Spell questions, Hand of death?

[Vynd]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Merry Jolkar:
When my wizard casts Hand of Death, does he have to then "attack" in order to use it? And, will it work only once, or for the remainder of the battle?

Hand of death is just a damage spell with a range of 1. Your mage will only cast it if an enemy is right next to them.

---

This is what I've always assumed. Makes it and other spells like it seem pretty useless to me. I've never had the AI cast it after enemies walked up next to my mage. And scripting it is pretty much out of the question unless you have a flying mage set to attack and then cast, and even then you're playing 50/50 odds that he will just melee instead. It's a pity, because if we had better control over what our mages did then hand of death, shocking grasp, and other stuff like that could be pretty useful.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Merry Jolkar:
When my wizard casts Hand of Death, does he have to then "attack" in order to use it? And, will it work only once, or for the remainder of the battle?

Hand of death is just a damage spell with a range of 1. Your mage will only cast it if an enemy is right next to them.

---

Except that if an enemy is right next to the mage, 50% of the time the mage can't cast spells and will have to attempt melee anyway, correct?

Or is it only if the mage is actually attacked?

[HJ]

This also means that in 50% of the cases he will cast a potentially very damaging spell, instead of just tickling them with his fists. Of course, he still has to survive the fact that they actually got close to him, but it's still better than the melee option of your average (weakling) mage.