Venom Bolt

Version 0.15: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Venom Bolt
Level	5
School1	Conjuration
School2	Poison
Source(s)	Young Poisoner's Handbook Book of Power
Casting noise	5
Spell noise	5

This spell throws a bolt of poison.

Spell Details
Damage Formula	4d(4+0.15*Power)
Max Damage	4d34
Max Power	200
Range	6
Targeting	Bolt
To-hit
Special	Poison

Venom Bolt is a level 5 Conjurations/Poison Magic bolt spell which causes poison damage to all enemies that it strikes along its path, both immediately and over time by poisoning them. Poison resistant targets take significantly less damage. Each time it hits a monster it loses one square of range.

Tips & Tricks

For its level, Venom Bolt deals significant amounts of damage, making it useful in clearing those mid-game branches that have few poison resistant monsters such as the Lair, the Orcish Mines, the Elven Halls, the Spider's Nest, and the Shoals. If you can line up several enemies along a narrow hallway, you can devastate them with only one or two castings.

Just be mindful of the spell's limited effect against resistant foes. All undead, demonic, plant, and non-living opponents are resistant or immune to poison damage, as are a number of perfectly ordinary living foes. While there are viable targets in nearly every branch of the Dungeon, you might prefer Poisonous Cloud for versatility and area of effect or Poison Arrow for higher single-target damage instead.

History

Prior to 0.12, Venom Bolt did less damage.