Sceptre of Torment

Version 0.20: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

An accursed golden sceptre, created by some unknown hellish power. When used in combat, it causes agonising pain in all those unfortunate enough to gaze upon it.

the +7 Sceptre of Torment

+7 staff

Forces Symbol of Torment
Evil

Torment triggers on 50% of attacks

Desirability

The Sceptre of Torment is a poor base weapon with a decent enchantment value and an absolutely staggering special ability - it passively inflicts torment on everything in your line of sight (including you) with a 50% chance every time you engage in melee while wielding it. When facing anything that isn't torment immune, this is an extremely effective weapon for quickly cutting everything on-screen down to size, though only if you happen to be undead, lichform, or torment resistant yourself. The living will take enough self-damage wielding this that they'd be placing themselves in serious danger every fight (though rN+++ followers of Kiku, gargoyles, and Statue Form-users might be able to trim the damage down enough to make it tempting). For torment-immune enemies, it's a very poor weapon choice, so bring a backup for demons and the undead.

As with the scroll, torment will act through plants/bushes/statues, but will not have an effect through transparent walls or grates.

Tips & Tricks

Since the artefact only triggers on melee, a potential way of tormenting enemies at a distance would be by casting Summon Butterflies (or a similar spell) and then attacking those friendly summons [using the Control-key plus directional key to attack your ally]. Equally, if a bush or plant is near, the player could attack those.

History

Prior to 0.20, the Sceptre of Torment also had a very small chance of activating each turn when you weren't attacking with it.

In 0.17, the Sceptre of Torment became a staff instead of a mace.

Prior to 0.15, the Sceptre of Torment was a +7, +6 weapon.