Slow Monster
School Arcane
Type Disabler
Range Touch
Base cost 7
Equivalent item N/A

Slow Monster is an arcane disabler spell in ADOM. It allows the caster to temporarily reduce the speed of the target.

Slow Monster is a decent disabler against melee-oriented monsters improving efficiency of ranged combat and allowing for a more flexible situation handling. Its power is fixed at 50% speed reduction, which is significant for the majority of monsters and NPCs in the game. Note that powerful monsters (e.g. emperor liches) may resist the spell.

Slow Monster can be cast on the PC with the same effect (reducing their current speed by half). While this is by all means a negative modifier, a lot of players practice slowing the PC during the fights with monsters, especially very powerful ones. This is explained by the following aspect of ADOM:

The difference between the PC's and a monster's speed directly affects the experience gains awarded for killing the monster. This modifier is calculated right before the killing blow connects and is not influenced by speed ratio during the previous fight turns. Typically, the PC with half his/her normal speed will receive approximately twice as much experience for killing the monster whose speed wasn't modified. The opposite is also true, thus a PC with normal speed will receive half of the base experience if the speed of the monster was reduced by 50%.

In addition, prior to version 1.2.0 prerelease 7, the game checked the modified attributes of the PC, rather than the base ones, when deciding if a stat should be increased. Thus, using Slow Monster on the PC greatly extended the usability of speed-boosting corpses, such as those of greater claw bugs and quicklings.

Casting Slow Monster multiple times will not lead to a greater speed reduction, although the duration of the effect stacks. The spell will only be trained if the target was successfully slowed or the slow effect duration was increased.



Fixed 50% speed reduction.


Slow duration is dependent on caster's Willpower (W) and proficiency with the spell (P). The exact formula, measured in turns, is as follows:

3d{W + P}


Spell messages

  • Casting Slow Monster on an empty tile will generate "For a moment time passes very slowly..." message.
  • Casting Slow Monster on target monster or NPC will generate "-target- suddenly slows down" message if speed reduction is applied. No message will be generated when slowing effect wears off.
  • If the target resists the spell, the message "-target- ignores you." is displayed.
  • Casting Slow Monster on the PC will generate "Suddenly everything around you seems to speed up!". When the effect wears off "Suddenly everything around you seems to slow down." will appear.