How to restore lowered stat?

[rythin]

Hi.
I've just noticed my STR dropped to 3 and unfortunately I missed how it happened. Is there a way to look up what influences the stats? How can I restore it to base level of 10?

Thanks in advance.

[fizzix]

The alchemist sells potions of 'restore strength' and that is probably the best choice for early on in the game.

Potions of strength will also restore strength before increasing it. Same with potions of brawn (i think)

The only other low level item are mushrooms of vigor. They will restore all stats. Mushrooms are (still) pretty rare though.

Later on there are some more options. rods of restoration, priest spells of restoration, !Aug, !Life will all work.

[PowerDiver]

The most lilely culprits are a red ant or a red frog.

[Timo Pietilä]

The most lilely culprits are a red ant or a red frog.

Or melee with red jelly.

Rings of STR and several other items give "sustain STR". Like Crowns of Might. That prevents losing points from stat (only time attacks go thru that).

[Derakon]

It all goes to show: you should pay attention to what's going on when you're fighting things.

(Another possible source of stat drain is dart traps, but you're unlikely to get drained all the way down to 3 just from those)

[rythin]

Thanks for answers, everyone! RESTORE CONSTITUTION did indeed work with my two point constitution drain, which is great, but RESTORE STRENGTH did nothing to my STR of 3 It didn't change at all. Any ideas what's that all about? If that helps, the colour of attribute in the upper left section of the screen is green, while the drained ones were all yellow.

[Taha]

Ah, that sounds like you got hit by a nexus attack that swapped two stats. For instance, if you were a hobbit mage, and your charisma was 10 and got swapped with your strength, it could take you down to 3. If the base stat before modifiers is 10 or less, and your charisma or one of your other useless stats (wis or int, depending on class) are very high, a nexus attack probably got you.

That sort of attack has resulted in the loss of more than one promising character for me in the 30s. Nexus is one of the more critical resists, just to avoid the side effects.
________
LoveAnalSexx

[Derakon]

Yep, the only thing in Vanilla that can reduce stats while leaving them "green" is a stat swap effect. That means either Nexus (swaps the values of two stats straight out) or a stat-swap potion (like Brawn, Intellect, Nimbleness, etc.) which takes a single point from one stat and puts it in the other. Nexus is by far the most likely here. Avoid Nexus Hounds like the plague! Nexus vortices should also be avoided. Fortunately nexus threats besides those two are quite rare. Unfortunately, the only thing you can do if you get nailed by a bad stat swap is raise the stat back up the hard way -- Potions of Strength and Potions of Augmentation, both fairly rare. Or you could hope to get lucky with another stat swap, but the odds are against it...

[rythin]

Aw, crap. Well, thanks for answers anyway. I'm getting more and more into this game

[buzzkill]

I'm getting more and more into this game

Yeah. It's one of those mixed-blessing items that you may have read about.

[Gockel]

Hi there.

I got more or less the same problem, but i'm sure i didn't meet any nexus-whatever yet... i'm playing one of my first few games (zangband tk) and i made the mistake to simply try some potions, no idea if this could be the reason... the annoying part is that not only my strength is down at 6 but also in my character page it says that my best is 6... which means that i can never get higher than 6, right?
oh... but i guess now i realize... nothing is wrong, i was just a weak sucker from the beginning i'm a mage (lvl11) and i guess my class "bonuses" are responsible for that, right?

uff, that's annoying, i almost can't carry anything without getting slowed down. is there any chance ever to get a bit stronger? something like a ring of stregth or something like that?

thanks everyone!

[d_m]

Having a max of 6 means that "restore strength" won't increase it. But a potion of "strength" would still raise it to 7. So you can just hope to reach stat gain to raise your strength a bunch.

[Derakon]

And yes, there are items that will give you bonuses to stats as long as they're equipped. Rings of Strength, Weapons of Westernesse (or *Slay Giant*), crowns of Might, plenty of artifacts...

Rings and weapons are your best bet in the early game. And now you know that in the future, your mages should pay attention to their starting strength and try to get it as high as possible without sacrificing INT.

[Gockel]

Seems pretty convincing, now that i know how it is to be fighting with overburden all the time... but for now, as my mage is still alive, i'll have to get along with it... not for long though maybe, made my first encounter with the wargs before, and they seem pretty nasty considering that my only weapon until now is a tiny zap...
thanks for your help anyway! i'll see how far my pathetic scroll-hauler will get...

[Derakon]

Oooh, you took the Arcane school? If I recall correctly it's a pretty wimpy one. You really need Chaos or Death if you want to be a blast mage, assuming my fuzzy memories of ZAngband are accurate.