Instadeath

Version 0.27: 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 killing a low-level spriggan in one shot. 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 extremely rare in Crawl; specifically, there is only one way for the player to be killed instantly: the zot clock - and the player receives a significant amount of warning before this can occur.

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.
• Arguably, Aura of Abjuration can deal a form of instadeath to summoned monsters.
• Banishment (through Lugonu's *** ability or a weapon of distortion) works regardless of a monster's current HP, although said monster may again be encountered in the Abyss.
• Uskayaw's Grand Finale ***** ability can instantly kill any monster.
• The spell Maxwell's Capacitive Coupling instantly kills the closest monster, after a short delay.

History

• Prior to 0,26, players could face starvation and die, as opposed to the zot clock.
• Prior to 0.19, instead of receiving draining every turn, players falling into deep water or lava (through flight expiring) would be subject to instadeath.
• Prior to 0.17 it was possible for confused players to accidentally walk into deep water or lava. Intelligent monsters used to be immune to this type of death, but no longer are.
• Prior to 0.15, orange crystal and silver statues could be instantly killed by wands of disintegration. Prior to this version it was also possible to sometimes scramble out of deep water or lava.
• Prior to 0.14 Lee's Rapid Deconstruction could instantly kill brittle monsters.
• 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 just apply some penalties. 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.
• Prior to 0.8, statdeath killed the player as soon as the stat hit zero, as opposed to being a delayed instadeath.