cjh (07/07/82)
In response to your message of Tue Jul 6 09:34:51 1982: A stick of cancellation prevents monsters which have a special attack from using it, e.g. rust monsters can't damage your armor, wraiths and vampires can't cost you experience or hit points respectively, etc. Note that there isn't much point in using cancellation against umber hulks, since as far as I know they can only confuse you when they surprise you---i.e., if you get first hit they're stuck with their ordinary attack. (Note also that this may be limited to special magic attacks; I've been told that cancellation doesn't stop an ant from stinging but haven't confirmed this.) Use---just zap at the monster in question. You may have to be right next to the monster for it to work. It's a difficult thing to be sure of since many of the monsters you'd want to use cancellation against aren't certain of ever succeeding in a special attack, but I recently used one against a nymph that charged out of a treasure room and it hit me 2-3 times without stealing anything.