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I've been mulling this over for a while now, and am unable to get all of the information I require to make an informed decision. My life hinges on my decision, and I'd appreciate some input.

The thing is: I know smoking is bad for my health, but can I die because of it?

...now for some context

Among the various "beneficial" (debatable) pickups in BioShock, is the pack of cigarettes. Grabbing one of these replenishes a small amount of EVE (magic, basically), but drains a small amount of the player's health.

So, if I managed to get myself almost dead, and then smoked up, would this health drain kill me?

Jarrod Mosen
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GnomeSlice
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    I'm going to go out on a limb and say "no", but without concrete evidence, I'm not sure that counts as an answer. I would imagine that it would not simply because you can grab alcohol (restores health at the expense of eve) with an empty eve bar to still restore health. It would serve to follow that grabbing a cigarette with an empty healthbar would likewise restore eve, but if the health's not there to lose, you won't lose it when you use them. – Raven Dreamer Oct 30 '10 at 21:52
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    @Raven Dreamer I would like to point out that the case where you have an empty healthbar is in fact the definition of dead. – Dfowj Oct 30 '10 at 23:14
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    @Dfowj -- except that in bioshock specifically (and, admittedly, this is memory bias of the highest caliber), explosions and run-ins with big daddies have a habit of leaving me in a stunned, no-health-bar, you die if a butterfly lands on you state (until I hit "f" anyway). 'Course, I never have the chance to investigate the original question, because most instances the big-bad that nearly killed me manages to finish the job moments later. – Raven Dreamer Oct 30 '10 at 23:40
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    Yes, you can. Not sure about the game though! – Alan Pearce Nov 05 '10 at 11:35
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    @Alan: too bad there's no Health StackExchange just yet, otherwise this question would have been much funnier, like that other one. – ЯegDwight Nov 05 '10 at 15:34

1 Answers1

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On "Easy" and "Medium" difficulties, Jack will not die instantly from a fatal injury. Instead, his health will be reduced to one hit point, and will only die if he takes another hit in that state.

source

This means that, unless you're playing on Hard mode, a package of cigarettes is not enough to kill you.

To die you'd have to:

  1. Take more damage than you have health, thus sending you in this 1 HP almost dead state
  2. Smoke a cigarette at this point.

You can die by merely smoking only if you're playing in Hard mode.

badp
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    Oh hey, that explains my personal experiences! – Raven Dreamer Oct 31 '10 at 17:05
  • @badp > So, even at 1 hp, you can't be killed by cigarettes on Easy or Normal difficulties? Maybe it's just me, but I'm still not quite seeing a specific answer here. – GnomeSlice Nov 03 '10 at 00:18
  • @gnome aye, unless you were just brought to 1hp by some other effect. – badp Nov 03 '10 at 18:23
  • @badp but I even mentioned that in my question, "if I managed to get myself almost dead". So you're saying that it IS possible to die from smoking on any difficulty, as long as your health is brought very low beforehand? – GnomeSlice Nov 03 '10 at 19:35
  • @gnome, You'd need to 1. get more damage than you have HP for, get in this near-death state and 2. smoke your final cigarette. – badp Nov 03 '10 at 20:22
  • @badp > But this is possible on every difficulty? – GnomeSlice Nov 03 '10 at 20:30
  • @gnome, there's no near-death state in Hard. – badp Nov 03 '10 at 20:34
  • @badp > Now I'm confused. If you need to be in the near-death state to be killed by smoking, then you should be able to be killed on every difficulty but hard, correct? This is not what it says in your answer. – GnomeSlice Nov 03 '10 at 20:52
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    @Gnome What badp is trying to say is this. Lets say you have 10 HP left and smoking takes off 15 HP. On Easy/Normal difficulty, if you smoke a cigarette, you will not die, but instead you will be reduced to 1 HP. If you then smoke AGAIN, you will die. However, on Hard difficulty, that first cigarette (when you were sitting at 10 HP) would kill you outright and you would not get the leniency of a 1 HP last-chance buffer. – TheQ Nov 05 '10 at 12:21
  • @TheQ > So it IS possible to die as a result of smoking on any difficulty. That's all I was looking for. If @badp edits that into his answer, I'll accept it. – GnomeSlice Nov 05 '10 at 13:55
  • @Gnome That's exactly what I said to be honest: «a package of cigarettes is not enough to kill you. You'd need to smoke right after being knocked down to 1 hp.» – badp Nov 05 '10 at 14:03
  • @badp I figured an example would help is all, to differentiate between each difficulty. I understood it but I can see where there might be some confusion. – TheQ Nov 05 '10 at 14:05
  • @TheQ, fair enough. I'll try and clarify. – badp Nov 05 '10 at 14:06
  • @badp > So, after being knocked down to 1 hp, a pack of cigarettes IS enough to kill you. I even speculated on this specifically in my question. – GnomeSlice Nov 05 '10 at 15:51
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    @GnomeSlice I thought you meant "I have 20 hp, take 19 damage and now only have 1 hp. Now I smoke, what happens?" -- then what happens is you go to the almost dead state (except for Hard). If you meant "I have 20 hp, take 30 damage and now I smoke, what happens?" -- then you die. – badp Nov 05 '10 at 16:20
  • @badp > Sorry for the miscommunication. That is in fact what I meant by 'almost dead'. – GnomeSlice Nov 05 '10 at 16:22
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    So... to translate this into real life: If I smoke cigarettes excessively, I can avoid lung cancer by wrapping gauze around myself and applying Neosporin? Understood. – Yuuki Mar 31 '13 at 03:21