Draft:Poison

Omega 0.90.4

Poison can mean poison-type HP damage or the player's accumulating poisoned condition. Ordinary poisoning adds a number of counts; each later minute-status update consumes one count and attempts three poison damage. Poison immunity can prevent the damage without clearing the remaining counts.

Effects

While poisoned, the player normally loses 3 HP per minute-status update, ignoring armor absorption. A count is removed before that damage, including the last count, so an untreated load of P counts causes 3P total damage if nothing else adds poison, heals you or prevents the damage. Further ordinary poisoning adds to the current load rather than replacing it.

These are status updates, not player commands. Local time normally runs a minute check at each game-minute boundary, and ten-minute/hourly processing adds another minute check. Successful movement in cities and villages also advances a game minute on alternating moves. Countryside travel runs the minute and ten-minute status checks once per hourly advance, rather than simulating sixty minute checks for that hour. Consequently, a poison load is not a fixed number of safe moves or a fixed amount of wall-clock time.

Poison itself does not disable ordinary periodic HP recovery. Disease does, so suffering both conditions can remove the recovery that would otherwise partly offset poisoning. Sleep prevents ordinary local actions while poison damage continues.

Monsters do not acquire the player's lasting poison counter from ordinary poison damage. For example, giving accepted poisoned food to a hungry monster attempts 100 poison damage immediately, after making it hostile. That differs from your own periodic poisoning.

Sources

The following ordinary sources use the player's poison-immunity check. Values below are added counts, not immediate HP loss.

Source	Poison load	Conditions
Poison melee, including mamba attacks	Monster's damage rating	A landed melee attack, then random 0–9 below monster level; physical damage prevention does not cancel this separate check
Shared monster spell	Caster's level	Available from caster level 2, after the ordinary casting and resistance checks
Nearby monster poison cloud	7	Within two squares when the power runs; breathing protection prevents this application before poison immunity is checked
Poisoned ration or poisonous remains	5–24	Eating an object with the poisonous-food effect; not every monster with a poisonous attack leaves poisonous food
Cursed antidote	5–24	Uses the poisoning effect instead of clearing poison
Azoth with negative enchantment	25	Its negative-enchantment branch takes precedence over the beneficial use
Cursed poison-resistance ring	100	Equipping it first clears existing poison immunity, then applies poison
Dart trap	Current difficulty	After its dart gets past the mounted/armor checks, a further approximately one-in-three poison check
Thorny hedge	0–11	One of six hedge results for a player not protected by the Druid patron; separate physical damage also occurs
Tainted magic-pool result	10	One of the pool's possible outcomes, not the effect of every water square

The cloud's breathing protection is narrower than poison immunity: it does not cover bites, food or the spell. Creature pages retain their own hit chance, level, damage rating and special-action conditions.

Prevention and recovery

Ordinary poison immunity prevents new counts and blocks the poison damage from counts already present. Those existing counts continue to expire. If the immunity is lost first, the remaining poison can hurt you again. Clearing the poison count avoids that residual risk.

Remedy or protection	Result
Noncursed potion of neutralize poison	Clears all poison counts
Curing, uncursed, or the cure spell	Removes 5 poison counts, down to zero
Curing with blessing strength B above zero	Removes 5 + 10B counts; +1 blessing removes 15
Noncursed poison-resistance ring	Adds poison immunity while used and clears existing poison when equipped; removal also clears poison but subtracts the ring's protection
Victrix, used	Adds poison immunity; does not itself clear existing counts
Unicorn horn, eaten	Sets poison immunity to 1000 without clearing existing poison
Successful Orb of Water use	Adds 100 poison immunity after satisfying its ritual conditions; does not itself clear poison

The immunity values granted by the horn or Orb are not ordinary timed poisoning counters. Their use, cost and risks remain on those individual pages. A cursed curing potion is also different from a cursed antidote: it causes disease rather than adding poison.

For a reusable cure in town, Tullimore Dew costs 10 Au when the tavern is open and clears both poison and disease. The tavern's 25 Au bed and breakfast also clears both, but its skipped hours do not simulate ordinary healing. Rampart Healers treat injuries or disease; their disease service does not clear poison. Eligible returning Order members receive full cleansing, HP recovery and food.

Other broad cures include lembas, a beneficial use of Azoth, a successful holy-symbol use and the Health wish. Religious benefices, certain altar rewards and pool or chaos-storm outcomes also invoke cleansing; these require their own conditions and are not dependable emergency antidotes. An overnight Eclipse visit explicitly clears poison and disease and restores HP.

A week at the Arms clears poison counts below 1000 as part of its broader restoration; the direct reset leaves counts of 1000 or more intact. A village void stone clears all status counts, but also drains mana and strips carried items of their special powers and enchantments. These broad resets should not be confused with a simple antidote.

Strategy

A large poison load needs a full antidote or strong enough curing. An uncursed cure that removes five counts can be useful without solving a twenty-count problem; healing HP buys time but does not remove the remaining poison. Keep the remedy accessible before you enter a fight that can also put you to sleep.

In town, the Dew is a cheap cure when available, but reaching the tavern still advances time and can trigger poison damage. Do not spend your last HP travelling toward a cure merely because each individual enemy hit was small. When disease is present too, removing both conditions restores ordinary recovery as well as ending the poison damage.

For protection that stops a particular attack without clearing poisoning, see Damage and immunity. Do not equate breathing with general poison protection, or a monster's immunity with a benefit from eating its remains.