The Tavern

I got lethally poisoned by an adder (playing a FeAr, XL4). My hit points are supposed to go to -1. I enslave the adder and start quaffing unidentified potions: !cancel, !might, !invis. Then I read my unidentified scrolls: !tele, !amnesia. Then I zap my wand of random effects at myself, hoping to get healing. First zap: slowing. Second zap: teleportation. Then I am no longer poisoned and have still 1 HP left. Why?

Does the game not take normal HP regeneration into account when it calculates how poisoned you are? Or did the slowing somehow affect the rate of losing HP compared to HP regeneration?

Code:: The adder bites you. * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * * You are lethally poisoned! The adder poisons you! Found a stone staircase leading up. Evoke which item? (* to show all) (? for menu, Esc to quit) Zapping: c - a wand of enslavement (15) Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f - adder Aim: an adder (moderately wounded, bleeding, chance 66%) The adder is charmed. This wand has 14 charges left. * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * * You feel sick. You are alive. You are lethally poisoned (4 -> -1). Your movement speed is quick. Your attack speed is average. You are not resistant to hostile enchantments. You feel fairly stealthy. Unknown command. Unknown command. Drink which item? (? for menu, Esc to quit) It was a potion of cancellation. You feel magically purged. Drink which item? (? for menu, Esc to quit) It was a potion of might. You feel very mighty all of a sudden. Drink which item? (? for menu, Esc to quit) It was a potion of invisibility. You fade into invisibility! * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * * You feel sick. You are very lightly contaminated with residual magic. Drink which item? (? for menu, Esc to quit) Okay, then. Unknown command. Read which item? (? for menu, Esc to quit) As you read the scroll of teleportation, it crumbles to dust. You feel strangely unstable. A bat comes into view. Your adder is no longer bleeding. * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * * You feel sick. Found a long sword and a club. Your surroundings suddenly seem different. Found a robe. Found a stone staircase leading down. Read which item? (? for menu, Esc to quit) As you read the scroll labeled HUEDDUPREE, it crumbles to dust. You feel forgetful for a moment. It was a scroll of amnesia. Drink which item? (? for menu, Esc to quit) Okay, then. Unknown command. A worm comes into view. * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * * You feel sick. Unknown command. Unknown command. Unknown command. Evoke which item? (* to show all) (? for menu, Esc to quit) Zapping: d - a wand of random effects (15) Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f - you Really target yourself? You feel yourself slow down. This wand has 14 charges left. Evoke which item? (* to show all) (? for menu, Esc to quit) Zapping: d - a wand of random effects (14) Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f - you Really target yourself? You feel strangely unstable. This wand has 13 charges left. * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * * You feel sick. You are no longer poisoned.

Short answer: time in crawl is a mess and things like poison don't synchronize well with things like regeneration, so sometimes this happens. The opposite case, death to non-lethal poison, happens as well.

Long answer: i dont know of anyone who understands it well enough to give a long answer

Also, wand of random effects can't give you healing, so that wasn't a very good idea

Side question: why read scrolls in this situation? Were you hoping to acquire a wand of heal wounds?

duvessa wrote:Also, wand of random effects can't give you healing, so that wasn't a very good idea

No, but it can polymorph you into a "bad form" with +XX% HP that helps you survive poisoning

Pollen_Golem wrote:Side question: why read scrolls in this situation? Were you hoping to acquire a wand of heal wounds?

Teleporting/blinking to a potion or summoning an orc priest could work.

duvessa wrote:Also, wand of random effects can't give you healing, so that wasn't a very good idea

I thought that might be the case but didn't bother to check, because I was sure I was going to die. I had no other useful consumables to try anyway. I guess polymorph could have saved me.

Pollen_Golem wrote:Side question: why read scrolls in this situation? Were you hoping to acquire a wand of heal wounds?

That or teleporting to a potion were on my mind. Duvessa's idea of summoning an orc priest to heal me didn't cross my mind, though :)

duvessa wrote:
Pollen_Golem wrote:Side question: why read scrolls in this situation? Were you hoping to acquire a wand of heal wounds?
Teleporting/blinking to a potion or summoning an orc priest could work.

I'm pretty sure (friendly) monsters can't cast buffs on you.

rockygargoyle wrote:
duvessa wrote:
Pollen_Golem wrote:Side question: why read scrolls in this situation? Were you hoping to acquire a wand of heal wounds?
Teleporting/blinking to a potion or summoning an orc priest could work.

I'm pretty sure (friendly) monsters can't cast buffs on you.

You can go invisible and turn the orc priest and an orc hostile, then stand between them.

From what I understand, poison damage is somewhat randomized, (or the chance that poison will wear off, I can't remember which, or both). The "lethally poisoned" is simply the event that in the worst case scenario, your regen will lose out to poison.

I'm going to vote for the slow effect slowing the rate at which he takes poison damage, but not the rate at which he heals.

I've had this happen as well, is it possible its some excess code from when poison wasn't deterministic? Iirc it had a bigger chance of ending if you were at <3hp or so i heard back then.

bel wrote:From what I understand, poison damage is somewhat randomized, (or the chance that poison will wear off, I can't remember which, or both). The "lethally poisoned" is simply the event that in the worst case scenario, your regen will lose out to poison.

Actually that was changed at the same time that the lethally poisoned warning came to be (search for 'deterministic poison damage')

It is no longer random.

There are still a few circumstances where it is off by 1 due to rounding and weird timing of turns, and there are, of course, ways to change your regeneration rate after becoming lethally poisoned as well.

duvessa wrote:Short answer: time in crawl is a mess and things like poison don't synchronize well with things like regeneration, so sometimes this happens. The opposite case, death to non-lethal poison, happens as well.

I'm fairly sure that the display specifically errs on the side of claiming lethality in edge cases, so while it's certainly possible to survive what is displayed as lethal poison, dying to supposedly non-lethal poison doesn't occur any more as far as I'm aware. (For the long answer you could probably ask elliptic or read poison_survival)

I think the slow is what saved you. You should have lost 1 hp, then later you would have gained 1 hp, but it would be too late. Slow made it so your next turn came after the poison tick and the regen tick, so it was a net of 0 HP gained or lost.

At least, this is what I think happened.

So it's best to always carry a wand of slowing, just in case :)

Next up: saved by a torpor snail...

Well, I don't actually know for sure what I said was right, so you might want to wait for someone more knowledgable to confirm what I said before you go zapping yourself with slow when fatally poisoned. Even if I am right, it only saves you if you were going to lose your last HP on the last poison tick.

The Tavern

Lethally poisoned but not dead

Lethally poisoned but not dead

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Re: Lethally poisoned but not dead

Re: Lethally poisoned but not dead

Re: Lethally poisoned but not dead

Re: Lethally poisoned but not dead

Re: Lethally poisoned but not dead

Re: Lethally poisoned but not dead

Re: Lethally poisoned but not dead

Re: Lethally poisoned but not dead

Re: Lethally poisoned but not dead

Re: Lethally poisoned but not dead

Re: Lethally poisoned but not dead