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Sick is a status condition in ADOM. It is a quite debilitating, and sometimes fatal, condition. It is one of the few negative status conditions that has no effect on (or can't be inflicted on) monsters; throwing a potion of sickness at an enemy just yields the message "The -monster- looks somewhat green.".


Effects on the PC[]

Whilst the PC's HP is above half its maximum value, the PC will constantly "suffer a feverish fit"—resulting in a loss of HP—until his/her HP is half its maximum value or less. This makes attempts to heal the PC's HP without curing the sickness (e.g. by healing prayer) generally futile. Sickness also harshly reduces the PC's natural regeneration rate of HP, so the PC thus must especially take care to avoid being injured (by monsters, traps etc.) whilst sick.

Besides the PC being limited in how much HP they can restore, another notable and serious effect of sickness is a reduction in most of the PC's stats. This has been observed to be:

St -2
Le -2
Wi -3
Dx -5
To -5
Ap -1
Pe -1

Note that the massive losses in Toughness and Willpower have a notable effect on the PC's maximum HP, making the HP limit imposed by sickness especially bad. All stat changes are temporary, and each stat is restored to its original value once the sickness has gone.

Whilst sickness can wear off painlessly on its own, there is a chance that occasionally when it finally wears off the PC will "suffer one last major fever attack!". This deals a lot of damage and can often kill if the PC's HP has fallen too low (bearing in mind that HP lost whilst sick is difficult to restore). Death by the last fever attack is recorded in the death/highscore log as the PC being "wasted away by the terrible black fever".

Another equally worrisome effect of sickness that the player should be aware of is the fact that should the PC "suffer feverish fits" whilst either paralyzed or asleep, (s)he will die instantly (but can be resurrected by an amulet of life saving), resulting in the death message "choked on his/her own vomit".

Causes[]

  • Monster attacks: See the corresponding category. Note that in all of these cases, contracting sickness from a damaging hit from the monster is quite uncommon.
  • Eating monsters: Eating kobolds of all kinds, quasits, rabid dogs or werebeasts will cause the PC to become sick. Eating zombies may, on rare occasions, also cause this.
  • Food and drink: Eating a devil's rose or drinking a potion of sickness will cause the PC to become sick.
  • Bodily contact with worms: wearing armor with the worm-ridden prefix causes sickness.

Cures/Treatment[]

  • Curative items: Eating a curaria mancox herb can cure sickness, though cursed ones don't always work (sometimes just "cooling the PC's gut" instead). Drinking a potion of healing or potion of extra healing can cure sickness if the PC is not already at full health; blessed potions seem to always work, but others are not completely reliable. Eating a fairy dragon corpse, should the PC manage to find one, also cures sickness.
  • Magic: Casting Cure Disease is guaranteed to remove sickness.
  • Divine help: Sickness can be removed by prayer. If the PC's piety level is high enough, (s)he might also be cured of sickness after sacrificing to their deity. Jharod, the healer, can also cure PCs of disease. As long as he has healing favors to spare, the PC can use his help to safely consume kobolds if running low on food in the Village Dungeon.
  • Misc.: Paladins learn how to cure their diseases at level 6; each time they use this power, though, they must wait 1000 more turns for it to 'recharge'. Wearing an amulet of health or armor with the suffix 'of health' greatly reduces the time required for sickness to heal itself and the probability of a last major fever attack.
  • Resistance: As of r77, disease resistance is available as an intrinsic.
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