Should you take the pill??

[spartanbarrs]

Assuming that the following pills can be agreed upon as to which status they fall under, should you take a pill without the knowledge of what it may be?
Good Pills:
Tears up, Range up, Speed up, Health up, Luck up, Lemon Party, Power Pill, Full Health, Balls of Steel, I Can See Forever, 48 hr Energy, Infested!, Infested?, Pretty Fly, and Percs.
Given these options for good pills you have a 1/15 chance to get a good pill out of a total of 38 pills or 15/38 which is 39%
Neutral Pills:
Explosive Diarrhea, I Found Pills, Puberty, R U A Wizard?, Bombs Are Key, Pheromones, Bad Gas, Retro Vision, One Makes You Larger, One Makes You Smaller, Re-lax, Paralysis, Telepills, and Hematamesis.
Given these options for neutral pills you have a 1/14 chance to get a neutral pill out of a total of 38 pills or 14/38 which is 37%
Bad Pills
Speed down, Range down, Health down, Tears down, Luck down, Bad Trip, Amnesia, Addicted, and ???.
Given these options for bad pills you have a 1/9 chance to get a bad pill out of a total of 38 pills or 9/38 which is 23%
Assuming none of the bad pills are weighted against the player, you should always take the pill. The result of getting a non-bad pill falls in the range of 76%.

[BOYCOTT]

personally i always pop the first handful or so i see just to identify a few to get the ball rolling, most of the stat down pills aren't going to end your run if you only take one by mistake and then use that knowledge.

also, if you're suspicious of a pill, hold onto it at least until you're down to 1HP while holding onto it, it'll self identify if it's a HP down and show +1HP because of the flip-flop mechanic.

[January 2035]

Whilst interesting, I don't know if it fully represents what you should do in game. In general you have to remember things like when taking an unknown pill there's a chance you'll go to the I am error room and be forced out the floor instantly. Also keep in mind what pills may end your run depending on what your run is. Heamatomises and bombs are key are good examples. Keep in mind whether these are good pills or bad pills for you as unlike the traditional 'bad' pills, these ones can end your run in the worst case scenarios.

Lastly, keep in mind that taking the pill will let you learn what it is. If you take every pill by the end you'll have a 0% chance of using a bad pill.

[wckowalski]

You should try out pills as you are likely to find more than one of the same pill during the run, so you won't get the same bad pill twice but you might get multiple good ones. Also, the tears, speed, and range up pills give a bigger bonus than the bad ones give a penalty.

[spartanbarrs]

Great feedback! There are a number of situations where taking a pill can be devastating as mentioned by Em Issary, I wrote this post to direct players into understanding the chances of the pills and for new player unfamilar with the game to see their options. Breaking down each pill and situation would take up a lot of time. You have a better chance taking the pill, for it to be good or not hurt you otherwise, than to find Ph.D.

[cpt cannibal]

I usually take any pills I find early, as even a simple "Range Up" pill can help tremendously at the start. Once I've collected a few items and have some power, I generally avoid unknown pills, but will still take them on occassion.

[Shadowspaz]

Whether or not I take an unknown pill depends entirely on the pills I've gotten. If I get nothing but good pills early on, I'll stop taking the unknown ones cause the chance of them being negative is much greater.

Likewise, if I get a bunch of bad pills, I'm much more eager for the unknowns, cause they'll probably be good. Each bad pill you get is one more bad pill out of the pool. lol

[McKnuckles]

I honestly only find the worst ones to be speed down, and health down/bad trip. Mainly for the fact that speed upgrades can be generally hard to find, and a slower character means more chance of getting hit or unavoidable damage. While the health down/bad trip ones are mainly there for the early game (late game they matter less generally unless you are running on a small amount of hearts at that point).

[seconds away from busting a nut]

i dont take pills unless there are 3 of the same ones in a floor, they can end runs and just be a pain in general, also one makes you larger is a very very bad pill and one makes you smaller is a very very good pill, since they both change the hit boxes.

[beautheschmo]

I eat them all, but I'm greedy as hell and I can't really recommend it. Well, I occasionally stop taking them if I've found a lot of good ones, but if I haven't found a Tears Up pill yet, you bet I'm going to keep on trying for it. Every negative effect pales in comparison to that potential DPS increase imo.

I do keep in mind what pills I could find though. I generally try to avoid ID'ing them on Curse of the Maze floors, because finding an Amnesia pill on one is practically a run-ender if you're unlucky, and I usually try to eat them next to tinted rocks/suspected secret rooms in case it's Explosive Diarrhea (which actually works out for me a lot more often than one would expect), and if I'm in certain rooms I wait until I'm done with everything else in case I get TP'd out of a devil room/curse without checking/picking up everything useful.

Tbh, I do feel like I would be better off just never taking pills. The really good effects are few and far between, and most of them never get used properly (pheromones/lemon party/bad gas) since you use them once when enemies aren't around (because of stuff like paralysis) and you don't get a duplicate. Like I said though, I'm really greedy and cannot resist the sweet lure of potentially more DPS.

[76561197988072846]

Pills are a wild card.

[bogser]

111

[Doppelganger]

PHD mandatory

[Adze]

I take them because if it's a bad pill, I'll only ever take it once (with the exception of ???, but it's not really that bad of a pill). If it's a good pill, such as Health Up, Balls of Steel, or Tears Up, I'll probably find more of that pill later on and I'll know what they are. Tears Up pills have taken some of my runs from trash tier to pretty damn good.

[BOYCOTT]

speed up pill has gotten me to kill myself at least a few times lol, sucks when you're moving so fast you can't control the character precisely at all anymore and then you over-dodge and die.

also range up i almost consider as neutral pills, range up items are pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ common over all and the best benefit you can get is if you find range ups after getting continuum really.

[-N]

When you're Keeper, you don't take pills at all on a decent run unless there is a duplicate in the room. Too high a chance of getting health down and effectively ending the run.