduced to 1-6 HP and 1–2 points of strength if the hero has poison resistance, and while worn gloves will prevent any damage or attribute loss, the poison is potent enough to corrode worn gauntlets of power.

Strategy

The threat of a sudden and unceremonious death to a poisoned trap or weapon means that poison resistance is a highly critical property to obtain for any hero at the beginning stages of any NetHack game: Uruk-hai, killer bees and soldier ants are among the most common poisonous threats that players can encounter, between the poisoned orcish arrows of the former and the speed, AC and stinging attacks of the latter two. Even if poison is not guaranteed to be fatal, the HP damage and attribute loss that it causes warrants finding a means of counteracting and/or preventing them as soon as possible—while it is possible to proceed very far in the dungeon and even ascend without ever gaining poison resistance, the player must be prompt in healing any HP or attribute damage and secure reliable resources to that end, and in general will require a higher level of skill and daring.

Certain roles have more leeway in how far they can explore the early dungeon versus others without the risk of death by poison, to the point that it is often a defining factor in a role's difficulty: the Barbarian is one of the most clear examples of this, being a strong melee role that starts with poison resistance; Monks gain the property at experience level 3, and can easily gain the required experience with their martial arts. Orcish heroes in roles that otherwise lack poison resistance have somewhat better survival chances early on compared to other races in that same role, though this is also subject to tradeoffs elsewhere (such as lower strength caps and mental stats). Healers start with poison resistance, and while this does give them something of an edge over other casting roles, they are also generally more fragile and restricted in several other aspects.

A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:

"Consider a section for surviving long-term without poison resistance."

Offensive uses of poison

Poisoning projectiles by dipping them into a potion of sickness can provide a useful early form of offense against troublesome monsters that lack poison resistance, but be careful that monsters do not pick up the projectiles and throw them back at you, especially if you also lack poison resistance! Conversely, lawful heroes and Samurai alike may want to avoid the use of poisoned projectiles due to alignment record penalties and alignment abuse, especially when it can prevent reliable prayer and cause other issues early in the game, and it may also lead to troublesome encounters with erinyes down the line.

Darts are some of the most accessible weapons to obtain and poison even for heroes that cannot train the dart skill, due to the presence of dart traps and the ability to dip-test potions using them in order to discover the potion of sickness. Dedicated projectile-users with compatible ammunition–such as Rangers with their (cross)bow weapons, and Tourists and some Rogues with darts—can rack up high amounts of damage from reaching at least Skilled or better in the use of those projectiles and taking advantage of multishot to score extra poison damage per hit.

A hero that is able to wield poison or even tame a poison-inflicting monster can get a high amount of mileage from it, despite the increasing prevalence of poison-resistant monsters throughout the game: a hero reaching the mid-game and beyond will frequently encounter monsters such as the undead and major demons, which only become all the more prevalent in Gehennom—but for each of those, there are many threats that lack resistance to poison and can be quickly or even instantly felled with poison attacks up to and including vicious minotaurs, the various dragons (other than the poisonous green dragon), and even some quest nemeses such as the Master of Thieves and the Master Assassin. A player that deems it worth the risk or has it made 'necessary' by their situation can have a lawful hero temporarily utilize poisoned weapons to deal with very specific troublesome monsters—again, be aware of your alignment record where possible, and be prepared to deal with hostile erinyes down the line.

Defenses against poison

There are many precautions a hero can take to make poison less perilous to deal with. For poisonous corpses, applying a tinning kit to a poisonous corpse will produce a tin that can be eaten without any risk of poisoning;[41] a worn ring of sustain ability will prevent attribute damage from eating the corpses; and quaffing a potion of restore ability or successfully casting the restore ability spell (among other methods) can repair any attribute damage from the corpses' poison. If all else fails, successful prayer can also potentially restore attributes: a hero that is overtaxed and has lost at least four points of strength qualifies as a major trouble, while having any reduced attributes at all is considered a minor trouble.

Intrinsic poison resistance can be granted by eating a large variety of corpses, but as indicated by the list of poisonous monsters in the table further below, many of these corpses are poisonous themselves, and loss of strength and carrying capacity can spell a hero's doom early on—it is not advisable to eat such corpses without some way of avoiding or curing strength loss. Even monsters that have non-poisonous corpses which grant the intrinsic can prove to be hazardous in other ways, such as as the poison-stinging quasits and equipment-damaging puddings. Corpses such as those of quivering blobs, naga hatchlings, red molds, and unicorns are among the safest to eat for a chance at the intrinsic, and tins of poisonous monsters that grant the property carry no risk at all of inflicting poison damage.[41] See the aforementioned table of poisonous monsters or the article on poison resistance for a list of monsters that can grant poison resistance when eaten.

Wearing extrinsic sources of poison resistance such as an amulet versus poison is ideal to both significantly reduce poison damage and widen the amount of safely edible corpses available, including ones that you can obtain the intrinsic from—even once you have the intrinsic, it may be worth keeping an extrinsic source or two in case you lose that intrinsic to a throne or a gremlin's intrinsic theft attack. If you lack even an informally known source of poison resistance, or else are deliberately playing without one, high magic cancellation can protect against poisonous melee attacks, and the ring of sustain ability will also prevent attribute loss (but not damage) from other sources of poison such as monster attacks and traps.

Ranged combat in general is important for dealing with poison-wielding monsters regardless of whether you use poisoned projectiles, since you can bring down hostiles with poisonous melee attacks before they can close in, while smart movement can be used to lure monsters with poisonous breath weapons or projectiles into melee range where they are less likely to utilize them. Especially-savvy players can also use their positioning to take advantage of walls and bounce rays from certain wands and spellcasting to hit hostile monsters without entering their line of fire. Above all else, remember that poison resistance will not fully negate the threat of poisonous monsters to an early hero, as killer bees and soldier ants often generate in groups which are capable of swarming the hero and can still quickly inflict enough damage to be lethal—soldier ants in particular consistently rank in the top 5 causes of death for games played on NAO.

Other precautions

It is already good practice to avoid randomly reading unknown scrolls and quaffing potions, but it is particularly important in this context to minimize the odds of quaffing a potion of sickness that renders the hero frail or reading a scroll of stinking cloud that envelops them in poison clouds—a hero that discovers the scroll by reading it can discharge it harmlessly by selecting a far-away square out of range. Dip-testing using spare projectiles such as arrows and darts can reveal the identity of a potion of sickness without the risk of quaffing it, though this will use up the potion of sickness in the process, and some other potions such as oil can also be used up this way.

While dart traps and spiked pits can be difficult to find without tripping them, early dart traps in particular are often marked by corpses of their previous victims, and other monsters that walk into the traps can serve as indicators, especially if the trap killed them. Wands of secret door detection and searching aids (such as Excalibur and the ring of searching) can also detect poisonous or otherwise dangerous traps before you step on them.

Statistics

The table below is a quick review of general poison sources and which ones can be deadly for the hero:

Source Chance of extra damage Chance of severe poison[9] Chance of stat damage[8]
Monster melee attack 4 in 5 successful attacks that are not blocked by magic cancellation 1 in 30 poisoned attacks 1 in 6 chance of damaging strength, dexterity or constitution
Monster ranged weapon 4 in 5 1 in 30 successful hits 4 in 5 chance of damaging strength
Poisoned dart trap 4 in 5 1 in 30 poisoned hits 1 in 6 chance of damaging constitution
Poisoned spiked pit 1 in 4 1 in 8 'poisoned' falls 5 in 8 chance of damaging strength
Noxious gas container trap depends on luck 1 in 15 chance 1 in 3 chance of damaging strength
Poisoned needle container trap depends on luck 1 in 10 chance 1 in 2 chance of damaging constitution
Poison blast attack that directly hits 3 in 5 1 in 15 chance 1 in 3 chance of damaging dexterity
Poisonous corpse 4 in 5 none always damages strength, deals d15 HP damage

List of poisonous monsters

This more detailed table lists monsters that are either poisonous or have poisonous attacks, and whether they also possess poison resistance, grant poison resistance, or have some combination of the aforementioned traits:

Monster name and glyph Poison attacks? Poisonous corpse? Poison resistance? Grants intrinsics? Notes
a killer bee Sting 1d3 (drains strength) Yes Yes Poison resistance (30%) Very fast and appears in groups
a soldier ant Sting 3d4 (drains strength) Yes Yes Poison resistance (20%) Very fast and appears in groups
a giant beetle None Yes Yes Poison resistance (33%)
a queen bee Sting 1d8 (drains strength) Yes Yes Poison resistance (60%) not randomly generated
normally appears only in beehives
@ / d werejackal None Yes Yes causes lycanthropy
@ / d werewolf None Yes Yes causes lycanthropy
g gremlin None Yes Yes Poison resistance (33%) Can remove poison resistance
i manes None Yes Yes None corpseless
i homunculus None Yes Yes Poison resistance (6%)
Sleep resistance (6%)		 bite can inflict sleep
i lemure None Yes Yes Sleep resistance if digested corpseless, only generates randomly in Gehennom
i quasit Claw 1d2 (drains dexterity) x2 No Yes Poison resistance (20%)
k kobold No Yes Yes None
k large kobold No Yes Yes None
k kobold lord No Yes Yes None
k kobold shaman No Yes Yes None
r rabid rat Bite 2d4 (drains constitution) Yes Yes None
@ / r wererat None Yes Yes causes lycanthropy
s centipede Bite 1d3 (drains strength) No Yes Poison resistance (13%)
s giant spider Bite 2d4 (drains strength) Yes Yes Poison resistance (33%)
s scorpion Sting 1d4 (drains strength) Yes Yes Poison resistance (50%)
x xan None Yes Yes Poison resistance (~46%)
A couatl Bite 2d4 (drains constitution) Yes Yes None corpseless
B vampire bat Bite 0d0 (drains strength) Yes Yes None may be shapeshifted vampire
D baby green dragon None Yes Yes None only randomly generated in aligned branches
cannot be engulfed
D green dragon Breath 4d6 (drains strength) Yes Yes Poison resistance (100%) will not use breath in melee range
cannot be engulfed
F yellow mold None Yes Yes Poison resistance (6%)
causes hallucination
L lich None Yes Yes Cold resistance if digested corpseless
L demilich None Yes Yes Cold resistance if digested corpseless
L master lich None Yes Yes Fire resistance or cold resistance if digested corpseless
L arch-lich None Yes Yes Fire resistance or cold resistance if digested corpseless
M kobold mummy None Yes Yes None corpseless, leaves behind old kobold corpse
M gnome mummy None Yes Yes None corpseless, leaves behind old gnome corpse
M orc mummy None Yes Yes None corpseless, leaves behind old orc corpse
M dwarf mummy None Yes Yes None corpseless, leaves behind old dwarf corpse
M elf mummy None Yes Yes Sleep resistance (66%, see note) corpseless, leaves behind old elf corpse
M human mummy None Yes Yes None corpseless, leaves behind old human corpse
M ettin mummy None Yes Yes None corpseless, leaves behind old ettin corpse
cannot be engulfed
M giant mummy None Yes Yes Increases strength (50%, see note) corpseless, leaves behind old giant corpse
cannot be engulfed
N guardian naga Spit 1d6 (drains strength, though see note to the right) Yes Yes Poison resistance (80%) spitting attack behaves as blinding venom (i.e. no poison)
cannot be engulfed
P green slime None Yes Yes Causes sliming, cures stoning Acidic
corpseless, leaves behind glob of green slime
digestion causes sliming
Q quantum mechanic None Yes Yes Toggles intrinsic speed
Q genetic engineer None Yes Yes Causes polymorph
S snake Bite 1d6 (drains strength) Yes Yes Poison resistance (26%)
S water moccasin Bite 1d6 (drains strength) Yes Yes Poison resistance (26%) only generated when dipping into or quaffing from fountains
S pit viper Bite 1d4 (drains strength) x2 Yes Yes Poison resistance (40%)
S cobra Bite 2d4 (drains strength) Yes Yes Poison resistance (40%)
V vampire None (see note) Yes Yes None corpseless, leaves behind old human corpse
has poisonous bite in vampire bat form
V vampire lord None (see note) Yes Yes None corpseless, leaves behind old human corpse
has poisonous bite in vampire bat form
V Vlad the Impaler None (see note) Yes Yes None unique
corpseless
has poisonous bite in vampire bat form
Z kobold zombie None Yes Yes None corpseless, leaves behind old kobold corpse
Z gnome zombie None Yes Yes None corpseless, leaves behind old gnome corpse
Z orc zombie None Yes Yes None corpseless, leaves behind old orc corpse
Z dwarf zombie None Yes Yes None corpseless, leaves behind old dwarf corpse
Z elf zombie None Yes Yes Sleep resistance (66%, see note) corpseless, leaves behind old elf corpse
Z human zombie None Yes Yes None corpseless, leaves behind old human corpse
Z ettin zombie None Yes Yes None corpseless, leaves behind old ettin corpse
cannot be engulfed
Z ghoul None Yes Yes None corpseless
Z giant zombie None Yes Yes Increases strength (50%, see note) corpseless, leaves behind old giant corpse
cannot be engulfed
' iron golem Breath 4d6 (drains strength) Yes Yes None corpseless, leaves behind iron chains
@ Medusa Bite 1d6 (drains strength) Yes Yes Poison resistance (100%)
causes instant stoning		 has passive stoning gaze
digestion causes stoning
& water demon None Yes Yes None corpseless, only generated when dipping into or quaffing from fountains
& incubus / succubus None Yes Yes None corpseless
& horned devil None Yes Yes None corpseless, only generates randomly in Gehennom
& erinys Weapon 2d4 (drains strength) Yes Yes None corpseless, only generates randomly in Gehennom
attack becomes stronger with alignment abuse
(and may grant a second such attack)[35]
& barbed devil None Yes Yes None corpseless, only generates randomly in Gehennom
& marilith None Yes Yes None corpseless, only generates randomly in Gehennom
& vrock None Yes Yes None corpseless, only generates randomly in Gehennom
& hezrou None Yes Yes None corpseless, only generates randomly in Gehennom
& bone devil Sting 2d4 (drains strength) Yes Yes None corpseless, only generates randomly in Gehennom
& ice devil None Yes Yes None corpseless, only generates randomly in Gehennom
& nalfeshnee None Yes Yes None corpseless, only generates randomly in Gehennom
& pit fiend None Yes Yes None corpseless, only generates randomly in Gehennom
& balrog None Yes Yes None corpseless, only generates randomly in Gehennom
& Juiblex None Yes Yes None unique
corpseless, can generate via demon gating or same-race sacrifice
appears within his lair in Gehennom
& Yeenoghu None Yes Yes None unique
corpseless, can generate via demon gating or same-race sacrifice
& Orcus Sting 2d4 (drains strength) Yes Yes None unique
corpseless
appears within his lair in Gehennom
cannot be engulfed
& Geryon Sting 2d4 (drains strength) Yes Yes None unique
corpseless, can generate via demon gating
cannot be engulfed
& Dispater None Yes Yes None unique
corpseless, can generate via demon gating
& Baalzebub Bite 2d6 (drains strength) Yes Yes None unique
corpseless
appears within his lair in Gehennom
& Asmodeus None Yes Yes None unique
corpseless
appears within his lair in Gehennom
cannot be engulfed
& Demogorgon None Yes Yes None unique
corpseless, can generate via demon gating
cannot be engulfed
& mail daemon None Yes Yes None unique
corpseless
& djinni None Yes Yes None corpseless, not generated randomly
; jellyfish Sting 3d3 (drains strength) Yes Yes Poison resistance (20%) not generated randomly
only occurs on certain watery levels (e.g. Medusa's Island)
: salamander Sting 3d3 (drains strength) Yes Yes Fire resistance (53%) only randomly generates in Gehennom
appears on Plane of Fire
& Minion of Huhetotl None Yes Yes None Archeologist quest nemesis
corpseless
D Chromatic Dragon Breath 6d6 random Yes Yes Fire resistance (16%)
Cold resistance (16%)
Sleep resistance (16%)
Disintegration resistance (16%)
Shock resistance (16%)
Poison resistance (16%)
cures stoning		 Caveman quest nemesis
acidic
cannot be engulfed
& Nalzok None Yes Yes None Priest quest nemesis
corpseless
s Scorpius None Yes Yes Poison resistance (100%) Ranger quest nemesis
@ Master Assassin Weapon 2d6 (drains strength) No No None Rogue quest nemesis

History

Poison has been present in the game since Hack 1.21 and Hack for PDP-11, which are based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, and also appears in Hack 1.0. From these versions to NetHack 2.3e, strength is the hero's sole attribute and thus the only one that poison can affect—the other five attributes are introduced in NetHack 3.0.0.

From NetHack 2.3e to NetHack 3.6.0, including some variants based on those versions, poison breath simply damages and poisons targets hit by the ray unless they have poison resistance. NetHack 3.6.1 introduces poison breath attacks leaving behind trails of poison clouds via commit da0e6601, which is based on an original patch by Leon Arnott—NetHack 3.6.1 also introduces immunity to gas clouds for monsters that breathe poison gas via commit f5c157cb, with the iron golem already being immune as a non-breathing monster.

In versions up to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants being based on those versions, a hero without poison resistance that is hit by poison has a chance of the poison being fatal and killing them outright instead of inflicting severe poison, with the same odds as described in the table reviewing poison sources:[58] this can lead to many unexpected early deaths that can be hard to avoid if the player cannot locate and identify a source of poison resistance in time, even if that player is a seasoned veteran. A small-but-significant part of this issue is that killer bees and soldiers ants are capable of generating quite early in a game and have decently high AC and movement speed, which makes a hero's ability to deal with these two monsters–and some other poison-wielding early threats such as arrow-shooting Uruk-hai–heavily-decisive factors in whether or not they survive the early game.

In addition to most of the applicable strategies that are available for these versions, some players often seek out early crowning as a means of reliably obtaining intrinsic poison resistance along with several other resistances (while possibly procuring a good weapon on the side). Others that find a unicorn horn will consider eating poisonous corpses and risk possible strength drain in order to obtain the intrinsic, then use the unicorn horn to reverse the attribute drain in a matter of a few turns—they may optionally seek to mitigate the strength loss with a known ring of sustain ability. Of minor note is that the erinys will always have a single poisonous melee attack in these versions: erinyes are a relative non-factor for most forms of generaly strategy unless the player has the misfortune of meeting one too early, and poison resistance and a source of reliable damage can mitigate their threat factor.

NetHack 5.0.0 overhauls the functions of poison via commit d0b11fd2 and changes it to its current behavior, including severe poison—this does not completely remove poison's threat, especially with severe enough attribute loss, but makes it significantly more survivable. In addition to directly altering poison mechanics, the difficulty of the killer bee and soldier ant are each increased to 6 and 7 (respectively) via commit 47724f01 so that they appear slightly later in the dungeon and thus grant players more time to develop a kit and strategy for dealing with them, while unicorn horns are stripped of their ability to restore drained attributes when applied via commit 43d331c4 due to general player over-reliance on them for handling any form of attribute loss.

NetHack 5.0.0 also makes the following related changes to poison and/or its mechanics:

  • The artifact Grimtooth is made a permanently poisoned weapon and given its current behavior via commit 8f7258dc.
  • The encyclopedia entry for the term "poison" is added via commit f5bd6950.
  • Sacrifice mechanics as a whole are overhauled—of particular relevance is commit c2c797fa, which makes it so that the hero's natural luck cannot be raised higher than the value of a successful sacrifice, making early crowning somewhat more difficult (but not impossible).
  • Erinyes are re-tooled significantly to be more potent threats, with commit f930a12f and other commits granting them their alignment abuse-based abilities in order to make them much more reminiscent of the Furies that they are based on.

Messages

The monster's <attack/weapon> was poisoned!
The poisonous effects of a monster's weapon or attack triggered and dealt extra damage to the target, as well as possibly draining attributes if you were the victim.
The poison was deadly...
A poisoned attack killed you or a monster with its poison damage.
The poison doesn't seem to affect <you/the monster>.
A poisoned weapon hit you or a monster, but the victim had poison resistance.
This <corpse> smells like it might be poisonous! Eat it anyway?
You were warned of a poisonous corpse by food appraisal.
Ecch - that must have been poisonous!
You ate a corpse or item that was poisonous, and suffered HP damage and strength loss as a result.
You seem unaffected by the poison.
This is appended to the above if you did so with poison resistance, which prevents the HP damage and attribute loss.
The book was coated with contact poison!
You were subjected to poison from failing to reading a spellbook. You lose d10 HP and 3d2 strength, which is lowered to d6 HP and d2 strength if you are poison resistant.

Variants

NetHack variants often add several sources of poison damage, including various attacks and even object properties, and may also adjust or remove its ability to instantly kill monsters and/or heroes. They may also add additional methods of poisoning weapons and expand which weapon types can be poisoned—see the variant section in the article on poisoned weapons for more information.

SLASH’EM

In SLASH'EM, poison breath attacks and poison in general both behave as they do in NetHack 3.4.3 and previous contemporary versions.

Several of the monsters introduced in SLASH'EM have poisonous attacks, such as baby deep dragons, rutterkins, rabid rabbits, platypuses, and babaus. These attacks have no effect on monsters that require attacks or weapons of a certain enchantment to be hit, unless the attacking monster hits as a high enough enchantment—poisoned weapons ignore enchantment resistance and deal damage as they would normally, including a chance of instant death. Crystal golems also have access to poison breath as part of their random breath weapon attack.

The poison blast spell can be cast to fire rays of poison at monsters, which behave the same as poison breath weapons. There are also various other items that can inflict poison, not counting the wider range of eligible poisoned weapons:

Serpent's Tongue is an artifact dagger that does not inflict actual poison damage, but deals higher damage against targets that lack poison resistance and has a similar chance of causing instant death.

GruntHack

In GruntHack, poison behaves as it does in NetHack 3.4.3 and previous contemporary versions.

GruntHack also adds the posion blast spell, which functions similarly to how it does in SLASH'EM and can also be cast as a monster spell.

SporkHack

In SporkHack, green dragon scales and green dragon scale mail grant poisonous passive attacks to the wearer, with the exception of green dragons themselves.

A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:

"Verify how poison functions in Spork, and detail poison mechanics for UnNetHack below."

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, the chance of an instadeath from poison is replaced with a "very toxic" poison that damages max HP and does strength damage, reducing the chance of poison causing frustrating deaths (though it is still nearly always fatal to low-level characters). The other detriments of being poisoned remain the same.

Grimtooth is permanently poisoned similar to later versions of NetHack, with a 1⁄10 chance of inflicting instant death on each hit and dealing +1d6 damage otherwise unless the target is resistant.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, more types of poisonous attack are introduced:

  • The poison spray spell can be cast by the hero to fire rays of poison, similar to the poison blast spell in other variants—it can also be combined with the eldritch knightly stance for a chance of dealing bonus poison damage with the hero's wielded weapon (which treats it as a poisoned weapon accordingly).
  • Some attacks can cause intense pain that drains strength and possibly constitution with a chance of being outright fatal, as well as making the victim scream for a few rounds after if they are still alive. Monsters with such attacks include the jellyfish and the ancient of thought.
  • Elemental poison is a form of poison damage that drains constitution and is only partly reduced by poison resistance. The only monsters with elemental poison attacks are the poison paraelemental and Naome—these are not to be confused with the poison attacks used by Bael and the Great Cthulhu.
  • Pyroclastic damage can inflict poison as one of its four possible effects. The only monster with a pyroclastic attack is the pyroclastic vortex.
  • Severe poison is a damage type functions similar to standard poison damage, but can partially 'pierce' poison resistance. Monsters with severe poison attacks include the daughter of Naunet, vermiurge and apocalypse angel.

There is also a wider range of both weapons that can be poisoned, including permanently poisoned artifacts, as well as types of poison that can be applied to them. The self-poisoning object property causes a weapon with the property to coat itself in standard poison if it is not already coated.

In addition to poisoned weapons, some artifacts and other items can deal poison damage:

  • Plague is a chaotic bow that grants bonus poison damage to arrows fired from it, and such arrows will always be treated as poisoned.
  • The Golden Sword of Y'ha-Talla deals doubled poison damage against non-resistant targets.
  • The Scorpion Carapace grants the wearer an additional poison sting attack, which can be upgraded to passively and automatically target hostiles.

Some spirits also grant the ability to deal poison damage as well:

  • Chupoclops grants the hero a 2d4 poisonous bite attack while bound.
  • Ymir grants the hero the ability to use a poison-elemental gaze attack while bound.
  • Miska grants the hero a 2d4 poisonous bite attack while bound at experience level 10 or higher, along with a second one at experience level 18 or higher.

FIQHack

FIQHack removes poison instadeath and replaces it with permanent attribute damage, which cannot be fixed via restore ability or applying a unicorn horn. Additionally, poison resistance only halves poison damage, ensuring that it is never completely safe to eat a poisonous corpse; the chances of attribute reduction from being poisoned or eating a poisonous corpse with poison resistance are lowered to 1⁄3, and the attribute loss itself is reduced by 1⁄3.

Since intrinsic poison resistance only partially protects the hero in FIQHack, the amulet versus poison and the ring of poison resistance are even more useful as they completely protect a hero wearing them from the effects of poison.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, poison functions similarly to its mechanics in NetHack 3.6.7 and previous versions, but also works differently against the hero based on how much intrinsic poison resistance they have: a hero that has less than 35% poison resistance can still die instantly if they are poisoned—otherwise, if their poison resistance level is 35% or higher but not 100%, they take a significant amount of physical damage based on how much poison resistance they have.

Some items can have the "venom" object property (not to be confused with the venom object or attacks that spit venom): weapons with the "venom" property deal +1d2 poison damage with a 1⁄10 chance of 6-15 extra poison damage and a 1⁄10 chance of inflicting instant death, unless the target has poison resistance. Armor with the venom property provides poison resistance while worn.

Worn green dragon-scaled armor grants the wearer a poisonous passive attack similar to SporkHack, and green dragons also possess this ability naturally.

EvilHack adds the poison blast spell, which functions similar to the green dragon's breath weapon in current versions of NetHack.

The Sword of Kas is an artifact that is permanently poisoned and inflicts poison damage against non-resistant targets.

Crowned Infidels that become major demons gain a poisoned sting attack.

SlashTHEM

In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, the chances of a polymorphed hero inflicting fatal poison with their form's attacks is reduced to 1⁄100.

Dirge is an artifact weapon that inflicts poison damage against non-resistant foes.

Hack'EM

In Hack'EM, poison functions similarly to how it does in EvilHack, though the threshold of intrinsic poison resistance required to avoid instant death is lowered to 25%. Hack'EM also includes the "venom" object property from EvilHack, as well as the passive poison attack of green dragon-scaled armor and green dragons.

Encyclopedia entry

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.

[ We Have Always Lived in the Castle,
by Shirley Jackson ]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 src/spell.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 155-L168
  2. ↑ src/potion.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 963-L1011
  3. ↑ src/attrib.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 280-L313
  4. ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 143-L159: poison messages from monster attacks
  5. ↑ src/attrib.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 272-L278: poison_strdmg() function
  6. ↑ src/attrib.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 315-L408: poisoned() function
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3098-L3119: mhitm_really_poison() function; this is used as a helper for mhitm_ad_drst() and called for monster-poisoning effects that are not subject to magic cancellation, and the function lacks the typical 1⁄8 chance which is generally used when calling the function instead
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 src/attrib.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 384-L399
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 src/attrib.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 362-L383
  10. ↑ include/youprop.h in NetHack 5.0.0, line 46-L48
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 src/attrib.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 338-L343: poison resistance handling within poisoned() function
  12. ↑ include/monflag.h in NetHack 5.0.0, line 67
  13. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3149
  14. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 4809
  15. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3150
  16. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 4810
  17. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3151
  18. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 4811
  19. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3121-L3165: mhitm_ad_drst() function
  20. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3143-L3158
  21. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3129-L3142
  22. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3159-L3163
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 src/mthrowu.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 745-L754: call to poisoned() for poisoned weapons hitting the hero
  24. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1061-L1062
  25. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1532-L1537
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 src/mthrowu.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 403-L417
  27. ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 4852-L4862: zap_over_floor() is deferred temporarily until reflection is accounted for
  28. ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 5336-L5342: draws single-square poison clouds over the ray, rejecting wall squares
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 src/region.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1207-L1309: create_gas_cloud() function
  30. ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 4525-L4527
  31. ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 4366-L4372
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 src/region.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1089-L1165: inside_gas_cloud() function; line 1107 ensures much of the function only applies to poison clouds
  33. ↑ include/monsters.h in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2954
  34. ↑ include/monsters.h in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3725
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 5920-L5966: adj_erinys() function
  36. ↑ include/monsters.h in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2952-L2953
  37. ↑ src/attrib.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1307-L1310
  38. ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 394-L410
  39. ↑ include/monflag.h in NetHack 5.0.0, line 113
  40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1928-L1936
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 41.2 src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1611: consume_tin calls cprefx(), but not eatcorpse() where poison is handled[40]
  42. ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2795-L2800
  43. ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2691-L2694: food appraisal check for poisonous corpses
  44. ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1895-L1906: check for immunity to sickness when eating tainted corpses
  45. ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1938-L1943: check for immunity to sickness when eating slightly rotted corpses
  46. ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2672-L2690: food appraisal check for rotted or tainted corpses
  47. ↑ src/trap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 6417-L6425
  48. ↑ 48.0 48.1 src/trap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 6312
  49. ↑ src/trap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 6332-L6337
  50. ↑ src/trap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 6429-L6433
  51. ↑ src/trap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 6327-L6331
  52. ↑ src/trap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1273-L1274
  53. ↑ src/trap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1278-L1286
  54. ↑ src/trap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1310-L1311
  55. ↑ src/trap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1922-L1945
  56. ↑ src/trap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1901-L1903
  57. ↑ src/trap.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2001
  58. ↑ src/attrib.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 271-L337: poisoned() function in 3.6.7
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