Draft:Scroll of heroism
| ? | |
| Type | Scroll |
|---|---|
| Base value (Au) | 200 |
| Item level | 5 |
| Weight | 5 |
| Unidentified appearance | Random inscription |
| Cursed name | Scroll of cowardliness |
A scroll of heroism temporarily improves hit, damage, defense and action speed. Its cursed form removes heroism and drains experience levels rather than merely causing ordinary fear.
Generation
It is an item-level-5 scroll, obtainable through random loot, pawn-shop stock and acquirement.
Description
A noncursed scroll adds 1–5 plus blessing strength to the heroism counter. Each unit normally lasts until a ten-minute status update. While active, heroism adds current Dexterity to hit, current Strength to damage, and current Agility to defense. It also halves the action-speed value during combat-stat calculation, with the usual final speed limits and other modifiers still applying.
This is a status bonus, not an increase in the six attributes themselves. Repeated use extends the counter rather than applying the combat bonuses a second time. Haste and heroism participate separately in speed calculation, although not every command scales with action speed: reading and drinking retain their fixed durations.
A cursed scroll clears heroism and drains as many experience levels as the absolute value of its blessing strength. The drain also reduces maximum and current HP; dropping below level 0 or below 1 HP kills the reader. Fear resistance is not checked by this level-drain effect. Every reading records the scroll type.
Strategy
Read it before a difficult fight, while there is time to prepare and fear has not blocked reading. Characters with strong physical attributes gain correspondingly substantial bonuses. Blessing extends the effect but does not multiply its combat bonuses.
Boots of heroism offer a longer-term equipment alternative; speed improves the speed side without all of heroism's combat bonuses. A potion of banishing fear removes actual fear, but cannot restore levels lost to the cursed scroll. Do not test an uncertain copy near the bottom of your HP or level reserves.