Barbs

Version 0.34: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

There are barbs embedded in your skin, and moving around will cause you to take damage. Remaining in place for a short time will allow you to remove the barbs without taking damage.

Barbs is a status effect. Each time a barbed creature moves, it takes damage equal to 2d(2 + times_barbs_inflicted) damage (max. 2d6). When rampaging, each tile moved will inflict damage.

The barbs remain in their target for 4-8 turns, adding 2-4 turns per infliction of barbs (max. 12 turns at time). Remaining in place (no matter what is done) has 100% chance of decreasing the duration. While moving, there is only a 33% chance to decrease the barbs duration. It is possible to rid yourself of barbs by moving, but doing so will incur significant damage.

Inflicted by:

• Barbs attack flavour
• Throw Barbs spell
• Wu Jian's wrath (lasting 5-10 turns)

Insubstantial players are immune to the barbs status, but damage from the Throw Barbs spell itself is not ignored.

History

• The barbs attack flavour was added in 0.28.
• Prior to 0.22, you had to specifically wait (with '5, s, or .) in order to have a 100% chance to decrement the duration. Also, the base duration was a bit shorter: 3-6 turns instead of 4-8 turns.
• Barbs was added in 0.14.