Spellbook of magic missile

spellbook of +   magic missile
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

Allows you to learn the magic missile spell.

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. The damage can be doubled by using walls to reflect the ray again to the target, hitting it twice. This spell's damage is doubled for Knights by carrying the Magic Mirror of Merlin.

Note that this is different from the wand of magic missile, whose damage is a fixed 2d6.

Strategy

For low-level Wizards, the starting force bolt spell 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 (2 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.

Wizards do get a bonus toward their success rate with magic missile, however. Often a wizard can wear metal armor and still get an acceptably low failure rate with magic missile.

This spell can be used to kill enemies behind boulders without breaking the boulder, making it invaluable in Sokoban.