Bolt of Draining

Version 0.13: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Bolt of Draining
Level	6
School1	Conjuration
School2	Necromancy
Source(s)	Book of Death
Casting noise	3
Spell noise	0

This spell hurls a deadly bolt of negative energy, which drains the life from any living creature it strikes.

Spell Details
Damage Formula	4d(3.75+Power*3/20)
Max Damage	4d33 negative energy
Max Power	200
Range	6
Targeting	Bolt
To-hit
Special	Draining

Bolt of Draining is a level 6 Conjurations/Necromancy spell which fires a bolt of negative energy, dealing damage and draining any creatures in its path. It functions much like a more powerful wand of draining with reduced range (range 8 vs. range 6, and it loses one square of range each time it hits something). Negative energy resistance reduces the damage dealt by this spell by 1/3 per rank, granting total immunity at rN+++.

Strategy

While Bolt of Draining is effective at softening up or destroying rows of dangerous natural monsters, using it does reduce the XP you gain from kills, though this loss is relatively minor. Also, many of the more dangerous late game monsters (including all undead and demons) are partially or completely immune to its effects. On the other hand, undead immunity means you can send hordes of undead minions at your foes and shoot Bolts of Draining through them without any risk of harming them, and Orb Guardians, draconians, and almost all giants are still quite susceptible to its damage. Necromancers looking for means of dealing damage may wish to save the spell levels for the level 7 Necromancy/Summonings spell Haunt (which is effective against the undead and demons), or branch into some other school of magic. Regardless, consider forgetting Bolt of Draining once you reach the extended end-game and using those spell levels on something more universally useful.

Monster Version

Many monsters are capable of casting Bolt of Draining with extremely irritating results; a permanent loss of XP, potentially reducing your level. While slightly weakening an enemy that you'll kill in two turns isn't very impressive, losing a level or two in a single unlucky combat can be infuriating.

The following monsters can cast Bolt of Draining:

• Necromancer (50% chance)
• Vampire mage
• Orc sorcerer
• Deep elf conjurer
• Deep elf sorcerer
• Deep elf death mage
• Lich (50% chance)
• Shadow fiend
• Pandemonium lord (sometimes)
• Nergalle
• Ereshkigal
• Gloorx Vloq

Spell Mechanics

The hit point damage inflicted by a player's Bolt of Draining from any source is determined by:

calc_dice(4, 15 + (power * 3) / 5)

so at power 50, it will do 4d11 (4-44) damage and at power 100 it will do 4d18 (4-72) damage.

Its to-hit number is

(8 + power/20)

giving a value of 10 at power 50 and 13 at power 100.

Cast by a monster, the spell has power equal to 12 times the caster's HD (like any monster spell). All monster-launched bolts of draining do an amount of damage given by

dice_def(3, 6 + power / 13)

with a to-hit number of

(16 + power / 35)

Thus, thrown by a 15 HD caster, it will do 3d19 (3-57) damage and have a to-hit number of 21.

History

In 0.14 Bolt of Draining will be a level 5 spell.