The Common Cold

Item Icon
Pickup Quote	"Poison damage"
Entity ID	5.100.103
Character Appearance
Tear Appearance
Item Pool	Treasure Room Treasure Room
Quality	1
Item Tags
Collection Grid	(page 1, column 10, row 10) (page 1, column 20, row 5)

The Common Cold is a passive item.

Effects

• Adds a chance to shoot poison tears, dealing damage over time when inflicted.
  • The poison randomly hits either 2 or 3 times, dealing a total of 4 or 6 damage.
  • The poison hits 2 times, dealing a total of 2x Isaac's damage.

Notes

• The chance to fire poison tears depends on the luck stat, and the formula used to determine the chance is: $\frac1 { 4 - \left \lfloor \mathit{Luck} * 0.25 \right \rfloor}$
  • At base luck (0), the chance is 25%, maxing out at 100% at 12 luck.

Synergies

• Abyss: When Isaac uses Abyss to absorb The Common Cold it turns into a green locust that poisons enemies.
• Compound Fracture/Cricket's Body/ Haemolacria/The Parasite: Chance for tears and split tears to be poisonous. If the main tear is poisonous, the split tears are too.
• Dr. Fetus/Epic Fetus: Chance for bombs/explosions to become poisonous like Bob's Curse.
• Finger!: Finger can also apply the poison effect.
• Lachryphagy: If a poison tear is fed, all burst tears are poisonous. If a normal tear is fed, the burst tears are not poisonous.
• The Ludovico Technique: The tear flickers green, capable of poisoning enemies when it does.

Interactions

• Ipecac/Scorpio: Overrides The Common Cold.
• Serpent's Kiss: Both poison effects work, but poison caused by Common Cold will not cause Black Heart drops. There is no way to tell which poison is applied.
• Pinky Eye: Activation rates are individually applied to each tear, effectively allowing for higher amounts of poison tears. However at 12 Luck, the trinket will not do anything for Isaac as The Common Cold is guaranteed to make every tear poisoned at that point.

Trivia

• The common cold is an infectious disease of the respiratory upper tract caused mainly by rhinoviruses.
  • The item's icon shows a piece of mucus, a common symptom of the common cold. Typically yellow mucus is characteristic of a mild infection, whereas green mucus is associated with a more advanced stage of the disease, hence the poison effect.
• In the original The Binding of Isaac, this item also belonged to the Devil Room pool.
• In the original game, this item was unlocked by collecting two of the following items in one run: Roid Rage, The Virus, Growth Hormones

References

• The Binding of Isaac Item Trigger Testing

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
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