[Crawl] What good is Tomb of Doroklohe?

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Well, what good is Tomb of Doroklohe to a mage, especially a Earth
Elementalist?
I've never managed to find it, even in character dumps, and is it
really useful for when you get surrounded by tons of enemies? And
couldn't it also totally screw you over if you dont have a digging or
teleport ability?

And on getting totally screwed over by getting surrounded in rock, what
good is Pass Wall? Seems like one of the worst spells ever, imo, since
it can instantly kill your character, probably even at high levels of
earth magic skill, too.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Mechanoid wrote:
> Well, what good is Tomb of Doroklohe to a mage, especially a Earth
> Elementalist?

It's insanely good.

> I've never managed to find it, even in character dumps,

That's odd... my last winner had it, and it's often in winning mage
dumps. It's a very high-level spell, though, and you need to actually
*find* the Book of Earth to learn it, so that keeps its rarity in dumps
up there pretty high I guess.

> and is it
> really useful for when you get surrounded by tons of enemies?

Yes -- blink (even uncontrolled blink will often be enough) plus ToD is
an absolute lifesaver. If benefit-per-turn is more valuable to you than
MP, you can make your reentry with a Shatter, which always amuses the
crowds.

> And couldn't it also totally screw you over if you dont have a digging or
> teleport ability?

Yes, but acquiring at least one of the many ways available to escape it
is no real problem for someone capable of casting it in the first place.

> And on getting totally screwed over by getting surrounded in rock, what
> good is Pass Wall?

ToD is one of the few things that make Passwall useful -- it's a
ToD-exit method that only takes up 3 spell slots. And since you'll
mostly be casting it from inside of ToD's, the casting time isn't such a
problem.

Otherwise, it's occasionally useful for reaching walled-off areas
without using Dig, etc.

I'm sure more uses for it are out there, but I've never taken the time
to investigate.

> Seems like one of the worst spells ever,
> imo, since it can instantly kill your character,

Then don't do that then. You do get warned, after all.

> probably even at high levels of earth magic skill, too.

Ignore the warning, risk death, no matter what your Earth skill. But the
warning starts gradually applying to larger and larger numbers of
squares (never ALL that large though IIRC).

Erik