Brom's Barrelling Boulder

Version 0.33: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

Brom's Barrelling Boulder
Level	4
School1	Conjuration
School2	Earth
Source(s)	Compendium of Siegecraft Book of the Spheres
Casting noise	4
Spell noise	0
Power Cap	100
Range	1
Flags	Not self, Target

Unleashes a massive rolling boulder in a given compass direction. This boulder damages any creature it hits, rolling over those who perish beneath it and pushing any others helplessly backwards (along with anyone else unfortunate enough to be standing behind them). Its size and reckless locomotion make it difficult to use in confined areas; if launched down narrow passages, it will rapidly abrade against the walls and fall apart. It will also crumble if it leaves the caster's sight or strikes a wall or otherwise unmoveable creature.

Spell Details
Damage Formula	2d(4 + power/10)
Max Damage	2d14
Max Power	100
Range	LOS
Targeting	Special
To-hit	Never misses
Special	Creates boulder on adjacent square; Can hit multiple times

Brom's Barrelling Boulder is a level 4 Earth/Conjurations spell which creates a damaging boulder to hurl at your enemies.

Earth Elementalists start with this spell in their libraries.

Useful Info

Creates a boulder in a chosen adjacent tile, which moves 1 tile on the turn it's cast. You cannot cast this spell on a monster. This boulder rolls in a straight line away from you and can only be aimed in a straight direction.

Whenever the boulder collides with a monster, it takes damage and is knocked back. If there are other monsters behind the victim, all the monsters are pushed back in a chain. If a monster is pushed into a wall or impassible terrain (e.g. deep water, lava), it takes extra knockback damage (2d11 at max power), but the boulder is destroyed.

The boulder takes 1d5 damage for every wall (or other solid feature) it is adjacent to when moving. The spell targeter will account for this, showing the range the boulder will move if it takes maximum abrasion damage.

The boulder is treated as a monster: you cannot move into its tile, and it can be destroyed by attacks. It moves at speed 20 and has base HP of 15 + power/3. It can travel through deep water without being slowed down. It disappears after it leaves your line of sight, hits a wall, or hits an unpushable monster.

Strategy

• While its damage is lower than Stone Arrow, the boulder can hit the same enemy multiple times. This spell can also be used to kite.

History

• Prior to 0.32:
  • Boulders did not take damage when adjacent to walls. Instead, they took damage from hitting monsters, and had a 20% chance to veer off course per tile moved.
  • They inflicted a small stun on monsters (3-5 aut).
  • They dealt less damage (2d(4 + pow/12)), but dealt a 3x3 explosion upon being destroyed by wall collision.
  • The boulder didn't move immediately on cast.
  • The spell could not be cast on deep water.
  • Brom's Barelling Boulder was introduced in 0.31.