Help with Black Breath

[Wertullo]

Hi, I recently started playing 4.2.1 from some 3.x version and Akhorail the Blind gave me Black Breath (I eventually killed him). I know there are some remedies for this, but is my character basically screwed? How bad is the XP sap going to be?

[Wertullo]

Nevermind, I see it was temporary. Pheeeww.

[Selkie]

As far as I know herbal curing the ranger spell is the only cure, but as you discovered it is temporary and not very serious

[DavidMedley]

Adding item to checklist

• Make Black Breath permanent until cured

[Nick]

Adding item to checklist

• Make Black Breath permanent until cured

Being an evil maintainer is a balancing act. Making black breath temporary allows for it to be really horrible while it lasts

[Wertullo]

Being an evil maintainer is a balancing act. Making black breath temporary allows for it to be really horrible while it lasts

and something you can get from just fighting a Ringwraith --- I did not expect that!

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Adding item to checklist

• Make Black Breath permanent until cured

Incurable except for the one, what, druid spell? Unless and until Nick adds athelas to Vanilla ("FA has this", to state Nick's famous quote), temporary is how it should be, in my opinion.

[DavidMedley]

Nah. Add it it the hierarchy of things removed by potions. But I might hate that, actually. Even if it takes a high level potion to fix it, eventually it'll mean Black Breath only lasts long enough for you to find a turn to quaff.

I think this is a problem with a lot of the status effects. I have been toying with the suggestion that no potions should completely cure any status effects, but rather remove an increasing number of turns from the counter. That would have the same effect in most cases (instantly removing the effect) but still allow really nasty monsters to put these effects on you in a non-trivial way.

[Pete Mack]

!Mirruvor and !Life should cure it as well as athelas. And athelas would need to be somewhat common.

But I don't think curing during the fight is likely. You are liable to end up reinfected. My main problem with the effect is it is just another penalty for melee characters. Naturally rangers, who mostly don't melee, get a curing spell

[Estie]

Historically - true or feigned - the ranger gets the spell. But since we have un-historical druids, it would make more sense that they got the spell instead, or at least in preferance before considering other classes. Also, the historical ranger wasnt ranged.