Intrinsics

Intrinsics are a critical part of POWDER. They have positive and negative effects on every creature in the game. Intrinsics can make or break a game of POWDER. Note that many of the "Gain/Lose" messages never actually appear in the game, as they're not triggered by equipping or unequipping items. Many intrinsics are provided by standard magic items, and a few can be gained by eating the corpses of certain creatures, but a fair number can be gained only from artifacts, by a given creature's nature, or by the situation a creature finds itself in.

Resistances and Vulnerabilities
Most of the Resistances and Vulnerabilities (Acid, Cold, Fire, Physical, Shock) affect combat damage in the same way: Damage from the relevant source is increased or decreased respectively by the original amount. ("Physical Immunity" is paired with "Vulnerable to Physical".) "Gold Allergy" and "Vulnerable to Silver" act like other Vulnerabilities, but have no matching Resistance; they apply to all attacks from items of that material (including wand zaps!). All of the above work as follows:


 * With just a Resistance, damage is reduced to zero.
 * With just a Vulnerability, damage is doubled.
 * If a Vulnerability and a Resistance apply to the same damage source, they cancel each other out, so that normal damage is dealt.
 * Thus, a Ring of Fire Resistance balances out "Vulnerable to Fire", so that normal fire damage applies.
 * More subtly, a Ghost takes normal damage from silver weapons, since their "Physical Immunity" and "Vulnerable to Silver" cancel each other out.
 * If two separate Vulnerabilities apply to the same damage (for example, a Silver Wand which happens to be a Wand of Fire, fired at a Lich), the damage will be tripled!

There are also some special cases:


 * While "death" damage (produced only by a few spells and artifacts) has no related intrinsics, Undead monsters are implicitly resistant to such damage. As with the examples above, a silver artifact can overcome this for Ghosts and Liches.
 * The extra damage of a Charge attack, and/or a critical hit, is not multiplied by Vulnerabilities, and is canceled altogether by a Resistance (regardless of any Vulnerabilities). That is, charging or critical-hitting a Lich or Daemon with a Silver Spear does triple damage, not quadruple (unless you critical-hit on a charge). But against a Ghost, even a critical-hit charge would do only normal damage.
 * The Resistances to Sleep, Stoning, and Poison, plus Unchanging and Freedom, are handled separately, protecting the creature from various other intrinsics or effects.

Good Intrinsics
These are commonly gained from artifacts. Unique monsters can also be generated with these.

Bad Intrinsics
These are more rarely inflicted by artifacts.

Poison Intrinsics
These five intrinsics represent various degrees of poisoning. They are not inflicted by artifacts, except when the artifact has been poisoned in any usual manner. Furthermore, they are handled specially when repeatedly acquired, and when the poison's duration expires. These intrinsics are: "Mildly Poisoned", "Poisoned", "Strongly Poisoned", "Harshly Poisoned", "Deadly Poisoned".

Neutral Intrinsics
Neutral intrinsics are internal to the game, and can be good, bad, or neither, depending on context or other factors. They cannot be gained from artifacts, but unique ("named") monsters can be generated with some of them, notably Physical Immunity and Imbued With Evil.

Pseudo-Intrinsics
There are a few other qualities for monsters which resemble intrinsics, but are actually handled separately. In general, these are bound up with a creature's species definition, and the only way to attain them is to become an appropriate species.


 * Bloodless: Monsters noted as "bloodless" are immune to Bleeding, and Vampire Bats will be neutral towards bloodless avatars, notably liches and ghasts.
 * Flight: Some monsters are able to fly over traps and pools. (Lava will still burn them.)
 * Swimming: All monsters noted as swimmers also have Walk on Water, except the avatar (who is marked as a swimmer)!
 * Phasing: Monsters with phasing can move through walls, rock, and boulders, but not other monsters.
 * Windblown: Two monsters, the Air Elemental and the Living Frost, are blown by the winds created by the Direct Wind spell.
 * Spacewalk: In Xom's Tridude Level, there are regions of empty void. Tridudes of all types can freely move in these regions, but other creatures will drift helplessly, according to the forces acting upon them.