Bolt of Cold

Version 0.17: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Bolt of Cold
Level	6
School¹	Conjuration
School²	Ice
Source(s)	Book of Ice Wand of cold
Casting noise	6
Spell noise	6

This spell hurls a great bolt of ice and frost.

Spell Details
Damage Formula	6d(3+Power/9) cold
Max Damage	6d(25)
Max Power	200
Range	6
Targeting	Bolt
To-hit	10+Power/25
Special	N/A

Bolt of Cold is a level 6 Conjurations/Ice Magic spell capable of striking multiple targets along its path, doing a considerable amount of cold damage. It is more or less the exact analogue of Bolt of Fire, with the same damage potential and accuracy (although slightly less range).

You can get a similar effect through use of a wand of cold.

Strategy

Although Bolt of Cold has good range, bear in mind that each target it strikes reduces its max range by 1. When attempting to snipe a distant foe, consider adjusting your aim to avoid the fodder in between.

Along with its purely offensive uses, Bolt of Cold is useful for creating clouds of steam. Each tile of lava your Bolt of Cold crosses generates 2-6 clouds, potentially blocking dangerous enemies from being able to see you. Bolts of Cold can also be used to destroy flame clouds, though each cloud destroyed this way reduces the bolt's range by 5. Finally, casting it at sufficient spell power at tiles with shallow water or deep water will create freezing clouds, allowing you to do cold damage over time to waterbound opponents (the bolt must deal at least 6d6 damage to create a cloud over the first tile, 6d10 for the second tile, 6d15 for the third, 6d20 for the fourth, and 6d25 for the fifth).

Many players still prefer Bolt of Fire since undead monsters (of which the game has a lot of) tend to be very resistant to cold.

Monster Version

Several monsters have access to Bolt of Cold. This version of the spell is almost identical to the player version (the damage is slightly more variable).

The following enemies cast Bolt of Cold: