Silver

Version 0.28: 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 a brand that causes attacks to deal up to 175% damage against shapeshifting, mutated, and chaotic creatures (including the player character). Against all other targets, it does 100% to 133% damage, much like the vorpal brand. Vulnerable targets undergo both the silver and vorpal roll, using the higher of the two percentages.

Silver is very desirable, even against non-vulnerable targets, but is rare outside of god gifts and certain high-level monsters. It is primarily found on Throwing weapons (specifically boomerangs and javelins), but also appears on the unrandart lajatang of Order.

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 transformations: Beastly Appendage, Spider Form, Ice Form, Statue Form, Storm Form, Dragon Form, Bat Form, Tree Form, Fungus Form, Wisp Form, or Pig Form.

Mutated Players

For non-shapeshifted players who have mutations, the damage varies by how much you are mutated (all mutated monsters are by definition chaotic, so the first calculation applies). For demonspawn characters, your inherent mutations count; other species with inherent mutations (e.g. octopode's tentacles), 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.

Final Calculation

Any extra silver damage is then compared to a vorpal damage roll (from 100% to 133%). The higher result is applied.

See Also

List of silver vulnerable monsters

History

• Prior to 0.24, silver only did extra damage to chaotic and mutated creatures, with steel dealing extra to all monsters.
• 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.