Poisonous Vapours

Version 0.29: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Poisonous Vapours
Level	2
School1	Air
School2	Poison
Source(s)	Book of Vapours Young Poisoner's Handbook
Casting noise	2
Spell noise	0
Power Cap	50
Range	LOS
Flags	Not self, Target

Turns the air around a targeted creature toxic, directly inflicting poison on the target before dispersing.

Poisonous Vapours is a level 2 Poison/Air spell which causes smite-targeted poison on any vulnerable enemy within line of sight. Poisonous Vapours will fail to cast if the monster has poison resistance.

Venom Mages start with this spell.

Strategy

Poisonous Vapours is an excellent spell for Venom Mages to pick up at XL 2, as a more reliable, higher damage, longer-ranged Sting. It costs 2 MP, making is slightly prohibitive at low levels, but MP concerns quickly fade away. The fact that it is level 2 and can't miss also makes it appealing for any character with a few free spell levels, especially if they want to learn Mephitic Cloud later on.

With Ignite Poison, it is a surprisingly strong damage spell, as it is cheap on MP, smite-targeted, and never misses. This combo is capable of killing enemies up to the Lair branches (assuming they aren't rPois) and Vaults. It remains useful even in the Zot, as the combo works well against non-green draconians and orb guardians.

History

• Prior to 0.27, Poisonous Vapours would create a short lived cloud, and wouldn't work if there was a cloud already there (including from the spell itself). Also, Vehumet did not consider this spell "destructive".
• Poisonous Vapours was added in 0.20.