Spellbook of magic missile
| spellbook of + magic missile 
| |
|---|---|
| Appearance | random |
| Abundance | 4.58% |
| Base price | 200 zm |
| Weight | 50 |
| Turns to read | 2 |
| Ink to write | 10–19 |
| Spell type | attack |
| Level | 2 |
| Power cost | 10 Pw |
| Direction | ray |
| Equivalent | wand of magic missile |
| Special for | wizard |
In NetHack, a spellbook of magic missile allows you to learn the magic missile spell, which shoots a ray that can damage monsters. Unlike the ray from the wand of magic missile, the ray from the magic missile spell deals damage that scales with your experience level.
Effects
The magic missile ray does ((xplev/2)+1)d6 damage, so higher-level spellcasters can deal significant damage with this spell. A level 30 character deals 16d6 damage with magic missile, averaging 56 damage per hit. This spell's damage is doubled for Knights by carrying the Magic Mirror of Merlin.
Strategy
For low-level Wizards, the force bolt they start with is usually a better attacking method than magic missile, as force bolt costs 5 Pw and does 2d12 damage. Magic missile does slightly more damage at experience level 6 (doubled if hitting twice), but costs 10 Pw points. Advanced Wizards armed with the Eye of the Aethiopica can rely on magic missile as their primary attack; as their special spell, wizards also get a bonus toward their success rate with magic missile. Often a wizard can wear metal armor and still get an acceptably low failure rate with magic missile.
As with most ray-based spells and wands, this spell can be used to kill enemies behind boulders without breaking the boulder, making it invaluable in Sokoban. The ray can also be rebounded using walls to hit targets repeatedly.
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It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.4. Information on this page may be out of date.
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