The Tavern

I am pretty certain that rPois is useless in the early game as it seems an adder or any other monster with poison attack manages to poison regardless of whether you have it or not. Anyone want to confirm or deny this? I am curious because I have a lot of rPois characters (Naga mainly) fail to resist these early game attacks and it made me think maybe something has changed recently with the resists. Although I have not noticed this same "weakness" with wearing rPois items so maybe it is just the racial resists?

rPois is not guaranteed to prevent poison. It's only about 90% effective iirc. What you're seeing is either clustering or confirmation bias.

File200 wrote:rPois is not guaranteed to prevent poison. It's only about 90% effective iirc. What you're seeing is either clustering or confirmation bias.

Interestingly I expected either answer and I disagree which is why I posted this query. Thanks for your contribution.

You know the funny thing about the clustering illusion is that it is an illusion

I dont think you can get immunity from anything with equipment, just reduce the damage/chance by a lot.

Heh actually you can with stasis/clarity. Wasn't thinking. Guess its still true elemental wise.

On those occasions where you get poisoned while having rPois, just imagine how much more poisoned you would've been without it.

rPois is extremely useful vs poison attacks.
My current character killed a group of about 30 Killer Bees losing only 30 HP before Lair (was attacked from 2 tiles all this time), I was really surprised, I was going to use several potions of curing but didn't need any. Later the same character almost died to a Spiny Frog when I forgot to equip ring of rPois and easily killed Spiny Frogs when the ring was equipped.

Sandman25 wrote:rPois is extremely useful vs poison attacks.
My current character killed a group of about 30 Killer Bees losing only 30 HP before Lair (was attacked from 2 tiles all this time), I was really surprised, I was going to use several potions of curing but didn't need any. Later the same character almost died to a Spiny Frog when I forgot to equip ring of rPois and easily killed Spiny Frogs when the ring was equipped.

My point was, that this kind of thing (getting deeply poisoned with rPois in your status) doesn't happen much past the early game. But it seems and I know (seeming isn't necessarily reality but it seems very strongly) like rPois is less effective with say adders and worker ants than it is with other later game mobs. By the mid game you can usually just kill the early game pests without even worrying about it. The later game pests are more nasty if you don't have any rPois and have a noticeably reduced effectiveness if you do.

Hopeless wrote:My point was, that this kind of thing (getting deeply poisoned with rPois in your status) doesn't happen much past the early game. But it seems and I know (seeming isn't necessarily reality but it seems very strongly) like rPois is less effective with say adders and worker ants than it is with other later game mobs. By the mid game you can usually just kill the early game pests without even worrying about it. The later game pests are more nasty if you don't have any rPois and have a noticeably reduced effectiveness if you do.

I see now. rPois is very strong early game too, but yes, Adder is still very dangerous with rPois. Later character has enough HP to not be killed with 1-2 unlucky (10%) poisonous attacks.

tedric wrote:You know the funny thing about the clustering illusion is that it is an illusion

This is not true. The clustering is real but there is no underlying reason for it. It is belief in such a reason that leads to the illusion that the clustering has occurred because of anything other than chance.

One really important thing rPois does is block the vast majority of damage from venom bolt and a lot of damage from poison arrow. It also 100% of the time prevents slow from yellow wasps and slow/paralysis from red wasps. Also gives rCurare. Also blocks effects of poison/noxious gas 100%.

In a lot of cases those things are more important than saving a !curing.

Confidence Interval wrote:
tedric wrote:You know the funny thing about the clustering illusion is that it is an illusion

This is not true. The clustering is real but there is no underlying reason for it. It is belief in such a reason that leads to the illusion that the clustering has occurred because of anything other than chance.

Yes, exactly

rPois is very powerful and drastically reduces poison damage. I was doing spider without it today and holy crap did a jumping spider and redback apply tons of poison to me. I was losing (ie, that portion of my health bar turned yellow) 20-30 hp a turn. I quaffed curing, and then I had another 20-30 poison damage applied again. Granted this was an octopode so I'm taking ridiculous damage from everything anyways, but yeah, rPois is effective.

If you'd like to have really, really effective rPois, then cast statue form.

Come on, everyone knows you don't need rPois for Spider, it's just a "nice to have" thing

Sandman25 wrote:Come on, everyone knows you don't need rPois for Spider, it's just a "nice to have" thing

This, except un-ironically.

Arrhythmia wrote:
Sandman25 wrote:Come on, everyone knows you don't need rPois for Spider, it's just a "nice to have" thing

This, except un-ironically.

Yes, I know. You don't need rF+ to win, you don't need spells to win, you don't need any weapon except vorpal spear to win, you don't need Fighting to win, you don't need to play well to win. No smiles this time.
Basically any post with "you don't need" is meaningless because it's describing obvious.

and into wrote:One really important thing rPois does is block the vast majority of damage from venom bolt and a lot of damage from poison arrow. It also 100% of the time prevents slow from yellow wasps and slow/paralysis from red wasps. Also gives rCurare. Also blocks effects of poison/noxious gas 100%.

In a lot of cases those things are more important than saving a !curing.

And Into, I specified the early game precisely because that is when it isn't good enough. I know quite well it can be great mid-late game. (Though it isn't necessary.) Also I am really not talking about rPois from devices but from native abilities.

Having no AC in a branch full of monsters with multiple weak attacks is suffering, yes.

Also you probably need rF to win unless you get really lucky.

@ Hopeless: Wasn't responding specifically to you, sorry if that wasn't clear.

Agreed that it is very hard to win without at least having rF+ available as a swap. With lots of !resistance and being super careful you could probably manage, but if you get lots of OoF in Zot you will be screwed, and !resistance is not that common (and will be subject to frequent item destruction checks in Zot anyway, unless you have conservation).

rPois is more important for Snake than Spider, but both are doable without them, particularly if you don't mind not fully exploring every level and killing every enemy (you shouldn't mind) and perhaps burning a ?magic mapping where the staircases are elusive. You will want to drag a lot of !curing with you too, of course.

Sure, "doable" is not a useful description. But I don't just mean "possible for greatplayers," I mean "adjust your strategy somewhat and neither Snake nor (especially) Spider is *that* much more difficult without rPois, although they are much more annoying and you do need to be more careful." The problem with claims that rPois is necessary in those branches is that it leads to misunderstandings and bad play that will needlessly kill characters; for instance, I've actually seen people who think that going into Depths (!) at level 16 is less dangerous than doing Spider without rPois at level 16.

The Tavern

rPois??

rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??

Re: rPois??