Silver

Version 0.25: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

It deals increased damage compared to normal ammo and substantially increased damage to chaotic and magically transformed beings. It also inflicts extra damage against mutated beings, according to how mutated they are.

Silver is an ammo brand that causes ammo to do up to 175% damage against shapeshifting, mutated, and chaotic monsters (and characters!). Against non-vulnerable targets, it does 100% to 133% damage, like the vorpal brand. It is very desirable against vulnerable targets, but rare outside of god gifts and certain high-level monsters. It can be found on boomerangs, javelins, and the unrandart lajatang of Order.

Note that since silver is implemented as a brand in Crawl, this precludes a silver item from having any other brand; thus, you will never see poisoned silver javelins or silver boomerangs of dispersal.

If you are struck by a silver projectile and suffer this extra silver damage, you will see the message:

The silver sears you!

Silver Damage Calculation

Chaotic monsters and shapeshifted characters

If the target is chaotic or shapeshifted, the damage is:

(normal_damage * 7) / 4  [rounded down]

which equates to roughly 175%. Although the player can never be chaotic, they do count as shapeshifted when in any of the following forms: Beastly Appendage, Spider Form, Ice Form, Statue Form, Hydra Form, Dragon Form, Bat Form, Tree Form, Fungus Form, Wisp Form, or Pig Form.

Mutated characters

For non-shapeshifted characters who have mutations, the damage varies by how much you are mutated (Note we say characters, not monsters, because all mutated monsters are by definition chaotic, and therefore the first calculation applies). For demonspawn characters, your inherent mutations count; for other species with inherent mutations (eg, octopode), they do not. Your total mutations (up to 15) are counted; any above 15 are ignored. The damage is:

normal_damage * ( 5*mutations + 100 ) / 100  [rounded down]

The silver damage thus varies from 105% to 175%, for 1 to 15+ mutations. This is then compared to a vorpal damage roll (from 100% to 133%), and the higher damage is applied.

See Also

List of silver vulnerable monsters

History

• Prior to 0.24, silver did no extra damage against non-chaotic and unmutated characters.
• Prior to 0.18, sling bullets and bolts could have brands, one of which was silver.
• Prior to 0.15, you could find silver darts. Additionally, silver ammunition weighed twice as much as regular ammunition.
• The lajatang of Order was introduced in 0.14.
• Prior to 0.9, this brand also improved damage vs. corporeal undead monsters.