Ice Mage/Hack'EM
In Hack'EM, the Ice Mage is one of the roles available to the hero from SLASH'EM.
Ice Mages in Hack'EM can be humans, centaurs, orcs, illithids, vampires, or doppelgangers, and can be of neutral or chaotic alignment.
Starting inventory
Each Ice Mage starts with the following equipment:
- a blessed +1 quarterstaff (wielded)
- a +0 robe
- 2-4 uncursed food rations
- a random scroll other than fire, blank paper, or amnesia
- 2-4 blessed scrolls of ice
- a blessed spellbook of freeze sphere
- a blessed spellbook of cone of cold
- a blessed spellbook of either confuse monster or slow monster with an equal probability of each
- a random ring other than aggravate monster, hunger, or sleeping
- a wand of cold
- a blessed frost horn
- a 1⁄2 chance of a pair of goggles
Any ring that is generated with an enchantment of +0 or lower is given a random enchantment from +1 to +3. An Ice Mage will never be given a ring of cold resistance or ring of fire resistance.
Orcish Ice Mages are not given extra food like orcish heroes in other roles.
Ice Mages start with knowledge of any applicable racial equipment.
The Ice Mage's default starting pet is a winter wolf cub.
Intrinsics
Ice Mages gain the following intrinsic properties upon reaching the given experience levels:
- XL 1: Cold resistance
- XL 5: Vulnerability to fire
- XL 8: Polyself into baby white dragon form
- XL 15: Water walking
- XL 15: Polymorph into adult white dragon form
Skills
Ice Mages have the following skills available to them:
| Ice Mage skills | |
|---|---|
| Max | Skills |
| Basic |
|
| Skilled |
|
| Expert |
|
Ice Mages start with Basic skill in quarterstaves, daggers, knives, short swards, and matter spells. They use the intelligence stat to cast spells, and their special spell is reflection.
Techniques
Ice Mages can learn the disarm technique by reaching Skilled in any weapon, and also gain the following techniques at the listed experience levels:
| Level | Technique |
| 1 | Reinforce memory |
| 3 | Ice armor |
| 5 | Draw energy |
| 12 | Power surge |
Special rules
Ice Mages benefit from a somewhat weaker form of hungerless casting, and gain the exact same benefits of hungerless casting as the Wizard specifically when casting the freeze sphere and cone of cold spells.
Ice Mages have the ability to transform into a dragon of their element: they gain access to the baby white dragon polyform at experience level 8, and can become adult white dragons upon reaching experience level 15. Transforming into a baby white dragon costs 20 power, while transforming into an adult white dragon costs 40 power, with a reduction in power cost if the Flame Mage is wearing white dragon scales or white dragon-scaled armor, and the process takes two turns.
Due to their affinity with the element of cold, ice elementals always generate as peaceful for Ice Mages, and genocide of white dragons carries several penalties to alignment record. An Ice Mage can invoke the artifact Deep Freeze to summon a freezing sphere and create a burst of ice as with the read scroll of ice. Ice Mages also naturally like the cold, which allows them to traverse ice without fumbling. This also means that fire is antithetical to Ice Mages, which expresses itself in the following restrictions:
- They become vulnerable to fire at experience level 5, and can only obtain a maximum of 50% partial fire resistance.
- They cannot handle Fire Brand or Firewall, and will never receive them as sacrifice gifts.
- They cannot read the spellbooks for fireball or flame sphere, and will never receive those spellbooks as sacrifice gifts.
- They cannot obtain fiery minions or weapons with the "fire" object property as sacrifice gifts.
Ice Mages have a penalty to multishot with any projectile other than knives.
Ice Mages only take 1⁄5 damage from breaking wands by applying them.
Rank titles
The status line displays one of the following ranks for the corresponding experience levels:
- XL 1-2: Cooler
- XL 3-5: Condenser
- XL 6-9: Chiller
- XL 10-13: Froster
- XL 14-17: Permafroster
- XL 18-21: Icer
- XL 22-25: Freezer
- XL 26-29: Sublimer
- XL 30: Ice-Master
Gods
The Ice Mage pantheon is based on elements related to frost and cold. Their first sacrifice gift is Deep Freeze.
Quest
The Ice Mage's quest sees them fighting Ragnaros for The Storm Whistle, an artifact magic whistle. The Storm Whistle grants warning, teleport control, automatic searching, and shock resistance. Invoking The Storm Whistle summons a tame water elemental.
Strategy
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