D1 Spellbooks: Difference between revisions

Unlike Diablo II with its skill trees of unique abilities for each character, Diablo featured no special attack skills at all. In Diablo and Hellfire all of the characters can cast the same spells from scrolls, charges on staffs, or from memory, after learning the spells by reading spell books.

* Most spells can be found in charges on items; on staffs and some unique items. Some Hellfire spells can only be found on staffs.

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* Scrolls/Staffs only: Resurrect, Apocalypse, Nova. (Apocalypse and Nova exist in book form in Hellfire.)

** Staffs only: Jester, Magi, Mana.

* Staffs: Magic requirement is equal to the magic required to read the level 1 book.  

* Scrolls: Magic req is usually lower than staffs/book reading.

* '''Available: '''Scrolls and staffs only in Diablo. On books as well in Hellfire, but the only way to get a book is to kill Na-Krul.

A projectile spell most commonly seen being cast by Witches. Each Blood Star moves relatively slowly and in a straight line. There is no splash damage. This is the only viable, magic-type skill to kill targets at a distance, but the fact that it does so much less damage than comparable fire or lightning spells means it is very seldom used, except in special circumstances. (There are no monsters who are immune to Fire and Lightning in but not Magic in Diablo. There are a few in Hellfire.)

Charged Bolt sends out several small squares of electricity per use. These squares move semi-randomly in the direction the caster is facing, spreading out and usually bouncing off of walls. They are not especially damaging, but can be useful to "wake up" all of the non-lightning immune monsters in a room, bringing them out to fight while leaving the other monsters in the area undisturbed.

A summonable stone man, the Golem is a slow moving but fairly damaging companion, most commonly used by sorcerers against triple immune monsters.  Golems can also be helpful to distract enemies, and to kill targets on the other side of a wall. They benefit greatly from the stone curse spell, since if their targets are stationary and helpless, the golem hits with every strike and takes no damage during the battle. Golems are not useful against higher level melee monsters, who will kill them quickly. A single golem can terrorize entire levels in the Church, though.

Golems are primarily useful against Advocates, since they can withstand a lot of damage from Flash spells, and are not touched by the Advocates' Fireballs. They are less successful against Witches, and take damage from Bloodstar. Also, due to a bug in the Golem's light radius (it's set to infinite) every witch on the level sees the golem the moment he's cast, and will fire at him if they have a line of sight. Golems home in on nearby enemies. If nothing is nearby, they will walk in the direction their caster is facing.

In Diablo and Hellfire, items can be equipped and used without being identified. However, all magical and unique items found in the dungeons or given as quest rewards are unidentified, and must be identified (by this spell or by Deckard Cain) before their special properties become active.  

Nova is only found on scrolls and staffs in Diablo. In Hellfire it can be found in book form.

Jester is only found on staffs. Jester staffs will cast a semi-random spell each time the charges are used. Spells are fired at the character's appropriate Slvl, or at level 1 if the character has not yet read a book for that spell.

Unlike most spells, Lightning Wall can damage the player who casts it, and this damage is treated as fire from a trap (thus "of thieves" item will half it). Each space in the flame hits every .05 second for the duration.  

Found only in charges on staffs, the Magi charges work like drinking a full mana potion. They completely refill the mana of the caster, unlike the partial mana fill granted by the Mana charges.

Many of the spells in the demo were unbalanced and buggy, but they had some interesting effects not found in the final game. We don't have full stats for these, just the icons and a quick description of how they worked. Thanks to [http://www.ladyofthecake.com/diablo/spells.htm Lady of the Cake] for most of the info in this section. The following skills were only found in the demo, and are not in the final game, though a few of the icons were eventually reused.

An odd sort of proximity-based magical attack. When cast with enemies nearby, they would take huge damage, as though their blood was boiling from within. Presumably it did not work on undead, since skeletons pretty clearly lack blood.

A spell-casters aid, this one transferred health points to mana points. It's interesting to think who would use this in the final game. Sorcerers wouldn't much bother, since they have such high mana and low hit points anyway. Rogues, before going into mini-mage mode? Bards?

This one summoned two serpents from out of the ground, which then slithered over to attack nearby targets. They did not attack the Undead. The graphics were not finished, and it's hard to see who would have found this useful in the final game, when so many spells do the same thing, but more quickly, and against Undead as well.

A precursor to Stone Curse, this one turned living things solid. It did not work on the Undead.

 

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