Permanent int loss possible in the abyss?

[tasonir]

So I had the wonderful misfortune of being banished to the abyss at level 13, and figured I'd stay and get the rune. It went well and I succeeded, but I had a few too many run-ins with brain eaters. I entered with 8 int, and soon was at scores such as 6(8), etc. But when I got down to 3 current int, the max also went down to 7. Is there a limit to how far under your max you can be, or does something in there do non-reversable int damage? I was a deep dwarf, so I had no stat regeneration. Fortunately 3(7) was as low as it went and after I got out I was able to get a royal jelly - I had no method of restoring stats prior to that!

[TwilightPhoenix]

You may have gotten a -1 Int mutation as, to the best of my knowledge, just having your stats drop doesn't cause permanent stat loss. But anyway, you can go all the way down to 0, which will eventually kill you if you can't get back up to at least 1.

[tasonir]

ah yeah you're right, I checked my mutations page, and I picked up -1 int. Not sure which creature did it, but it isn't a big problem for me, I'm a berserker anyways hope to find a cure mutation soon though, I have some other ones as well I need removed

[Grimm]

you can go all the way down to 0

You can go down to -n. I've been there. It hurts.

[AtT]

How can you have a negative intelligence? What are stones on this crazy scale??

[KoboldLord]

A negative intelligence (or str, or dex, etc.) is only relevant with respect to getting back above 0. If you hit 0 int, you suffer brainless status which will eventually kill you, but you can pop on a +1 int ring or artefact to get back to positive intelligence and purge brainless status. If you hit -10 int, you suffer brainless status and die in exactly the same span of time, but it's much harder to stack artefact bonuses if you don't have an actual cure on-hand. Of course, potions of restore ability and royal jellies fix you up completely either way, so the difference doesn't come up very often.