Poisoning Effects

👉 This page provides a comprehensive list of all poisoning effects in GnollHack, detailing what happens when a character has poison resistance versus when they lack it.

🍎 Consuming Poisonous Food, Corpses, and Objects

When eating items, corpses, or even objects (e.g., when polymorphed into a metallivore) that are poisonous:

• Standard Poisonous Items (EDIBLETYPE_POISONOUS / Poisoned Weapons):
  • Without Resistance: You lose strength and take poison damage.
  • With Resistance: You are completely immune ("You seem unaffected by the poison.").
• Deadly Poisonous Items (EDIBLETYPE_DEADLY_POISONOUS):
  • Without Resistance: The effects are much more severe. You lose significant strength and take heavy poison damage.
  • With Resistance: You are completely immune.

🗡️ Monster Attacks

When a monster strikes you with a poisonous natural attack (such as a bite or sting) or uses a poisoned weapon against you:

• Natural Attacks (Bite, Sting):
  • Without Resistance: You are poisoned. This typically causes a loss of strength and inflicts additional poison damage on top of the physical attack. In certain scenarios, the poison can trigger a "deadly poison" strike, inflicting massive damage (see below).
  • With Resistance: The poison is fully neutralized ("The poison doesn't seem to affect you."). You only take the standard physical damage from the attack itself.
• Thrown Poisoned Weapons (Arrows, Darts):
  • Just like natural attacks, thrown poisoned weapons will poison you, deal poison damage, reduce your stats, and have a chance to trigger a massive deadly poison strike. Poison resistance neutralizes all of these effects.
• Melee Attacks with Poisoned Weapons (e.g., Orcish Dagger):
  • Due to a long-standing quirk inherited from NetHack, if a monster hits you in melee with a poisoned weapon, the poison actually does not trigger. You only take the standard physical damage of the weapon, regardless of whether you have poison resistance or not.

🪤 Traps

When triggering traps laced with poison, such as poisoned dart traps or falling into a spiked pit with poisoned spikes:

• Without Resistance: You suffer poison damage and a reduction in strength.
• With Resistance: The poison has no effect on you, though you still take the physical damage from the trap (e.g., the dart hitting you or falling on the spikes).

☁️ Poison Gas Clouds

When walking through or being caught in a localized poison gas cloud (e.g., from an explosion or environmental hazard):

• Without Resistance: You suffer continuous poison damage for every turn you remain within the gas cloud.
• With Resistance: You are completely immune to the gas and can pass through it without taking any damage.

⛲ Poisoned Fountains

When drinking from a fountain that has been tainted with poison:

• Without Resistance: The water is tainted, and you suffer poison damage along with negative side effects similar to standard food poisoning.
• With Resistance: You notice the water tastes bitter, but you suffer no ill effects whatsoever.

🧪 Potion of Poison

Potion of poison has a dangerous effect when quaffed or when they shatter and release vapors:

• Without Resistance: Quaffing one causes you to take immediate poison damage and randomly lose a stat point (e.g., strength, dexterity). If one shatters near you, the vapors cause you to lose up to 5 HP (though this vapor damage won't drop your HP below 1).
• With Resistance: You are completely immune to the damage and stat loss when quaffing ("However, you are unaffected by the poison.") and take no damage from shattered potions.
• Note: Quaffing a potion of poison cures hallucination and lycanthropy regardless of whether you have poison resistance or not!

📖 Contact-Poisoned Spellbooks

When failing to read a cursed or extremely difficult spellbook, the book may trigger a contact-poison effect:

• Without Resistance: You take heavier damage and lose more strength.
• With Resistance: The poison's severity is significantly mitigated. You take less damage and lose less strength.

☠️ Deadly Poison Mechanics

In GnollHack, a "deadly poison" attack is no longer a guaranteed instant death regardless of your hit points. Instead, a deadly poison attack inflicts massive poison damage (typically 6d6 + 10, but it can scale up to 7d6 + 10 depending on the attacker's level and poison strength). If your HP drops below 1 after taking this damage, you die with the message "The poison was deadly…".

The chances for a poison attack to trigger this massive deadly damage are as follows:

• Monster Melee Attacks: A poisonous natural attack (e.g., bite or sting) from a monster of level 9 or higher has a 10% chance (1 in 10) to trigger a deadly poison strike. Monsters level 8 or lower cannot trigger this effect.
• Thrown Poisoned Weapons: A monster throwing a poisoned weapon (such as a dart or arrow) has a 10% chance to trigger a deadly poison strike.
• Player Polymorphed: If the player is polymorphed into a poisonous monster and attacks another monster, there is a 10% chance to trigger a deadly poison strike against the monster.
• Traps: Environmental traps (like poisoned darts, spiked pits, gas clouds, and needles) never trigger the massive deadly poison damage. They only deal their standard poison damage, though this can still be fatal if your hit points are already critically low.

🛡️ Acquiring Poison Resistance

Poison resistance is one of the most critical intrinsics to acquire early in the game to avoid dying to massive poison damage or gradual HP depletion from poisoned darts, spiked pits, and monster attacks. It can be gained safely by eating certain corpses (if you already have poison resistance or a means to survive the initial meal), wearing an Amulet versus Poison, wearing a Ring of Poison Resistance, or playing specific roles (e.g., Healers, Barbarians) that start with or acquire the resistance as they level up.