Iskenderun's Mystic Blast

Version 0.24: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Iskenderun's Mystic Blast
Level	4
School1	Conjuration
Source(s)	Book of Conjurations Book of Power
Casting noise	4
Spell noise	4 (10 if there is a explosion)

This spell throws a crackling sphere of destructive energy. The sphere will sometimes explode on impact, and the chance of it doing so is higher if the sphere has traveled less distance.

Spell Details
Damage Formula	2d(6+Power/6)
Max Damage	2d23
Max Power	100
Range	7
Targeting	Beam
To-hit	10+Power/7
Special	May explode when it hits an enemy

Iskenderun's Mystic Blast (or IMB) is a level 4 Conjurations spell which strikes a single opponent with destructive energy, dealing moderate physical damage. It has good accuracy and excellent range, and there is a chance that the blast will explode upon striking its target, damaging nearby enemies in a starburst pattern as shown below:

X.X.X
.XXX.
XXOXX
.XXX.
X.X.X

The chance of this explosion occurring falls the farther away the target is from the caster:

Chance of explosion = 3/(2*(distance traveled)+2)

For examples, if the target is next to the caster, IMB have a chance of 3/4 to explode, and if the target is at a distance of 7 (the max range), the chance falls to 1/6.

Regardless of position, this explosion cannot injure the caster.

Strategy

IMB is an excellent jack-of-all-trades combat spell. It is fairly cheap to cast, requires only a single skill to train, and can effectively damage any target regardless of resistances. Its explosion effect isn't reliable enough to make it a competitive area-of-effect spell, but all the same, it is still an admirable attack spell for the early- and mid-game (eg, frost giants, Ilsiuw). It suffers against durable, high AC opponents in the late game, however, but hopefully you'll gain access to Orb of Destruction or some high-level elemental spell long before you reach that point.

History

Prior to 0.11, IMB dealt more damage, but was unable to explode.