Hit points and death

Hit points measure how much harm you can take. They come back slowly with time. When they run out you die, and death in this game is for good. This page also covers the blood that fights leave behind. How blows land and how much they do is on Combat. Every way to get your health back is on Healing.

Hit points

Your hit points are your Toughness plus what your race and your class give:

A dwarf berserker with Toughness 16 has 6 + 8 + 16 = 30 hit points. An elf wizard with Toughness 8 has 10. You start every run unhurt. The status bar shows your hit points (HP 18/24), and so does the character screen.

Creatures have hit points too, but the game never shows their numbers. They are listed on Creatures in numbers. Look mode tells you how hurt a creature looks:

• unhurt
• lightly wounded: more than two thirds left
• wounded: more than a third left
• badly wounded: more than a sixth left
• nearly dead

Getting hit points back

Hit points come back with time. They come back faster the tougher you are, and twice as fast while you rest. They come back slower, or not at all, while you bleed, are poisoned, or are diseased. The details are on Healing.

A disease that lowers your Toughness lowers your maximum hit points too (see Diseases). Creatures heal the same way while you are on their level. In a sanctuary (a special room) wounds heal three times as fast, yours and everyone else’s.

Death

A creature at 0 hit points dies: “The giant rat dies.” Everything it carried, including what it wore and wielded, falls where it stood for you to pick up, with its corpse on top (see Food and corpses). A wounded creature may also die later of its wounds: “The giant rat bleeds to death.”

When you reach 0 hit points, you die: “You die…” The run is over. A screen tells you what killed you, where, when, and after how many turns. It names the killer if you saw it, says “Bled to death” if your wounds did it, or says you starved (see Hunger).

There is no going back. Your save is deleted at once (see Saving). Your character is remembered in the graveyard on the main menu, with what killed them. Press Enter or Esc to return to the main menu and start a new run.

Blood

Big hits and kills leave blood where they land:

• A blow that takes at least a third of its target’s hit points, or any critical (“hits you hard!”), leaves a little spatter.
• A kill leaves a pool where the victim fell, and a spray behind it, away from whoever struck the blow.

Only some kinds of damage spill blood. Blades, blunt blows, acid, and force do. Fire sears the wound shut, and cold, electricity, poison, and necrotic harm leave no wound to bleed: a creature killed by a fireball leaves no blood, only char. A sword that cuts or stabs spills blood either way. The table on Damage types lists every kind.

How much blood depends on how big the victim was and how it died. A blow far beyond what was needed to kill, or a critical, spills more. An arrow or a thrown weapon spills less, sprayed along its flight. Blood that sprays into a wall right beside the victim stains that wall on the side facing it.

Blood adds up. One kill is easy to miss, but where many died the floor is soaked. Fresh blood is red and dries darker and browner over a few hours. The cave beetle bleeds a greenish-black ichor. Water, lava, and fire take no stains.

You see blood wherever you see the floor. On a wall you see it only from the splattered side. You remember blood as you last saw it, and look mode mentions it: “on blood-stained stone floor”.

Blood is only for show. It never changes a fight, and the Blood switch in the settings hides it.

Char

Fire leaves scorch marks where it burns. The more a spot burns, the darker it gets: first a little brown soot, then blackened, then charred through.

• A fireball or a fire flask chars every floor cell its blast reaches: 20, half that at the blast’s edge.
• A cone of fire, such as Burning hands or a dragon’s breath, chars every cell it covers: 20.
• A fire zone chars the cells it burns on: 24 as it is laid.
• A creature burned by fire chars the cell it stands on: 3, plus a third of the blood the blow would have spilled.
• Walls beside a burning cell take 75 % of that cell’s char on the side facing it (half that across a corner).

Each share is 60 to 140 % of the number above, at random. A cell holds at most 100: under 30 it is scorched, under 65 blackened, then charred. Water, lava, and fire take no char.

You see and remember char the way you see and remember blood, and look mode names it first: “A charred blood-stained stone floor.” Blood on a charred floor is drawn over the char. Char is only for show, never changes a fight, and the Blood switch hides it too.

See also: Combat, Healing, and Status effects.