Miscast effect

Version 0.12: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Failure to cast spells causes various generally nasty things to occur, becoming nastier with spell level and spell failure. Miscasts come in severity 0,1,2,3; 0 is always harmless, although it can occasionally make a moderate amount of noise. Note that most monsters resulting from a miscast are summons: they do time out, can be abjured, do not leave items behind, and are not worth experience. Sometimes, they can be durable summons. Durable summons do not time out and cannot be abjured. 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.

Unless otherwise stated, all miscast effects for a given school and level are equally probable.

Air Magic

• 1: 4-12 electric damage, or rain cloud, or Mephitic Cloud
• 2: 3d8 electric explosion or Poisonous Cloud
• 3: 12-40 Airstrike, or twister, or ball lightning

Conjurations

• 1: smoke or 6-12 damage
• 2: 9-25 damage or 3d12 explosion
• 3: 12-40 damage or 3d20 explosion

Divinations

The Divinations school has long since been removed from the game, but its miscasts remain. They can be triggered by Sif Muna's wrath, orange crystal statues, crystal balls, or any source of "random miscasts" (such as Zot traps).

• 1: confusion or no effect
• 2: confusion plus either 1-3 INT loss or 3-12 MP loss
• 3: confusion plus either 3-5 INT loss or 5-24 MP loss

Earth Magic

• 1: harmless
• 2: 10-22 damage (checked by AC)
• 3: 3d15 explosion

Hexes

The Enchantments school was removed in 0.8 and broken into Hexes and Charms (below). Currently both these schools' miscasts are identical.

• 1: corona or random uselessness
• 2: curse one item (3/7 chance), slowing (3/7), or berserk (1/7)
• 3: curse several items (iterates through pack, with 1/3 chance of stopping after each item cursed), paralysis, confusion, or 0-18 glow

Charms

• 1: corona or random uselessness
• 2: curse one item (3/7 chance), slowing (3/7), or berserk (1/7)
• 3: curse several items (iterates through pack, with 1/3 chance of stopping after each item cursed), paralysis, confusion, or 0-18 glow

Fire Magic

• 1: smoke or burnt scrolls (plus 2-14 damage, only with Fire Vulnerability 1 or worse)
• 2: burnt scrolls plus 5-33 fire damage, or 3d14 Fireball
• 3: burnt scrolls plus 9-41 fire damage, or 3d20 Fireball, or Sticky Flame

Ice Magic

• 1: nothing or freeze potions (plus 4-8 damage, only with Cold Vulnerability 1 or worse)
• 2: freeze potions plus 5-16 ice damage or 3d11 ice explosion
• 3: freeze potions plus 9-31 ice damage or Freezing Cloud

Necromancy

Torment, rotting, and draining damage have no effect on undead. No effect at all if Kiku** and Piety/150 chance. These effects are frequently seen as death curses from non-plain mummies.

• 1: Slowing, rotting, or 5-19 torment damage
• 2: Draining, 1-3 shadows, or 15-37 torment damage
• 3: Draining, reaper, soul eater, random stat loses 1-7, 1-6hp rot, or player-targeted torment

Poison Magic

No effects at all if poison resistant.

• 1: 2-4 poison damage or Mephitic Cloud on your location only
• 2: 3-11 poison damage, large Mephitic Cloud, or random stat loses 1
• 3: 10-28 poison damage, Poisonous Cloud, or random stat loses 1-5

Summonings

• 1: 5-13 damage (1/2 chance), spatial vortex (1/6), or lesser demon (1/3)
• 2: 2-4 spatial vortices (1/6 chance), common demon (1/3), or 2-3 imps (1/2)
• 3: small abomination, 2-3 demons, greater demon, eldritch tentacle via Malign Gateway, or Banishment. Reroll if Banishment or Gateway is selected and is impossible.

Translocations

• 1: 4-12 damage (1/2 chance), 4-10 damage and Blink (1/3), or spatial vortex (1/6)
• 2: 9-31 damage (3/7 chance), 5-13 damage + confusion + 66% chance blink, 33% chance teleport (2/7), 2-4 spatial vortices (1/7), or banishment (1/7). If banishment is selected when not possible, instead reroll the effect.
• 3: 15-43 damage, 9-25 damage plus teleport and confusion, banishment, or 0-18 glow. If banishment is selected when not possible, reroll the effect.

Transmutations

• 1: 1-11 damage or random uselessness
• 2: polymorph, 3-25 damage, 0-18 glow, petrify, or confusion
• 3: polymorph, 3-20 damage plus 0-34 glow OR 5-27 damage plus remove mutation OR 5-27 damage plus 1-2 bad mutations

Hell effects

• Necromancy miscast: 16.66%
• Summoning 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%

See Also

Magic contamination

History

Prior to 0.13, Zot traps inflicted a random severity 3 miscast, instead of having a hardcoded list of effects.