Arena:Magical Effects

These are the magical effects available for spells, potions, and magical items.  All of the spells in The Known Spellbook use the effects listed here.  If you want to make your own spells, they too must have effects from the list below.

Spell Effects

  "Designate as Non-Target" does not work as advertised.  While monsters will not actively come after you or look in your direction, the spell-casting ones will still throw their spells your way (while otherwise seeming to ignore you).

  Spell absorption works only if you are not at your maximum spell point level.

  Resistance to poison also prevents paralysis.

Spellmaking Recommendations
The most powerful effects are Spell Reflection and Create: Shield.  The former will kill any spell-casting monster, even fire daemons (given enough time).  The latter will keep you in a shell of protection, and at higher levels you can create shields with hundreds of health points, allowing you to explore with near impunity.  Shields do not disappear after a period of time elapses; they dissipate slowly by being damaged in melee combat.

At high levels, you can create spells that cost zero points to cast.  Such effects as unlock, cure, invisibility, levitation, heal health and fatigue, and damage health can be made into spells you can cast regardless of whether you have any available spell points.

At low levels, it's better to have spells with a higher base chance of success and a lower chance/success per level increase. At higher levels (particularly around Level 14 or 15), the inverse is true. Around this point in the game, you can create spells with a 5% chance of success with +5% chance of success per level. These spells have a very high chance of success (around 80%), whereas the standard prepackaged spells (which use the opposite model) will have about a 70% chance of success. These newer spells generally cost less to cast than spells of the former model, as well.

"Area Centered on Caster" is an excellent way to shape a spell that damages health, as it works instantaneously on release.  Spells that affect targets at range take more time to work, and you will be more likely to find yourself trading fatal spells with a monster.  However, this is not to say that damage spells that target at range are useless; you just need to be aware of their drawbacks.

Do not worry that a spell will take up all of your spell points if you cast it.  You can carry any number of Potions of Restore Power without encumbering yourself.

Notes
A damage spell with an explosion centered on yourself will not affect you. Explosions at range can damage you if you're close enough to the target. If you have Spell Absorption, it is possible to absorb your own spell this way.
The duration of one round is always five seconds real time. Thus, increasing the speed of the game can maximize the work generated by some spells (such as spell reflection) through exposing yourself to potentially more enemies during that period. However, a lower cycles count is better for continuous damage spells since the frequency of the deterioration will be increased relative to the world.
A shield spell does not stack if you use it again. A weak shield spell can overwrite the value of a strong one. If you create a custom spell with three Create Shield effects, only the last effect in the list will be used even if the previous ones were more powerful.

Bugs
Non-Target is bugged when it is added to a spell as the second effect. "May cast offensive spells" defaults to No instead of Yes. If you switch it to Yes, the effect will turn into a bugged Damage Health effect, or the menu may hang up instead. Casting the spell will either kill you instantly or cause the game to freeze. Leaving the option on "No" will give you the offensive-spells version, but for the same cost as the no-offensive-spells version.
If the cost of a spell exceeds 65535, it will overflow to 0. You can use the effects Non-Target or Cause Paralysis to significantly increase cost and tweak a second cheaper effect to achieve the granularity necessary for a 0 cost spell. This exploit can be used to create extremely potent and cheap spells at any level.
If the cost of a spell overflows (past 65535 gold) twice, the game will crash. This usually happens when tweaking Non-Target to very high chance per level.