Potion of polymorph
! 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | polymorph |
| Appearance | random |
| Base price | 200 zm |
| Weight | 20 |
| Monster use | May be used by monsters as misc items. |
Quaffing this potion will make you polymorph. Without polymorph control, this will likely destroy your armor. Therefore it is usually a bad potion to quaff.
Monsters can quaff this potion. Mercifully, this will not generate out-of-depth monsters.[1]
Throwing this potion at a monster will cause it to polymorph. Note that you can also cause a monster to polymorph by wielding the potion and smashing it on them, but this is not advised because if by an unlucky chance that monster becomes a cockatrice, you will be petrified.
Dipping an item into this potion may polymorph the item. Invocation items, the Amulet of Yendor, and speelbooks/wands/potions of polymorph will never be polymorphed. Other artifacts have a 95% chance to resist, and other items 5%[2]. The usual checks for golem creating, items vanishing, artifacts resisting, etc. are skipped, but large stacks still merge to small ones[3]. Dipping this potion into another one (except water) will similarly polymorph the other potion, rather than resulting in random alchemy.
When an item resists polymorph, you receive the message "Nothing happens."; this doesn't use up the potion and doesn't break polypileless conduct. When an item accidentally polymorphs into itself, you receive the message "Nothing seems to happen"; this uses up the potion and breaks polypileless. In both cases, the potion isn't formally identified but you can #name it, since both messages are different from the "Interesting..." that usually appears when nothing actually happens after dipping.
Trying to use-test or dip-test potions may result in the loss of the polyselfless or polypileless conduct. Because of this, some conduct players try to price-id the potions and identify the 200 zm potions otherwise. Here are a few other ways that do not require magical identification:
- Dipping a resisting item, such as a wand of polymorph or the Bell of Opening, is always safe and doesn’t use up the tested potions.
- Quaffing while wearing an amulet of unchanging. This uses up the potion and exposes you to it’s effects; luckily, all the others 200z potions are safe to drink (although you may want to bless them first).
- Quaffing while having polymorph control. If asked, choose to polymorphing into your own race—this doesn't break the conduct, but may have other undesired effects.
- Witnessing a monster using it. Monsters with difficulty 5 or less are occasionally generated with one as their miscellaneous item. You could also try leaving 200z potions in the path of intelligent monsters.
References
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