Pain

Version 0.26: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

This page is about the spell. For the brand, see Pain (brand). For the card, see Pain card. Pain

Spell Details
Damage Formula	1d(4 + Power/5)
Max Damage	1d9 negative energy
Max Power	25
Range	6
Targeting	Beam
To-hit
Special	*100% accurate *Ignores AC *MR resists *Costs 1 HP & 1 MP to cast

Pain is a level 1 Necromancy spell which fires a beam of negative energy against a single target. It never misses and its damage is not reduced by AC, but it must overcome its target's willpower to have any effect. All nonliving, undead and demonic monsters are immune, as are players and monsters with rN+++.

Along with the MP cost, casting Pain also deals 1 point of negative energy damage to the caster unless they are undead (satiated+ vampires do not qualify), a deep dwarf, or has only 1 HP left.

For Pain to affect an enemy, its enchantment power must pass the enemy's willpower:

Enchantment Power: 3.5 × spell power

Early on, this spell is effectively 3.5 times more powerful than the "typical" Hex, meaning you are unlikely to see orc warriors resisting it three times in a row, as can happen with Confusing Touch or Ensorcelled Hibernation. However, it has such a low power cap that it becomes virtually useless against later mid-game and end-game enemies.

Necromancers start with Pain memorized.

Strategy

• While Pain works best with characters immune to the HP cost, other characters can use Pain to soften approaching monsters, then hit them with Vampiric Draining to regain the lost HP once the enemy is in range.

Monster Spell

The monster version of Pain has an enchantment power of 50, and does damage given by:

1d(7 + Power/20)

Minimum power of the spell is limited to 150, leading to most monsters doing equal damage with it.

The following enemies cast Pain:

• 5 Grinder (d14 damage)
• @ Jessica (d14 damage)
• M Menkaure (d14 damage)
• o Orc high priest (d14 damage)
• o Orc priest (d14 damage)
• 5 Shadow imp (d14 damage)