Paralyse

Paralyse is a monster-only spell which attempts to induce paralysis for 2-5 turns, rendering you unable to act for the duration. Your SH is set to 0, and EV set to near 0. After being paralysed, the player gets a brief period of immunity to paralysis (1-3 turns).

Formicids are completely immune to paralysis. For other species, the spell can be resisted by willpower.

Note that the paralytic gaze of floating eyes does not work the same way as this spell; their gaze does not require line of fire and does not check willpower.

Monsters

Players (and other monsters) can replicate the spell with a wand of paralysis. Your power (before stepdown) is 15 + 3.5 * Evocations.

Spellpower

Like most Hexes, monsters cast Paralyse with 4 * HD spellpower. After applying a stepdown function, it is compared to your willpower. If your willpower is 99 points greater than power, you are immune to that monster's paralyse. If your will is equal the power, there's a 50% chance of resisting.

Strategy

Paralysis has the potential to be extremely dangerous; it should be treated as instant death. Many monsters can kill you - just on their own - with 5 turns of action. For example, orc sorcerers can deal 3d17 damage per turn, or up to 270 damage over 5 turns. With a group of monsters, the chance of survival decreases exponentially.

Paralyse works like any regular Hexes spell. The following tricks can be used against it:

• It requires a line of fire to hex you. Hiding behind other monsters works. Any means of obstructing line of sight also prevents the spell from being cast.
• Monsters can't cast spells while silenced. While expending a scroll of silence for every paralysing monster is prohibitively expensive, it can work in a pinch. A phial of floods can waterlog monsters (except dread liches and demons) to the same effect.
• Willpower - though it takes high willpower to reach 0% success. Your XL and species matters - don't think you're safe because you have "Will+++". See below table for details.
  • In Tartarus, where dread liches and Ereshkigal reside, having enough willpower is outright impossible. Tartarus halves willpower.
• Having other allies around. Allies can still fight while you're paralysed. Plus, monsters will often target allies over you. Of course, this isn't an infallible means of protection.

History

• Prior to 0.29, paralysis lasted for 2-7 turns.
• Prior to their removal in 0.18, you could wear an amulet of stasis to block paralysis.
• Prior to 0.4, Paralyse was available to players as a level 4 Enchantments spell. It was removed in favor of Petrify.