monster spellcasting and abilities

[Peter Mardahl <peterm@soda.berkeley.edu>]

  I looked at the code a little bit.  It looks like it works just
like i thought.

  If a monster contains an 'ability', it casts the spell non-magicaly.

You can tell if a monster casts something as an ability by killing it.
If it leaves behind a wand, rod, horn, spellbook, or whatever, it
was probably casting it as magic.`
Otherwise, it was an ability, and your amulet of protection from
magic will not help you.

I do not like this much.  For some monsters, SOME of their spells should
be abilities.  Paralysis and fear for undead should be abilities.  
Fire spells, and cold spells for undead should not be abilities, they
should be spells.

Dragons can fire large fireballs as abilities.  These should be spells.
They might be, if the attacktype of the ability for 'cast fireball' 
is ORed with magic.

Abilities which are always magical:
magic bullet
ability_coldspell
ability_firespell
ability_lightning
ability_mass_confusion
ability_missile (magic missile spell)
ability_paralyze
ability_speedball


  Those are the purely magical abilities of monsters.
Interestingly, skulls nad beholders have exactly the same abilities.
Which are:
(magical as spells): paralyze, lightning,bullet, missile, firespell
coldspell

(abilities) fear, poison, slow 



So your amulet of protection from magic does you lots of good
against skulls and beholders, not so much agianst dragons.

Regards,

PeterM