Forum:Archon with a cockatrice corpse
Help, my Healer is stuck in a corner on the Plane of Air, getting hammered by an archon with a cockatrice corpse. I can hit him with +7 Mjolly, but I have get stoned every turn and have to stop to eat lizard corpses, which I'm almost out of. I'm wearing a ring of conflict; what can I do to kill him or escapeQ.
: The best option would be to zap it with a wand of teleportation; that works on monsters even on no-teleport levels. I can't remember offhand if that has to get past monster MR though. If zapping it doesn't work, try breaking the wand instead, as I'm fairly certain that always works. If you have a wand of wishing handy, you could wish up a wand of teleportation if you don't have one; hopefully you have enough lizard corpses left to do that. Escape doesn't seem that likely an option. A hasted Archon will be faster than you, and you can't teleport yourself away or zap it with a wand of digging.
: Other, more obscure options might include controlled polymorph into a stoning-resistant creature (a yellow dragon or a skeleton might be a good choice), zapping it with a wand of undead turning, which will bring its cockatrice corpse back to life, zapping it with the spell "teleport away", or disarming it with a bullwhip. -Ion frigate 21:25, May 19, 2010 (UTC)
: First of all, don't panic. If you're eating a lot of lizard corpses, you're probably panicking. Take it slow and don't move unless there's something you can do that is reasonably sure to save you. Also, if you have a stethoscope, use it to determine his health. If you do it once it won't cost you the turn. Some ideas:
:*
Zap him with a wand of teleport. The plane of air is no-teleport, but this doesn't apply to monsters from a wand of teleport. If you're stunned from his gaze, break your wand.
:* Polymorph into a medium-sized stoning resistant monster. I believe the strongest would be the skeleton. However this will require both polymorph control and a source of polymorph, which you probably don't have.
:* Pray. If you can safely pray you'll be given ~5 turns of invincibility, which will also cure the temporary stoning. However if you can't pray, trying will surely kill you. This is really just a delaying tactic, giving you the hope that a minotaur or other strong hitter will severely damage the Archon, or that it'll coincidentally wander off.
:* Hit him. This might be feasible if he's low on health, however Mjollnir doesn't do much damage against the shock resistance, and neither do healers. You don't even need to kill him; if he turns to flee then he might not return until after the corpse rots away, or maybe you could just run away to the plane of fire.
:* Run away. An archon has a speed of 16, so if you have speed boots and are unburdened, then you're faster. Note that due to the stoning, you've lost intrinsic speed, so if you DON'T have speed boots then the archon is faster, making this a bad idea. Jumping might help.
:* Get engulfed. Air is full of engulfers. It probably won't be easy to find one if you haven't already been engulfed, though. Once engulfed, just stay in there for the duration. The cockatrice corpse will eventually rot away, and you can prepare for a second attack if it hasn't when you get released.
Qazmlpok 21:33, May 19, 2010 (UTC)
Thanks you guys, those are some helpful ideas, especially not panicing. I had another thought: if I genocide "c", will existing cockatrice corpses disappear? Thanks again.
:
Nope. Genocide doesn't work on corpses. Tins, yes, but not corpses. Also, zapping a wand of teleport ignores MR; for the most part the only time teleportation on the monster isn't effective is if they have teleport control (e.g. the riders) or are a priest in their temple. Also, please sign your posts with 4 tildes so it shows your name, like this Qazmlpok 22:41, May 19, 2010 (UTC)
:
:
Thanks, again. Wand of teleportation worked like a champ. I genocided cockatrices, gathered up all the cockatrice corpses lying around, and went looking for Mr. Archon. Turns out he doesn't like stoning either. I didn't realize I had lost my intrinsic speed; also switched to +6 Vorpal Blade for future Archons; they also don't like being beheaded. Thanks for saving me, OrcChow 21:03, May 20, 2010 (UTC)
