Miscast effect
A miscast effect occurs when a player fails to cast a spell successfully. These can range in severity from completely harmless to inflicting heavy damage and magic contamination, depending on the school of magic that is used.
A miscast will first cause contamination based on the severity of the failure and the spell level. Then an additional effect will be applied based on the spell school. If a spell has multiple schools, the additional effect will be chosen among them at random.
| School | Additional Effect |
|---|---|
| Air Magic | electricity damage |
| Conjurations | irresistible damage |
| Earth Magic | shrapnel damage (reduced by AC three times) |
| Hexes | debuff and slow <damage> turns |
| Charms | debuff and slow <damage> turns |
| Fire Magic | fire damage |
| Ice magic | cold damage |
| Necromancy | draining damage |
| Poison Magic | poison damage |
| Summonings | durably summoned nameless horror HD = 2 * <damage> / 3 |
| Translocations | Dimension Anchor <damage> turns |
| Transmutations | double current contamination then add 9 * <damage> contamination |
There is a special case if Hell's mystical force produces a miscast effect that spawns any monsters: those monsters are not summons and are worth experience.
Displayed in game spell failure rate color indicates the maximum damage of the additional effect relative to your current max HP. These are calculated as if the damage is irresistible, even for those schools whose miscast effects are resistible or not directly damaging.
| Color | Potential HP Loss |
Warning Description |
|---|---|---|
| Grey | 0% | safe |
| White | 10% | slightly dangerous |
| Yellow | 30% | dangerous |
| Light red | 50% | quite dangerous |
| Red | 70% | extremely dangerous |
| Purple | 100% | potentially lethal |
Contents
Hell effects
Hell's mystical force selects a miscast or other effect with the probabilities given below. Hell effects only apply the additional effect of the specific spell school, not the initial contamination.
- Necromancy miscast: 16.66%
- Summonings miscast: 8.33%
- Conjurations miscast: 4.16%
- Charms miscast: 2.08%
- Hexes miscast: 2.08%
- Miscast appropriate to each branch: 22.22% (Fire magic miscast in Gehenna, Ice magic miscast in Cocytus, Necromancy miscast in Tartarus, and Earth magic miscast in Dis)
- Summon a greater demon appropriate to each branch: 14.15% (Brimstone fiends in Gehenna, Ice fiends in Cocytus, Shadow fiends in Tartarus, and any greater demon in Dis)
- Summon 1-5 random monsters: 9.88%
- Nothing happens: 19.75%
Notes
See Also
History
- Prior to 0.25, the miscast effect system was significantly more complicated, with three different types of effects per school, depending on the severity of the miscast.
- In 0.16, many magic miscast effects received a significant overhaul.
- Prior to 0.14, Hell's mystical force could paralyze the player.
- Prior to 0.13, Zot traps inflicted a random severity 3 miscast, instead of having a hardcoded list of effects.
