Attack flavour

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

Attack flavours are the types of damage or effects caused by a monster's melee attack. It will stack on-top of any weapon effects, if said monster is equipped with a weapon.

The following table is vaguely sorted in the following order: elements, alternate elemental effects, poisons, negative energy, immediate status (by danger severity), strategic status, and miscellaneous.

Flavour	Example	Description
Fire	b Fire bat	Adds hit dice + 1d(hit dice) - 1 fire damage and can burn your scrolls.
Cold	Y Ice beast	Adds hit dice + 1d(hit dice*2) - 1 cold damage and can freeze your potions.
Electricity	Y Sky beast	Adds hit dice + 1d(hit dice/2) - 1 electrical damage.
Acid	J Jelly	The defender is hit with a level 3 acid splash.
Distortion	v Spatial vortex	This is equivalent to being hit by a weapon with the distortion brand.
Holy	Y Apis	Does an additional 75% damage against evil and unholy targets. This is similar to the holy wrath weapon brand, but without a random component.
Drown	m Water nymph	Attacks do a small amount of asphyxiation damage.
Engulf	E Water elemental	Attacks have a chance of engulfing the target, which continuously deals asphyxiation damage and mimics the effect of silence. Moving away from the user will take twice the normal movement length duration, during which the user cannot engulf the target again.
Napalm	z Flaming corpse	Has a 33% chance of hitting the defender with Sticky Flame (5% if the attack did less than 3 points).
Pure fire	E Fire elemental	Consists solely of hit dice + 1d(hit dice + 1) + (hit dice / 2) fire damage, and can burn your scrolls.
Firebrand	N Salamander firebrand	Attacks will surround the target with a ring of flame clouds. Said clouds will not place below any other monsters.
Poison	S Adder	Inflicts a few points of poison damage, with a heavily reduced chance against poison-resistant targets. See poison types for specifics.
Strong poison	s Redback	Inflicts many points of poison damage, and partially skips poison-resistance on targets. See poison types for specifics.
Weakness poison	4 Orange demon	Attacks have a chance to inflict weakness on a target, if said target lacks poison resistance.
Paralyze	y Yellow wasp	If not resistant to poison, the defender may be slowed, or sometimes paralyzed, for 1d3 turns.
Pain	5 Grinder	Equivalent to the pain brand.
Drain XP	z Wight	Has a 50% chance of attempting to drain experience (or hit dice, in the case of monsters); a 3% chance if the damage done is less than 6 points; and a 33% chance if the attack normally does no damage (i.e., "touch").
Drain speed	W Wraith	Has a chance of inflicting slow on a target, if the user does not have negative energy resistance.
Vampiric draining	V Vampire	Will heal the attacker for 1d(damage inflicted), if the defender is cold-blooded or warm-blooded. Against bloodless defenders, it still does normal damage, but without the healing effect.
Drain strength, dexterity, intelligence, stat	5 Quasit	The defender has a chance of temporarily losing a point of the affected stat. The chance of the drain effect happening is 33% (5% if the attack did no damage), with an additional check against life protection.
Hunger	W Hungry ghost	Will reduce the defender's satiety by 25%, outright. If the attack does no damage, the effect only has a 5% chance of happening.
Sickness	l Komodo dragon	The defender is sickened for 5-14 turns.
Plague	n Plague shambler	Attacks can cause sickness and retching, the latter of which prevents the eating of food or quaffing of potions for its duration.
Ensnare	s Jumping spider	If the attack does any damage, it has a 50% chance of hitting the defender with a web.
Constrict	S Ball python	Inflicts constriction.
Confuse	s Tarantella	Has a 33% chance of attempting to confuse the defender (10% if the attack did less than 3 points of damage). Duration is 1d(hit dice + 3) / 10 turns, rounded up, with a cumulative maximum of 4 turns.
MR Vuln	W Phantasmal warrior	Has a 33% chance of lowering the defender's magic resistance by a set amount. If the defender is already so afflicted, it instead increases the duration of the effect.
Antimagic	S Mana viper	Equivalent to the antimagic brand.
Rage	y Moth of wrath	The defender has a 33% chance of going berserk, if it is capable of doing so.
Steal	f Maurice	Will steal one item from inventory (affects players only).
Rot	n Necrophage	The defender has a chance of receiving 2-4 points of rot. If the melee attack did more than 2 points of damage, this chance is 33%; otherwise, it is 5%.
Mutate	J Pulsating lump	Has a 25% chance of polymorphing the defender (or mutating, in the case of the player).
Reaching	t Snapping turtle	Inherently has reaching capabilities.
Blink	W Phantom	The attacker has a 33% chance of blinking with a successful hit.
Shadowstab	W Shadow	The monster is, if invisible (e.g. not backlit), gains a boost to movement speed, 100% accuracy, and deals 2.5x damage for a single attack. If the target has see invisible it negates the extra damage, but not the added speed or invisiblity. After the attack, the monster is visible again.
Chaos	4 Chaos spawn	Changes flavour with every attack, to one of the following: Fire Cold Electricity Nasty-level poison Vampiric draining Confusion "Pure" chaos, which has many different possible effects detailed on the chaos page.
Klown	p Killer Klown	Randomly mimics other flavours, limited to and equally probably for the following: Fire Cold Strong-level poison drain speed Pain blink anti-magic

History

0.14 contained many monster brand changes:

• Prior to 0.14, the af_klown attack flavor chose from the following types: Fire, cold, nasty poison, drain XP, rot, blink, and anti-magic.
• Prior to 0.14, harpies had a Steal Food brand, which would consume one or more items of food from one's inventory or on the ground, if a target was standing on any food.
• Prior to 0.14, there were Poison (stat) brands. This vaguely copied the Drain stat brand: it had a 33% chance of temporarily reducing a point of a given stat if the target was not resistant to poison.
• Poison's overhauls itself removed Nasty Poison and Medium Poison brands, as detailed in poison types. Each were moved to normal poison and strong poison as appropriate per monster.

In 0.15, the retching and sickness attack flavours will be removed. Item destruction itself has been removed, which thus removes such effects from Fire and Cold attacks as well as anything which can duplicate said effects (Chaos and Klown).