Stench
Respect yourself, and wash your mothafuckin body 'fore your sweatshirt melt
Like radioactive, no lady find you attractive, the funk got you captive
Stench is a mutation that allows mutants to temporarily buff their Endurance, and gives a high chance to repel aggressive mobs while activated. It is a very popular mutation, thanks to the high utility of the repel.
Location
Stench is located in the poisonous pipe, south-east in the Sewers; its turning is just before the area with the red chuds. The pipe itself will kill explorers who do not have gas masks or other protection from toxicity. The path to the pipe is also dark, requiring a light source, and has chuds and chobos that may pose a danger to very low-level players.
Effects
This mutation grants:
musk command: Temporarily alters some stats and repels aggressive mobs. Passive: -2 to Track Passive: -3 to Fuck Passive: -5 to Persuade Passive: Easier to detect with tracking. Passive: Cannot smell.
Advantages
- Mob repel. While musk is active, mutants will have a high chance to repel all aggressive mobs rather than being attacked by them. This is extremely useful in many situations, from recovering gear, to scavenging, to buying time for cover as a gunner.
- +2 Endurance from using musk. This is +2 to a stat with lots of innate utility, as well as a +1 buff to both Spears and Fists.
Disadvantages
- Skill reductions. Fuck and Persuade are not important skills, and Track is easy to buff, so none of these costs are too damaging, but together they do take away some quality-of-life.
- Easier to track. This penalty means almost nothing at all; 20 track offers near-flawless tracking on all targets, and most builds reach that total with no problem.
- -2 Senses and -2 Cool while musking. This equates to -1 Dodge and a higher stress multiplier, which is a trade-off for the +2 Endurance and mob repel.
- Can't smell. This is only an issue when dealing with food or drinks that may be spiked with chemicals, but safe food is plentiful and drinks are labelled in their containers, so smell is largely useless anyway.
Mechanics
Using musk applies a "musking" buff to the mutant, which buffs Endurance by +2, and debuffs Senses and Cool by -2, while also giving a chance to repel mobs that would normally aggro. This buff wears off over time, and must be manually renewed with another use of musk. Using musk costs no stress and has a cooldown of about two minutes.
As the buff wears off, the bonuses and penalties will draw down from +2/-2 to +1/-1, and the repel effect will drop to lower and lower chances of success. Even at maximum stench strength, the chance to repel is never 100% (though it is very high). Musk also synergizes with Yeti Fur, which increases the effectiveness of musk's repel effect.
Exceptions
Swarm aggro is a special behavior of certain HellMOO mobs. If a mob is attacked on a tile that also holds other mobs with swarm aggro, the swarm aggro mobs will immediately join the fight to attack the player, thus creating a "swarm". This can make musk less reliable against certain mobs that have swarm aggro, like ants and bootleggers.
There are situations where musk's repel will be outright ignored; musk does not protect from swarm aggro, and is ignored in any situation where an attack is provoked by specific behavior, such as masturbating in front of a Kakuri resident. There is also a small selection of mobs that ignore musk outright, including:
- Treemen
- Gulfhounds
- Crater Rim rednecks (but not Glowstiller bootleggers)
- The Coventry Island boss
- All robotic mobs
- All ghost mobs (but not rompers)
Appearance
This mutation adds the following line to a character's description:
They smell HORRIBLE, like cheese left in the sun.
| Mutations | |
|---|---|
| Racial Mutations | Abomination • Chud • Hideous Freak • Vampire • Zombie |
| Focus Mutations | Carrie • Chiller • Fuck Machine • Salamander • Screech • Writhing Smoke • Empath |
| Movement Mutations | Leapfrog • Phaser • Clairvoyance |
| Flight • Blink • Medium | |
| Soak Mutations | High Density • Firewalker • Rubberskin • Snakeskin • Yeti Skin |
| Lithodermis • Solar Sponge • Silicone Skin • Eelskin • Yeti Fur | |
| Miscellaneous Mutations | Billygoat • Bleeder • Bloodhound • Brainslug • Brute Strength • Camelfat • Enigma • Fibrocartilage • Hooligan • Hyperimmune • Iron Liver • Junkrat • Mule • Nimble Fingers • Plant Whisperer • Stench • Twitchy Nerves • Superclot • Xray Vision • Cat Ears |
| Ripperlikes | Carcinocudgel • Horrorspike • Ripper • Tendrils |
| Joke Mutations | Third Nipple |
| Defunct Mutations | Jammer |