The Alchemist (potion merchant) can be used to cheese spikes

[mb]

So I noticed on one of my runs last night that if you have an item that gives you spikes upon receiving damage (cactus, for example, gives 7 spikes when you take damage), then this will proc even when you take damage from the potion merchant that makes you pay with 5hp.

I was on a Tote run and not only does Tote starts with so much total HP, I had also found two rare health rings that I was using for +20hp total (and regen on each from a forge). I had a ton of empty inventory space in my backpack, and I was right before the final boss of that dungeon, so I figured I'd spend about half of my 100 total HP and get a bunch of potions for the final fight.

It worked, of course, but I forgot that I had the cactus and another piece of gear with spikes on it. After buying all those potions I had something like 56 spikes? I forgot to check at the start of the boss fight, I honestly didn't notice the spikes being applied from the merchant when it was happening.

The boss died in two or three turns, from the spikes of course. Just thought I should report this obvious cheese somewhere.

Unless this is intended behavior, obviously the solution would be to simply make the Alchemist's -5hp cost not affect anything other than the actual player HP (disabling interaction with cactus and other items), but otherwise a simple workaround would be just removing all status effects from the player at the start of combat.

[LHGreen]

Or they should leave it in, since this game lacks, and desperately needs, more tactical depth.