| Frost Bolt/Nether Bolt | |
|---|---|
| School | Arcane, Clerical |
| Type | Damage |
| Range | Bolt |
| Base cost | 12 |
| Equivalent item | wand of cold |
Frost Bolt is an offensive bolt spell in ADOM. It allows the caster to fire a ray of ice in a specified direction, damaging every creature (that doesn't evade or resist) in its path.
Frost Bolt is a bolt spell, thus sharing the following features:
- The spell travels in a straight line in one of the 8 possible directions.
- Frost Bolt damage decreases slightly as it travels.
- Monsters are able to shrug off the bolt completely resisting the damage.
- Frost Bolt will disappear as soon as it hits a wall or a door.
- Damaging monsters with a bolt spell while invisible will not betray the PC's position to them.
All elemental bolt spells are roughly comparable in terms of damage. Frost Bolt is slightly superior to Fire Bolt due to the fact that a relatively low number of monsters resist cold damage. The spell typically doesn't destroy items on the floor with the exception of scrolls, spellbooks and potions (all, however, significant for spellcasting characters).
Frost Bolt is incredibly potent in the Tower of Eternal Flames, as all its inhabitants (except chaos servants and the Ancient Chaos Wyrm himself) are vulnerable to cold.
Stats[]
Damage
Frost Bolt damage is dependent on the PC's level (L) and proficiency (P) with the spell. As mentioned above, it slightly loses in firepower as it travels further from the caster (r stands for the amount of remaining travel points — it starts equal to the spell radius and decreases by 1 point per each tile). The exact formula for the spell damage looks the following way:
{max[4, (L + P) / 3]}d6 + r
Radius
Frost Bolt radius depends on the PC's Willpower score (W) and level (L). The exact formula looks the following way:
W / 4 + L / 4 + 2
Example
In the example situation a level 6 Wizard with 15 Willpower casts a + 2 Frost Bolt directly to the east. According to the formulae above, the effective spell damage will be 4d6 + r and spell radius will be equal to 6.
r=6543210 ######### #.......###### #.@.g...od...# #.......####.# #########
The goblin ('g') will receive 4d6 + 4 points of damage, the orc (monster) ('o') will receive 4d6 points of damage, while the rabid dog ('d') will not be affected, as the bolt will disappear right before it.
Extra
Frost Bolt will freeze a water tile if the projectile passes it on maximum power. In practice that means that the PC should stand right next to a water tile for the freezing effect to take place. Ice bridges can safely carry weights of up to 2000s, but will begin creaking and possibly breaking on higher weights.
Some information taken with permission from Andy Williams' Guidebook.