Spellbook of drain life
| spellbook of + drain life 
| |
|---|---|
| Appearance | random |
| Base price | 200 zm |
| Weight | 50 |
| Turns to read | 2 |
| Ink to write | 10–19 |
| Spell type | [[attack spells|attack]] |
| Level | 2 |
| Power cost | 10 Pw |
The spellbook of drain life provides the drain life spell. Casting it at a monster drains one level from it, and does 1 to 8 damage (doubled if you are a Knight with The Magic Mirror of Merlin), plus damage bonus. The monster's location will be revealed, if it is unseen. If the monster resists the spell, there is no effect.
Casting the spell at an object reduces any charge or enchantment on the object by 1. Objects may also resist. An object cannot have its charge or enchantment reduced below zero, and any objects with negative enchantments are unaffected.
Casting the spell at yourself drains one experience level, unless you are drain resistant. Some monsters possess a life-draining attack (notably vampires and wraiths); this will also drain an experience level. If you are drained below experience level 1, you die.
Messages
- "<Monster> suddenly seems weaker!"
- The monster did not resist the spell.
- "<Goodbye> level <x>."
- You have been drained a level.
Strategy
This spell is commonly used to reduce the enchantment of a weapon from +6 to +5, from where you may safely re-attempt to enchant it to +7, and also to reduce armor from +4 to +3 for the same purpose.
Another use of the drain life spell is to help getting cheaper extra AC through donation. After you collected a lot of money from the dungeon (say, 80k gold after looting all the vaults and Fort Ludios), you can go back and lock yourself in a temple (maybe keep a pet nearby for extra security), then repeatedly cast drain life on yourself (preferably with the help of a robe) until you become XL1. After that, donate all the gold to the priest 400 zorkmids at a time. With ample gold, you have a decent chance of acquiring even -10 naked AC this way. The downside of this strategy is that you have to retrain your character's XL, so it's advisable that you reach XL14 and activate the quest stairs before doing this. However, with all your stats (especially Constitution and Wisdom) much higher than their starting value at this point, your character is likely going to have even more HP and Pw than before once he/she levels up again.
This page is based on a spoiler by Dylan O'Donnell. The original license is:
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