Grimrock

I'm surprised that I haven't seen anyone even talk about the Wand of Fear except as related to it's puzzle. Has anyone else actually used it for the rest of the game?

It's effects don't quite make sense to me. I accidentally cast it on myself once, and it seems to randomly add the Paralyze effect to a party member. But when I used it on monsters, it seemed to actually make them run away (like some do when they are low on health). I was thinking it could be a useful tool to enable a backstab rogue if I ever did a second playthrough. And I did manage to get out of a few corners where I was trapped by monsters with it.

Anyways, has anyone else used it and found it useful? Overall I found it to be a little too much Energy to be worth it, especially since you must charge it first. But I did give an honest go of it because these kinds of unique effects are really what I like to see on items (hint hint, devs!).

Rithrin wrote:I'm surprised that I haven't seen anyone even talk about the Wand of Fear except as related to it's puzzle. Has anyone else actually used it for the rest of the game?

It's effects don't quite make sense to me. I accidentally cast it on myself once, and it seems to randomly add the Paralyze effect to a party member. But when I used it on monsters, it seemed to actually make them run away (like some do when they are low on health). I was thinking it could be a useful tool to enable a backstab rogue if I ever did a second playthrough. And I did manage to get out of a few corners where I was trapped by monsters with it.

Anyways, has anyone else used it and found it useful? Overall I found it to be a little too much Energy to be worth it, especially since you must charge it first. But I did give an honest go of it because these kinds of unique effects are really what I like to see on items (hint hint, devs!).

Well, I think it does paralyze on you, because the game doesn't have the mechanic to make you run in a random direction. Where as the monsters have the AI to do random movement like that.

That's what I assumed, but I would have much rather it Paralyzed the monsters, considering how often it got "resisted" and how two-thirds of the enemies are immune to it.

How did you manage to use it on yourself?

The same way you cast a fireball or poison cloud on yourself - facing a wall when casting it! I thought using it might have been the key to a puzzle... I was wrong.

In my experience, the wand of fear is useful if you want to read the word "Resisted" and not really useful for anything else.

If it actually doesn't get resisted then it makes the monster flee like it would if it were injured, making it harmless, but in practice it seems to just get resisted so often that it's actually faster to just kill the monster.

minmay wrote:In my experience, the wand of fear is useful if you want to read the word "Resisted" and not really useful for anything else.

If it actually doesn't get resisted then it makes the monster flee like it would if it were injured, making it harmless, but in practice it seems to just get resisted so often that it's actually faster to just kill the monster.

I haven't used it much, but maybe it would be useful when you're being swarmed by ratlings, etc?

LastFootnote wrote:

minmay wrote:In my experience, the wand of fear is useful if you want to read the word "Resisted" and not really useful for anything else.

If it actually doesn't get resisted then it makes the monster flee like it would if it were injured, making it harmless, but in practice it seems to just get resisted so often that it's actually faster to just kill the monster.

I haven't used it much, but maybe it would be useful when you're being swarmed by ratlings, etc?

^^^ I would assume things of no intelligence (or low intelligence) it would not work on very well. Things like Ratlings, would probably work very well against. I assume. Not tried it myself.