Instadeath

Version 0.13: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

The term instadeath can have several definitions, either in Crawl or in roguelikes in general. Of course, many people use it to describe a death which occurs instantly or very quickly, e.g. an early ogre one-shotting a low-level spriggan. However, the term is often more formally used to describe deaths which occur regardless of a character's current HP, even if the death itself is not instant (so-called 'delayed instadeaths'). Such instadeaths are fairly rare in Crawl, and can only occur in a few ways:

• Starving to death is an instadeath.
• Falling into deep water or lava and failing to scramble free will result in an instadeath. Falling into lava without fire resistance is always an instadeath. Even if you scramble free from lava when you have fire resistance, you may still be killed by the direct HP damage caused by the lava. Normally, the game will prevent you from walking into deep water or lava, but it may happen in a number of ways:
  • Moving while confused and adjacent to such terrain. The game will ask for confirmation first if falling into deep water or lava is a possibility.
  • Ending flight while over deep water or lava. The game will not let you choose to end flight in such a situation, and will give you very clear warnings if a temporary source of flight is expiring.
  • Being fully petrified while flying over deep water or lava.
  • Despite how ominous their effects may seem, Ilsuiw's Call Tide and merfolk aquamancers' Primal Wave spells will not directly cause you to drown. In the same vein, while water elementals' attacks are referred to as "drowning" attacks, they merely do irresistible damage each turn, instead of causing any sort of instadeath.

Dealing instadeath to monsters

There are only a few ways to kill monsters irrespective of their hit points. All of them only work in a few specific situations:

• Most monsters die if they fall in deep water or lava. Usually, this requires confusing them near such terrain. Be aware that highly intelligent creatures are smart enough not to move while confused and adjacent to deep water/lava.
• You can also drop monsters into deep water or lava by petrifying them over it. The harpies in the Shoals are a good target for this.
• Some "brittle" monsters (e.g. skeletons) may be instantly killed by the spell Lee's Rapid Deconstruction, with a chance based on spell power. This is not true of Shatter, however.
• Orange crystal statues and silver statues can reliably be killed with one zap from a wand of disintegration.
• Arguably, (Mass) Abjuration can deal a form of instadeath to summoned monsters.
• Banishment works regardless of a monster's current HP, although said monster may again be encountered in the Abyss.

History

Prior to 0.13, one could suffer statdeath: after a few dozen turns of a stat being at zero, the character would die. Presently, being at 0 in a stat will simply do irresistible damage each turn. Prior to 0.8, statdeath killed the player as soon as the stat hit zero, as opposed to being a delayed instadeath.

In addition, prior to 0.13, one could die by being level-drained to level 0 - that is, being hit by a draining attack at XL1. This was removed when draining attacks were changed to temporarily drain skills instead of permanently draining experience.

In 0.14, the player will no longer be able to instakill monsters with LRD.