Scroll of fear
Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.
| Type | Scroll |
|---|---|
| Name | scroll of fear |
| Icon | 
|
| A scroll that causes great fear in those who see the one who reads it, even if the reader is invisible. Allies of the reader will remain unaffected. Monsters that are non-living, undead, plants, berserk, or frenzied cannot be feared. |
Reading a scroll of fear causes most natural, demonic, and holy monsters in the reader's view to become frightened and flee for a few turns. This will not affect friendly targets, such as summons. This effect can be resisted by the monster's willpower. A scroll of fear always has a chance of failing, even against 0 Will monsters.
The following monsters are immune to fear:
- Undead, nonliving, and plant holiness monsters.
- Monsters that are berserk or under frenzy
Reading this scroll has the same effect as casting the Cause Fear spell with 200 spellpower. This equates to 96 "enchantment power".[1] The higher the monster's willpower, the less likely the scroll is to succeed. See the Willpower article for more details.
Strategy
- Scrolls of fear are very useful if the player is swarmed early in the game (perhaps more useful than a scroll of blinking), and should be saved for dangerous situations. In the late game, monsters with high willpower will often resist this scroll.
- If you are able, consider your positioning before reading this scroll. Try to give your targets a suitable path for which to flee; if a fleeing monster finds itself cornered, it will turn around and fight.
- You can check the chance of affecting nearby monsters by quivering a scroll of fear. Press Q* to open your inventory, then select the scroll to quiver it. Press f to highlight susceptible monsters and activate targeting mode where you can move the cursor and check the chance.
History
- Prior to 0.30, fleeing monsters would not run over harmful clouds.
- Prior to 0.28, the spell couldn't affect demonic and holy monsters.
- Prior to 0.27, fleeing enemies could use scrolls of teleportation and blinking as emergency items. Also, fleeing monsters would use "emergency" flag spells rather than "escape" flag ones. This caused black bears and polar bears to be practically immune to fear; they would immediately berserk when inflicted with fear, which ended the fear.
References
- ↑ beam.cc:6806 (0.30.0)
Equivalent to 35 * log2(1 + 200/35); stepdown function can be found at stepdown.cc:14 (0.30.0).
While Cause Fear has a x1.5 enchantment power multiplier, the scroll reaches the cap of 200, so this has no effect.
| Scrolls |
|---|
| Acquirement • Amnesia • Butterflies • Blinking • Brand weapon • Enchant armour • Enchant weapon • Fear • Fog • Identify • Immolation • Noise • Poison • Revelation • Silence • Summoning • Teleportation • Torment • Vulnerability |
