ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Just unlocked fearscape on my Corruptor and decided to try it for the first time on Necromancer Pride Boss.
I tried it twice and both time it told me the spell fizzled. The result was me getting the sustain activated with the vim cost but the fearscape itself didn't activate.

Is there something I'm missing here or what?

Are you wearing anything Antimagic disrupting?

I didn't know the spell could fizzle at all, actually.

Nope. All the other spells worked nicely.
I've had a strange fizzle happen to me before with phase door in sand worm lair.

It's probably safe to assume you had enough Vim, as you mentioned it deducted the cost, so it wasn't just failure to start. Did you have enough to sustain it though? It has a cost per turn after activation, does it not?

The only way I can think of a phase door fizzling besides disruption is because there were no usable tiles in range. Rare, for sure, but not impossible.

Mechanically, I have no experience with Fearscape, so I wouldn't know what to actually *look* for. Is it suppose to change that portion of the level, or do what Dreamscape does and open a temporary map?

It opens a temporary map, just like Dreamscape.
As for the Vim, I had plenty. I made extra sure to disable excess sustains to prolong Fearscape as long as possible.

Pride Necro was the first and only fearscape attempt on this char so I'd better test if it happens again or if it was just happening with that boss.

I figured you would have. Otherwise you'd have noticed, and not needed to report here.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume it doesn't work on bosses. Either him passing a spell save (Necromancer master, after all) or otherwise not working on bosses would make sense. Isn't it a pretty powerful spell (when it works), meaning that it may just *never* or at least *reliably* work against those enemies you want to use it on?

I can confirm it works on at least the first 2 arena bosses.

However, attempts to use it on the fourth arena boss resulted in multiple 'fizzles'. No talent cooldown, no sustain, and no vim reduction. No turn consumed either. Infinitely repeatable. (I should mention this was a few versions back, but it's the only related info I have.)

It's my understanding that certain very specific bosses may not be affected, and the third arena boss got classed as one. However, I don't know the relevant code on this.

I managed to fearscape another pride boss later. Guess we need to go with "certain very specific bosses" answer on this.

Have we ruled out them winning a Spell save roll?

I suppose it would probably still deduct the Vim, but it might not.

I don't think Fearscape checks for saves. Looking at the code, the only reason it'd "fizzle" would be if either you're already in the Fearscape or Dreamscape or if you're targeting a summon. Could you have perhaps been targeting one of Rak'Shor's undead minions instead of the Grand Necromancer himself?