# Talk:Spellbook of force bolt
Range
Is there any data on how far a force bolt travels? Yidda 23:03, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I've seen a force bolt regularly hit 5 direct squares away, but I've also seen it reach only two diagonal squares. Yidda 05:55, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
In NetHack (vanilla) v. 3.6.6, my level 2 wizard just burst two boulders at a distance of 4 and 5 units away. jvriesem 13:46, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
Does force bolt do shock damage? No One Special 11:25, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

No, it's magic damage. -Tjr 11:35, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Force bolt and nymphs
I disagree somewhat with suggestions that killing Nymphs with force bolt is a 'Bad Idea'. I think that it should be the last choice of ranged attack, but also that an awake nymph should be dealt with wherever possible. A luck penalty is much less infuriating, and more manageable than the potential consequences of a your inventory items being used against you.--PeterGFin 23:35, February 19, 2010 (UTC)

Well, force-bolting nymphs is definitely a worse idea than leaving them asleep. Once it is running around, I usually kill it by whatever means, especially if I don't have a light source. -Tjr 04:00, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
Ok, perhaps the advice against force bolt was targeting the kind of people who haven't memorized what turn Luck exactly times out etc. -Tjr 04:01, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
It's also worth noting that Force Bolts cast by the player do not respect magic reflection.  This can be very important if you're in a situation like I was just earlier today, with a pet-woken nymph stealing your amulet of reflection and your damned Magicbane. 71.199.74.75 18:57, May 12, 2010 (UTC)
Instructions on how to cast
I removed the paragraph that said how to cast the spell, for two reasons: 1) It's redundant, and if anywhere belongs in the article on spells, and 2) it falsely seemed to imply that vi is the only control scheme for nethack or this spell, which is certainly not true. -Ion frigate 21:19, 5 August 2011 (UTC)