Summon Butterflies

Version 0.21: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Summon Butterflies

Summon Butterflies is a level 1 Summoning spell which summons multiple butterflies.

Effect

A kaleidoscope of butterflies is created around the caster. Higher spell power may result in more butterflies.

Number of summons is 2 + 1d3 + (1d<power> - 1) / 10, capped at 8.

Duration of the summons is around 27 turns. It is not affected by spell power.

There is a cap on how many creatures created by this spell you can have at the same time. Summoning more than 8 creatures means that the older ones will time out immediately.

Strategy

• Summon Butterflies is amazing for making escapes, despite the wimpy name. The butterflies that will block your enemies' movement and ranged attacks. At low power it only summons a few, but at high power it can surround you completely to a considerable radius.
• The butterflies have no attack. They will fly off in random directions at high speed, making them good for detecting magic traps, but they will not trigger weapon traps or shafts.

Tips & tricks

• If you know spells like Conjure Flame or Freezing Cloud, you can use Summon Butterflies to keep you enemies on top of the clouds for as long as you want.
• For obvious reasons, this spell is also very useful for characters with smite-targeted spells, like Lee's Rapid Deconstruction, although beware of doing so with gods which punish you hurting allies, like the good gods and Okawaru.

History

In 0.14 maximum summons per single cast was lowered.

Prior to 0.8 the spell always summoned at least 15 butterflies, regardless of spell power.