Haste
 Haste
| |
|---|---|
| Level | 6 |
| School1 | Charms |
| Source(s) | |
| Casting noise | 5 |
| Spell noise | 0 |
| This spell speeds the actions of a creature. Hasting yourself will increase your magical contamination. |
Haste is a level 6 Charms spell which gives you or a targeted creature the "haste" condition, causing you to perform all actions 50% faster (2/3 normal time). Increased spell power increases the spell's duration. A potion or wand of hasting produces a similar effect.
Casting the spell gives you a single point of magic contamination, and more will accumulate as you remain hasted. Casting the spell again to extend a haste will add +2 per casting. Magical contamination becomes a point of concern at 5.
Note the difference between this spell and Swiftness, the level 2 Charms/Air Magic spell which only affects movement speed and slows you when it expires. Note also that Haste and Swiftness stack.
Monster spell
This spell functions identically for monsters, with one important exception: monsters that only possess the basic spell Haste cannot haste their allies. There exists a separate spell (Haste Other) which allows monsters to do just that. However, fairly few monsters possess it, and even fewer possess both it and Haste, some ogre magi being among the few examples.
The separation between the two monster spells, and the resultant inability of ancient liches and deep elf sorcerers to haste their summons, is more of an artifact of the way monster spellcasting is implemented than a mercy on the part of the developers.
History
Prior to 0.8, Haste made all actions 100% faster. In very early versions of Crawl it was a level 8 spell: magic contamination did not yet exist, meaning that this spell could be spammed with no downsides other than food costs, so it merited being a higher level.
