Stat zero

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Version 0.31: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.
"Brainless" redirects here. If you were looking for the monster intelligence category, see Category:Brainless intelligence.

When one of a character's primary attributes (strength, intelligence, or dexterity) is lowered to 0 or below, the character suffers crippling penalties until that attribute is restored and stays above 0 for a period of time equal to: 10 + 1d10 + the number of turns it was below 0 (Max: 200 turns).

Effects

The following effects occur when any stat reaches 0:

The following effects are dependent on the specific stat which was drained to 0:

Collapse (Strength)

  • You do not regenerate HP when monsters are in sight.

Brainless (Intelligence)

Clumsy (Dexterity)

Causes

The following sources of stat drain can all temporarily lower your attributes (Str, Int, Dex):

By 1 at a time:

By more than 1 at a time:

As you gain experience, you regain stats lost through temporary drain or mutation.

Stats can be more permanently lowered by the following means:

  • Mutations (such as from Malmutate) which affect attributes. This lasts until the mutation is removed somehow.
  • Equipment with negative stat modifiers. But, you can remove the equipment to restore the stat.

Precautions

Any character with a particularly low attribute should be aware of the dangers involved. Any attribute below 6 could conceivably be reduced to 0 by a single unfortunate effect, and below 11 are vulnerable to stat zero from repeated effects.

Specifically, Hell effects can reduce an attribute by up to 5 in a single go, while Zot traps, and mummy death curses reduce up to 4. You may wish to bring all of your attributes up to a minimum of 9 to guarantee that you can survive two worst-case scenario effects from the latter. All three happen reasonably late in the game, so early level ups should not take stat zero into account (unless you find a great stat-reducing artefact).

Outside of the extended game, stat zero only realistically happens to the extreme end of combinations, such as a Minotaur Berserker or Deep Elf Conjurer. A human, for example, is normally much less vulnerable to its effects.

History

  • Prior to 0.28, zero intelligence only had an 80% chance to fail reading scrolls. Zero strength's -Regen was a flat regen/4 modifier.
  • Prior to 0.19, sustain attributes existed which would halve stat damage. Hence, multi-point stat damage was roughly halved in 0.19.
  • Prior to 0.17, taking further stat damage after a stat reached 0 would inflict HP damage.
  • Prior to 0.15, items had mass, and strength determined your carrying capacity. Collapse seriously reduced this.
  • Stat zero was added in 0.13, replacing stat death.