Staff of alchemy

Version 0.26: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Type	Magical staves
Name	staff of poison
Icon

A staff that increases the power of poisoning spells cast by its wielder, and protects them from the effects of poison. If the wielder is skilled in Evocations and Poison Magic, they can envenom those struck by it, dealing poison damage which bypasses armour.

A staff of poison is a magical staff which acts as a Poison Magic enhancer. Any poison spell cast while wielding a staff of poison will gain a boost to spell power, usually causing it to deal more damage and/or last longer (the specific impact of this, if any, depends on the spell). Additionally, the wielder is protected from poison, gaining poison resistance.

The staff can also be used in combat, functioning as a +0 staff that deals additional poison damage:

Poison Damage: A random amount ranging from 0 to 1.25 × (Evocations/2 + Poison Magic)
Chance to Activate on a Hit: (Evocations + Poison Magic/2) × 6.66% per hit

Further physical damage bonuses can be gained through training Staves and Fighting. The Staves skill also increases your accuracy and speed at which you can attack, making it highly recommended to train the skill at least up to the weapon's minimum delay first.

The Staff of Olgreb is a fixedart which is effectively a staff of poison with enhanced powers.

Staves of poison, like other magical staves, can sometimes be cursed.

History

• Prior to 0.25, the activation effect of the staff of poison was a Poison Magic dependent chance to poison, without any extra damage.
• Prior to 0.8, the chance of a staff of poison auto-identifying when wielded depended on the Poison Magic skill of the wielder.