Spellbook of confuse monster

spellbook of +   confuse monster
Appearance	random
Base price	200 zm
Weight	50
Turns to read	2
Ink to write	10–19
Spell type	[[Enchantment spells|Enchantment]]
Level	2
Power cost	10 Pw

Allows you to learn the confuse monster spell.

Casting this spell has exactly the same effect as a scroll of confuse monster (see that article for more information); you confuse yourself (for 1-100 turns) if not polymorphed into a form represented by @ (broadly speaking, a human or elven form); and otherwise, your hands will "go red", confusing the next monster you touch in melee (subject to monster magic resistance). If cast at a skilled level of enchantment skill (in vanilla NetHack, only possible for a wizard), it instead works like a blessed scroll of confuse monster, giving 2-8 uses of this ability rather than one (unless 40 uses of the ability are stored up already). (It would also have this effect if cast at an expert level of enchantment skill, but this is unattainable in vanilla NetHack.)

Strategy

The spell of confuse monster is similar to the scroll, being moderately strong early, but rapidly becoming nearly useless as the game goes on (and monster magic resistance gets higher). Generally speaking, it will be more effective for a spellcaster to dispose of monsters via attack spells, and (in the case of spellcasting enemies) resisting many of their spells via magic resistance, rather than trying to confuse them to prevent casting or reduce the chance that they target you with attacks; unfortunately, the monsters you'd most want to confuse generally have a high monster magic resistance, with monsters that are particularly vulnerable to being confused, such as minotaurs, being monsters it is mostly wasted on (the unreliable confusion would be inferior to more readily available and effective enchantments, such as sleep, in such cases). (Note that the effects of the scroll when confused are not available via the spell, as confusion causes spellcasting to fail for players as well.)

There is a niche use for this spell in speed ascensions focusing on minimizing turncount; such ascensions cannot afford to spend 20,000 turns to forget a spell, and thus have to rely on other methods of confusing themselves to quickly locate the magic portals on the Elemental Planes via a scroll of gold detection. As such ascensions are generally conducted with the player polymorphed into a fast monster like an air elemental or titan — a non-@ form — the spell can be used for a quick and reliable source of confusion in one turn, enabling the confused effects of scrolls to be used.