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Status effects

Some harm lasts longer than a blow. A deep wound keeps bleeding, and a bite can leave poison behind. These status effects cost hit points as time passes, slow your healing, sometimes weaken you, and wear off on their own. They can kill. What ends bleeding, poison, and disease sooner is gathered on Healing.

Diseased is a status effect too. It shows while any disease has broken out, and lasts as long as the diseases do.

Not every status effect harms. A rage makes you stronger for a while, and some effects leave you spent once they are over. What helpful effects, hexes, and cooldowns can do is on Buffs, hexes, and cooldowns.

You always know what ails you. The status bar names it right after your hit points (HP 12/17 · Bleeding · Poisoned), the character screen lists it, and the message line tells you when it starts and stops. What you never see is a number for how bad it is or how long it will last: you just watch your hit points go.

Being grabbed, engulfed, or swallowed has a page of its own: Held.

Every status effect is in the tables on Every status effect, with its exact paces and the creatures that cause it.

How they work

  • Severity. Every status effect has a severity, counted in degrees. The worse it is, the faster it costs hit points: a wound twice as bad bleeds twice as fast.
  • They add up. A second wound while you are still bleeding makes the bleeding worse. A second dose of poison makes you sicker, and stronger poison lasts longer. Each status has a worst it can get.
  • They wear off bit by bit, a degree at a time, until they are gone.
  • Time is time. Status effects run on game time, whatever you do meanwhile. Waiting, walking, resting, and a long journey on the overworld all count the same. Only creatures on other levels are paused: their effects wait for you to come back.
  • They can kill. If a status effect takes your last hit point, you die of it, and the death screen says so: “Bled to death”.

Stunned, frightened, drowsy, surprised

These four come up in most fights. None of them costs hit points; each costs you time or aim.

  • Stunned. A heavy blow rings your head. Your next action takes half again as long, and until then you are flat-footed: your Dexterity and Dodge do not help your Defence, you make no free blow, and a sneak attack’s extra dice land. A creature’s blow or an ascetic’s Stunning strike can do it (see Surprise).
  • Frightened. You hit less often (−3 to hit). A frightened creature runs from you while it can, and fights only when cornered. Fear wears off a degree every 6 seconds.
  • Drowsy. Everything you do takes three times as long. The bard’s lullaby and some creatures cause it. It eases a degree every 12 seconds.
  • Surprised. You were caught unawares and failed the initiative check. You are flat-footed, and your next action takes half again as long.

Getting rid of them: they wear off by themselves, most within a few turns. Sooner:

Bleeding

Two things open a wound (“You are bleeding.”):

  • a big hit, one that takes at least a third of your hit points at once;
  • a confirmed critical (“The kobold stabs you hard!”). A critical opens a worse wound than a big hit.

Only a blow that cuts or stabs does it. A club, a fall, or a fireball does not (see Damage types).

While you bleed, you lose a hit point every so often, faster the worse you bleed, and your hit points do not come back at all. The bleeding eases by itself and stops after a while: “The bleeding stops.” If you are trained in Heal, you can bind the wound and stop it sooner, trying as often as it takes (see Treating yourself).

Getting rid of it: it stops by itself in time. Sooner:

Creatures bleed the same way, and you can see it: look mode says “A giant rat (hostile, wounded, bleeding)”. A creature can bleed to death after a fight: “The giant rat bleeds to death.”

A creature without blood never bleeds, whatever wounds it: neither a blow nor Flay opens it. A skeleton, a ghost, or an elemental has none; the creature tables say which.

Burning

A fire spell sometimes leaves what it harms burning: “You are burning!” Burning costs a hit point every ten seconds, faster the more degrees of it you have, and each degree burns out in half a minute: “The flames go out.” What resists fire takes less harm, and what is immune never burns.

Anything burning gives off a small light, so it cannot hide in the dark, and look mode names it: “A kobold (hostile, burning)”.

Getting rid of it: it burns out in half a minute a degree. A step into water, or a fall through ice into it, puts the flames out at once. So does a cold spell that harms you.

Corroded

Every acid spell that harms something leaves it Corroded: “The acid keeps eating.” A degree costs a hit point every six seconds and is spent in twelve, so it does two more hit points per cast: “The acid is spent.” What resists acid takes less. Look mode names it. It never eats armour.

Getting rid of it: nothing ends it sooner; it is spent in twelve seconds a degree.

Poisoned

Some creatures’ attacks carry poison. Now and then a barrow spider’s bite leaves you sick: “You feel sick.” So does bad food: rotten food (a corpse too) that stays down, or the flesh of some creatures (see Food and corpses).

Poison works slowly. It costs a hit point every couple of minutes, faster the stronger it is, and your hit points come back only half as fast.

Strong poison (a few doses at once) also makes you weaker and clumsier. Your Strength and Dexterity count one less in everything they do, from hitting and Defence to how much you can carry. The character screen shows them lowered.

Getting rid of it: poison wears off by itself: “The poison wears off.” Sooner:

You cannot tell whether a creature is poisoned by looking at it.

Ebbing

A draining room drinks at magic. While you stand in one, and for half a minute after you leave, you are Ebbing (“Your power ebbs away.”). A point of mana drains away every 20 seconds, and none comes back. It never takes you below zero and does you no other harm. Once you are out of the room it passes: “Your power stops ebbing.”

Creatures with mana ebb in the room just as you do, and you can see it on them (“ebbing”). Creatures without mana are left alone. The talent Old delver keeps it from ever taking you.

Asleep

The creatures of a teeming den lie asleep (“asleep” in look mode). A sleeper does nothing at all and has seen no one, so a sneak attack on it always lands. Time never wakes it. A loud enough noise does, as does any harm or a waking neighbour’s cry.

Silenced

A silent vault swallows every sound. While you stand in one, and for ten seconds after you leave, you are Silenced (“The silence closes around you.”). You cannot:

Trying takes no time. Out of the vault, sound comes back: “Sound returns.”

Creatures inside are silenced just as you are, and you can see it on them (“silenced”). A caster that cannot cast closes in to fight hand to hand.

Unwelcome

A shrine of the other side from yours does not want you. While you stand in one, and for half a minute after you leave, you are Unwelcome (“You feel unwelcome.”). Your wounds heal at half the pace, and you are a little less likely to hit (−1 to hit). Once it passes: “You no longer feel unwelcome.”

Creatures of the other side are unwelcome there too, and you can see it on them (“unwelcome”).

In the message line

“You are bleeding.” and “You feel sick.” stop a rest, like any news. “The bleeding stops.” and “The poison wears off.” show in the message line but let you rest on.

See also: Every status effect, Buffs and hexes, and Healing.