Hit points

Version 0.14: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

A character's hit points (or HP) reflect their current healthiness and durability, and are displayed in an X/Y format; the X shows your current hit points, while the Y shows your maximum. Monsters, traps, and a wide variety of other effects will all reduce your current HP, but this recovers over time unless you are sick. Your max HP only changes under rare circumstance:

• Gaining an experience level will raise your max HP by an amount dependent on your species.
• Improving your Fighting skill will increase max HP slightly.
• Gaining the Robust mutation increases your max HP by 10% per rank.
• Gaining the Rugged Brown Scales mutation increases your max HP by 3/5/7% (determined by rank).
• Rotting attacks will reduce your max HP by small amounts (but this can be cured by quaffing a potion of curing or potion of heal wounds when at full HP, by zapping yourself with a wand of heal wounds when at full HP, by several of Elyvilon's abilities, or by using a mummy special ability).
• Casting Borgnjor's Revivification permanently reduces your max HP by a small amount.
• Gaining the Frail mutation reduces your max HP by 10% per rank.

The formula is:

 Max HP = (Racial Mod.) * (Mutations Mod.) * (Forms Mod.)
        * (8 + 11*XL/2 + Fighting*XL/14 + (1+Fighting*3)/2)

The following spells will change your maximum HP:

Spell	Modifier
Ice Form	1.2
Statue Form	1.3
Dragon Form	1.5
Tree Form	1.5

Finally, Berserk Rage will multiply your current and maximum HP by 1.5.

If at any time your character's current HP reaches 0 or lower, you die and your game is over. You can avoid this by resting between battles, quaffing potions of heal wounds or curing, or using any of the more exotic healing methods available.

Be very careful if you ever see the message, "Ouch! That really hurt!" pop up, as it only occurs after you've lost 50% or more of your max HP in a single attack.

HP modifiers

From Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup in-game documentation:

At	Ba	Co	DE	Dg	Ds	Dj	Dr	Fe	Fo	Gr	Gh	Gn	Hu	Ko	Mf	Mi	MD	Mu	Na	Op	On	Sp	Te	Tr	Vp	VS
1	0	0	-2	1	0	-1	1	-3	0	-2	1	0	0	-2	0	1	1	0	2	-1	3	-3	-2	3	0	-3

History

Prior to 0.14 backgrounds had a small effect in the calculation of the player's hit points.