Scroll of confuse monster

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Name	confuse monster
Appearance	random
Base price	100 zm
Weight	5
Ink to write	6-11
Monster use	Will not be used by monsters.

The scroll of confuse monster will grant your melee attacks the ability to confuse your target, including being unable to cast spells, moving erratically and possibly attacking adjacent targets to it (see monster confusion). An uncursed scroll will grant one additional use of this ability, while a blessed scroll will grant additional 2-8 uses. Additional readings of uncursed or blessed scrolls will grant additive uses, until 40 or more uses are stored, in which case either beatitude will only grant one additional use. Your attacks are subject to your target's monster magic resistance so your attack will not always confuse targets with magic resistance, but you will still discharge a use whenever you hit. You will display the message "You are going to confuse monsters" upon enlightenment.

If you read a cursed scroll of confuse monster, or a read an uncursed or cursed scroll while confused, you will instead be confused yourself for 1-100 (additional) turns. You will see the message "Your hands begin to glow purple" if the scroll is uncursed in this case, or no message at all if cursed. If you read a blessed scroll while confused, the scroll will instead remove any confusion that is affecting you.

Reading this scroll of any beatitude, confused or not, while polymorphed into a monster form will instead confuse you for 1-100 (additional) turns. While in polymorphed forms without hands, you will not be able to apply the confuse monster effect to targets.

Messages

If a message references "tingling" it means that you are currently blind. If you are hallucinating "red" or "purple" will be changed to various other adjectives. Since you can only successfully gain the ability in a non-monster humanoid form, and can only discharge a use by having hands, "hands" or "head" never change.

Your hands begin to glow red.

You have read an uncursed scroll, and gained a use of the abliity.

Your hands begin to tingle.

You are blind and read an uncursed scroll. If you were confused, you became more confused (see above), otherwise, you gained a use of the ability.

Your hands glow a brilliant red.

Your hands tingle very sharply.

You read a blessed scroll and gained uses of the confuse monster ability.

Your hands begin to glow red even more.

Your hands tingle even more.

You have read an uncursed scroll, have existing confuse monster uses, and have gained another use of the abliity.

Your hands glow an even more brilliant red.

Your hands tingle even more sharply.

You have read a blessed scroll, have existing confuse monster uses, and have gained more uses of the abliity.

Your hands no longer glow so brightly red.

The tingling in your hands lessens.

You have discharged one use of the confuse monster ability.

Your hands stop glowing red.

Your hands stop tingling.

You have expended the last use of the confuse monster ability.

<target> appears confused.

You have confused the target of your melee attack.

You feel confused.

You read a cursed scroll, or a scroll of any beatitude when polymorphed to a monster form.

Your hands begin to glow purple.

You read an uncursed scroll while confused.

A red glow surrounds your head.

You read a blessed scroll while confused and became unconfused.

A faint buzz surrounds your head.

You read a blessed scroll while confused and became unconfused, while blind.

Strategy

Confusing a monster can be a helpful ability in some cases - confused monsters can't cast spells properly and will get unexpected results when using scrolls. They can also attack other monsters and move erratically so they will not be continually attacking you when confused. However, confused monsters are still unpredictable and will use ranged abilities on you. Since the attack is subject to monster magic resistance, as you progress in the dungeon the confusion attack will become less effective against certain monsters (though the effectiveness of the abliity scales with your level as opposed to attacks from a wand or scroll).

A cursed scroll of confusion, or if you are polymorphed any scroll of confusion, can be used to confuse yourself to gain beneficial effects from confused scroll reading if a potion of booze, potion of confusion or forgotten spell rank is unavailable. The blessed scroll confusion-removal effect is situational since a unicorn horn can perform the same task without consuming a scroll, however, using a blessed scroll is a 100% chance to remove confusion while even a blessed unicorn horn has a failure rate. In general, the scroll is best at earlier levels, but later in the game it is a good candidate for blanking.