Potion of cancellation

Version 0.34: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

Type	Potion
Name	Potion of cancellation
Icon

A potion which ends most magical effects, good or bad, affecting one who drinks it. It also reduces magical contamination.

Quaffing a potion of cancellation immediately ends nearly all status effects you may be enjoying/suffering from. It also removes 1000-5000 points of magic contamination. The potion's description lists all your current status effects that can be removed by the potion.

Dispellable Effects

These are also the effects that can be ended from Quicksilver Bolt (including the wand of quicksilver) and Yara's Violent Unravelling. The list of all affected status effects is as follows:

The Bad

• Many action disabling effects:
  • Bad forms
  • Confusion
  • Dimension Anchor (-Tele)
  • Fear
  • Mesmerised
  • Locked Down (Stuck)
  • Petrifying
  • Still Winds (-Cloud)
  • Silence (when used on the source of the aura; e.g. the potion works if you cast the spell, but not if an enemy cast the spell)
• Many debuffs:
  • Corona
  • Corroded
  • Slow
  • Vertigo
  • Diminished spells
  • Weakness
  • Vitrify
  • Frozen
  • Sick
• Elemental vulnerabilities:
  • Fire vulnerability (rF-)
  • Strip Willpower (Will-)
  • Virulence (rPois-)
  • Weak-willed (Will 1/2)
• Other effects:
  • Flayed
  • Howl
  • Sap Magic
  • Sentinel's Mark
  • Sticky Flame (Fire)

The Good

• Teleporting
• Most effects available from potions, excluding berserk:
  • Attraction
  • Ambrosia
  • Brilliance
  • Haste
  • Invisible
  • Might
  • Resistance
  • Agility (formerly from a potion)
  • Flight (set to 1 turn)
• Necromancy spells:
  • Animate Dead
  • Death Channel
• Certain other spells:
  • Confusing Touch
  • Disjunction
  • Liquefying
  • Olgreb's Toxic Radiance
  • Ozocubu's Armour
  • Portal Projectile
  • Swiftness
  • Fugue of the Fallen

Monster Status Effects

These statuses can be dispelled, but they can only be inflicted on monsters, or a player wouldn't be able to act while in the status.

• Antimagic (only a status for monsters)
• Bind Souls
• Blinkitis
• Curse of Agony
• Magnavolt
• Rimeblight
• Inner Flame
• Repel Missiles
• Paralysis
• Petrified
• Vex
• Sleep

Unaffected Status Effects

The Bad

• Draining
• Doom / Banes
• Barbs
• No Potions / No Scrolls
• Poison
• Any status that would automatically be re-applied (e.g. torpor snail Slow)
• Action cooldowns:
  • -Berserk
  • -Blink
  • -DDoor
  • Exhaustion
  • -Hop

The Good

• Berserk
• Death's Door
• Dragon's Call
• Maxwell's Capacitive Coupling (though it ends if you do anything but wait)
• Powered By Death
• Polar Vortex
• Quad Damage
• All god-granted status effects
• All talisman forms

Strategy

Potions of cancellation are rare, but quite useful. It can remove many dangerous status effects, such as Petrify. Mark, and bad forms. It can also remove contamination in a pinch.

Note that cancellation will also remove many useful statuses, such as Haste and Tele, so be careful. This makes monsters with Quicksilver Bolt some of the more dangerous foes in the game.

Potions of cancellation aren't common, so try to conserve them if you can afford to. The following statuses may be ended via other sources:

• Confusion - quaffing a potion of curing
• Teleport - reading another scroll of teleportation
• Slow - negated by haste

History

• The list of the cancellable effects was added to the potion's description in 0.27.
• Potions of cancellation were added in 0.15, partially taking the role of scrolls of vulnerability.