Silver

Version 0.10: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Silver sears all those touched by chaos. Compared to normal ammo, it does 75% more damage to chaotic and magically transformed beings. It also does extra damage against mutated beings according to how mutated they are. With due care, silver ammo can still be handled by those it affects. It weighs twice as much as normal ammo.

Silver is an ammo brand that causes ammo to do up to 175% damage against shapeshifting, mutated, and chaotic monsters (and players!). It is very desirable, but somewhat rare, outside of god gifts and certain high-level monsters. It can be found on darts, javelins, sling bullets, and bolts.

Note that since silver (and steel) are implemented as brands in Crawl, this precludes a silver item from having any other brand; thus, you will never see a poisoned steel javelin, nor a silver bolt of flaming, etc.

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

If the target is a chaotic or shapeshifted monster or player, the damage is:

(normal_damage * 7) / 4  [rounded down]

which equates to roughly 175%. If the player worships a chaotic god, the damage does not apply.

For non-chaotic, non-shapeshifted characters who have mutations, the damage varies by how much you are mutated. (Note we say players, not monsters, because all mutated monsters are by definition chaotic, and therefore the first calculation applies.) For demonspawn players, your inherent mutations are counted; for others (eg, octopode), they are 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 damage thus varies from 105% to 175%, for 1 to 15+ mutations.

See Also

Category:Silver vulnerability - List of silver vulnerable monsters.

History

Prior to 0.9, this brand also improved damage vs. corporeal undead monsters.