Excruciating Wounds

Version 0.26: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Excruciating Wounds

Excruciating Wounds is a level 5 Necromancy spell that temporarily infuses a weapon with the pain brand.

Effect

A wielded non-artefact melee weapon will gain the pain brand, temporarily overriding any existing brand. Launchers and unarmed attacks are not affected. While this spell is active, you are unable to unwield your weapon, and spells will be penalized.

Casting the spell at higher spell power will increase the effect's duration.

Strategy

In the hands of a skilled Necromancy practitioner, the pain brand can render a fast weapon extremely deadly to most natural monsters, and by the time a character is capable of casting Excruciating Wounds, they certainly qualify. Followers of Kikubaaqudgha can choose to permanently brand a weapon of their choice with pain, but this spell allows Kiku worshipers to instead select the Necronomicon gift, or for characters not worshiping Kiku to take advantage of the brand without having to find a good weapon of pain lying around somewhere. Just be aware that this brand is useless against opponents with any negative energy resistance: this includes all demonic, undead, nonliving, holy, and plant-type opponents.

Casting the spell is also somewhat noisy, making it unwise to cast it while trying to sneak around sleeping opponents.

History

• Prior to 0.26, Excruciating Wounds was a Necromancy/Charms spell. It did not prevent you from unwielding your weapon, penalize your spell success rate, or make further noise during the spell.
• Prior to 0.16, this spell could not affect weapons that were already branded.
• Added in 0.2.