Spellbook of freeze sphere
| spellbook of + freeze sphere 
| |
|---|---|
| Appearance | random |
| Base price | 100 zm |
| Weight | 50 |
| Turns to read | 2 |
| Ink to write | 5–9 |
| Spell type | matter |
| Level | 1 |
| Power cost | 5 Pw |
The spellbook of freeze sphere is a deferred feature. It creates a tame freezing sphere which explodes at an enemy. It is included in SLASH'EM.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, the spellbook of freeze sphere is part of the starting equipment of the Ice Mage class. It is the staple attack spell for the Ice Mage in the early game, since the more powerful cone of cold begins out of reach. The Ice Mage starts with Basic skill in matter spells. As this skill improves, the number of freezing spheres summoned will increase to two at Skilled and three at expert, all for the same casting cost.
General strategy
Since the freezing sphere does not attack a monster directionally in the way that force bolt or magic missile does, the Ice Mage must learn to manipulate the freezing sphere's position to defend against enemies. Using pet displacement is an important aspect; you will learn to dance through your spheres to get them into range of enemies. The Ice Mage should generally keep a freezing sphere floating around in the early game just in case. In the likely event that your spheres sometimes get left behind, they may go feral and revert to peacefully bobbing around in empty rooms. Tame freezing spheres do not appear able to turn hostile.
On the other hand, freezing spheres left to their own devices can cause a lot of problems. Since they are summoned monsters rather than pets, responsibility for their kills accrues to the player. This means not only that you will get the experience for the kills, but also the blame: shopkeepers, guards, peaceful monsters, and gods will direct their anger at you if your spheres blow up in the wrong direction. The Ice Mage thus needs to keep an eye on where his or her spheres go and make a point of using them only in safe contexts. It is usually unwise to attack mimics in shops with sphere attacks: they may miss their mark. The Ice Mage should use closed doors to control where spheres can travel and try to "burn off" excess spheres after a major battle before exploring the dungeon too far. (The fungi that crop up on a batch of corpses in SLASH'EM may be useful for this purpose.)
Finally, the Ice Mage must use caution while blind, since freezing spheres will not show up through telepathy and killing one by accident has the same anger effects as killing a pet.
Techniques
A freezing sphere is the perfect weapon for jumping the distance between you and a cross-aligned unicorn. Two or three should do the trick.
Find a magic whistle early to keep your spheres close.
Keep in mind monsters' different vulnerabilities: freezing spheres will not affect the undead, nor, of course, ice vortices, etc.
Taking shops with spheres
Attacking a shopkeeper with a freezing sphere will anger them, but unlike other attacks from outside their shop, it will not trigger the "hot pursuit" behavior that causes them to leave their shop and chase you. This can be exploited to safely kill them with numerous freezing spheres: stand diagonally next to an open shop door, using a digging tool to carve out a suitable niche if necessary, then summon freezing spheres using this spell. The shopkeeper will continually switch weapons and patrol the shop interior until they are eventually killed. Be careful not to stray into their line of fire: they will still shoot their shotguns at you, as well as using any attack wands they possess.
This will usually take around 10 or so spheres; early Flame Mages, Ice Mages, and Wizards can easily use the power surge technique to summon that many in one go.
See also
- This page is a SLASH'EM related stub. Should you wish to do so, you can contribute by expanding this page.
- This page is a stub. Should you wish to do so, you can contribute by expanding this page.
