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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?

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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, 2010 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, 2010 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, 2010 at 23:40
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    Yes, you can. Not sure about the game though!
    – Alan Pearce
    Nov 5, 2010 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 5, 2010 at 15:34

1 Answer 1

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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.

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    Oh hey, that explains my personal experiences!
    – Raven Dreamer
    Oct 31, 2010 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 3, 2010 at 0:18
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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 5, 2010 at 12:21
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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 5, 2010 at 16:20
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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, 2013 at 3:21

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