GnollHack/Spellcasting
GnollHack spellcasting is very different from regular NetHack spellcasting. It has twice as many levels, over six times as many "player" spells, and a whole other system in-place to keep players from spamming too profusely. It also has a different means of calculating a typical spellcaster's "success rate".
The command is still Z, for "zapping" a spell.
Summary
To cast a spell in GnollHack, you must first learn it through reading a +spellbook. Doing it successfully gives you a certain amount of cast attempts (or "casts") for that spell; getting more casts requires miXing particular items, ranging from a zorkmid to an array of gems, with each spell having its own specific requirements. Spells also require a certain amount of energy (known as mana in this game), which is no longer standarized by spell level.
Spellcasting Success Rate
GnollHack's spellcasting success rate is calculated through a mostly-linear equation:
Spell levels in GnollHack range from negative-1 to 12. Levels negative-1 and zero are considered "cantrips", with negative-1 being a lowercase-c "minor cantrip" and zero being a capital-C "major cantrip".
In NetHack, the "highest appropriate attribute" varies with the spellcasting skill of the spell being used. For Divination, it could be Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma; whichever's highest. For the other eleven spellcasting skills, only one or two of those attributes are "appropriate".
"SkillLevel" is the numeric value of the level of your appropriate spellcasting skill. The values are as follows:
- Unskilled-or-Restricted is 0
- Basic is 1
- Skilled is 2
- Expert is 3
- Master is 4
- Grand Master is 5
Most item bonuses to spellcasting don't care about what kind of spell is being cast, but the suit penalty only applies to "somatic" spells. Unlike in vanilla NetHack, the suit penalty is specific to each armor worn, and quite a few non-metallic armors have one as well.
Spellcasting Skills
| Name | NH equiv | Int | Wis | Cha | Suit Penalty? | Effects |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abjuration | N/A | Y | Y | N | N | imitating intrinsics, anti-magic |
| Arcane | attack | Y | N | N | Y | fire/cold/shock/magic damage |
| Celestial | N/A | N | Y | Y | N | anti-undead/demon damage, lawful summons (mostly angels), life-saving |
| Clerical | clerical | N | Y | N | N | prayer-imitating, BUC-manipulating, enlightenment, some stat-boosting |
| Conjuration | N/A | Y | N | Y | Y | elemental summons, item-imitating (i.e. scroll of stinking cloud), wishing |
| Divination | divination | Y | Y | Y | N | mapping, detecting, identifying, clairvoyance, Oracular insights |
| Enchantment | enchantment | Y | N | Y | N | elemental gear-improvements, debuffs, taming, conflict, some stuff for hiding |
| Healing | healing | N | Y | N | N | HP-restoring, attribute-restoring, debuff-removal |
| Movement | escape | Y | Y | N | N | jumping, speed-controlling, mobility stuff, all sorts of teleporting |
| Nature | N/A | N | Y | Y | N | neutral summons (mostly animals), some AC-buffers, some offensive spells |
| Necromancy | N/A | N | Y | Y | N | chaotic summons (mostly undead), level-draining, death attacks |
| Transmutation | matter | Y | Y | N | Y | on-demand golems, lock/earth/water-handling, polymorph, disintegration |
Spellbooks
Once you successfully learn a spell in GnollHack, only amnesia can take it from you, though you can forget them at-will in the spell menu. Because of this, though, spellbooks crumble to dust once successfully studied.
- Blessed spellbooks always teach the spell that's in them.
- Uncursed spellbooks will teach you what's inside them, unless a 1d20 is higher than your "reading ability". Failure to read an uncursed spellbook has a 50% chance to confuse you; otherwise, it crumbles to dust.
- Only cursed spellboks have the same failure effects as spellbooks in vanilla NetHack. They have a 50% chance to disintegrate when you attempt to read them, even though the effect always interrupts your studying.
If spellbooks don't look attractive to you, you can purchase spell lessons from peaceful aligned priests and artificers.
Emergency Spells
In GnollHack, emergency spells are "easier to cast" in a different sense from NetHack. Instead of having higher success rates, they can be cast instantaneously -- casting an emergency spell does not take a turn.
Casting Restrictions
You cannot cast spells while cancelled. You can't use wands while cancelled, either.
Mana
All spells require mana, though the mana costs are decreased by having matching spellcasting skill levels. Many classes in GnollHack can start with spells they lack the mana to cast.
Starting mana is determined by class, race, Intelligence, and Wisdom. Leveling-up adds more digits-and-dice to one's mana, also depending on the above. The effect of Intelligence and Wisdom on one's maximum mana is consistent across all classes and races:
Components
Virtually all spells have a "verbal" component, which makes them unusable if you're under the effects of the "silence" spell. They also become unusable in situations where you can't breathe.
Most spells have a "material" component, which only matters once you run out of casts from reading the spell's spellbook. The "mix" command is used to "prepare spells", using up the items that go into it. Some clerical and celestial spells also involve a "catalyst" (typically a holy symbol); catalysts can be reused for each mix.
Spells of the "arcane", "conjuration", and "transmutation" spellcasting skills have a "somatic" component, which means they sustain a suit penalty for wearing armor.
Last-but-not-least, many spells in GnollHack have a "cooldown", which prevents you from casting them again for a set number of turns. All hit-point-restoring spells have a cooldown of 2 turns, for example.
Monster Spellcasting
Like in some other NetHack variants, monsters with a spellcasting ability can cast certain "player" spells. A gnomish wizard might cast "magic missile" at you, for example. Monsters also have mana, though not in the same quantities as player characters.
The in-game reading material divides player spells into "magic"/"wizard" spells (arcane, conjuration, enchantment, movement, transmutation) and "clerical"/"priest" spells (abjuration, celestial, clerical, divination, healing, nature, necromancy), much like the division between mage and cleric monster spells.