Polymorph
Polymorph refers to the magic that changes one creature into a different species, or changes an object to another object of the same type. A polymorph that affects you or a monster does not polymorph items carried in your or its inventory, although see below for effects on armor. Shapeshifters have a similar but slightly different power.
Several things can polymorph you, monsters, or objects:
- ring of polymorph
- spellbook of polymorph
- wand of polymorph
- polymorph trap
- potion of polymorph
- eating the corpse of a chameleon
→ Polypiling is the practice of aiming polymorph at a pile of junk, hoping to produce better or rare items.
→ Polymerge combines stacks of items into golems.
If you have polymorph control, from wearing a ring of polymorph control or having eaten one and absorbed its intrinsic, you get to choose which monster to become, although some monsters are unavailable; such monsters are designated NOPOLY in the source code. If you are wearing dragon scales or dragon scale mail, you turn into that color dragon, although wearing gray dragon scale mail will prevent a polymorph trap from affecting you. If you have lycanthropy, you switch between your animal and were forms. If you are a vampire or vampire bat, you switch between the two. Polymorph from a trap causes a (19-Con)/20 chance of causing a system shock, which results in d30 damage and exercise your constitution. When a creature is wearing body armor, a shirt and/or a cloak, and becomes something LARGE or bigger, a non-humanoid MEDIUM or bigger, or a winged gargoyle or marilith (wings and extra arms don't fit), the armor will burst apart. When this happens to a monster, a distinctive sound results, which may warn you that a polymorph trap is present on the level. When a creature becomes too small for its armor, the armor falls to the floor, also creating a distinctive noise. An exception is when you are wearing a dragon scales or mail (such as silver dragon scale mail) and get polymorphed into a dragon (in this case, a silver dragon) where your armor will "merge" with the dragon and not be destroyed, though the cloak and shirt will still be.
If you genocide your base species while polymorphed, you will "feel dead inside". If you subsequently return to that form, you will die, even if you are wearing an amulet of life saving. If you quit before you return to your base form, the death message will be "Quitted, while on Charon's Boat".
There are various strategic uses of self-polymorph. One can become a monster with higher base speed, a monster immune to stoning, a monster able to eat amulets and/or rings in order to absorb intrinsics, or a monster with a useful moster power. Monster powers include a were-creature's ability to summon pets, laying eggs which hatch into pets (only if the polyform is female), a spider's able to spin webs, and many others. Disadvantages to polyself include losing the use of one's hands, losing the ability to wear armor, and losing encumbrance capacity.
Monster versus adventurer polymorphs
NetHack treats the situation differently depending on whether you (as the adventurer) or a monster polymorphs.
When a monster polymorphs, the change is permanent. For example, if you change your pet dog into a dragon, it will never become a dog again (except by chance from a later polymorph).
If you polymorph, assuming that you are not wearing an amulet of unchanging, the change is temporary; you will eventually return to your old form. The polymorph will time out. If your health reaches zero while polymorphed, you will also return to your old form instead of dying.
An interesting case of this is lycanthropy. If you have this condition, you will sometimes polymorph into a canine (a jackal, for example). There is also a monster in the game called a werejackal, which in its human form will also sometimes become a jackal. As the jackal, either you or the monster can summon allied jackals as help. (If you summon them, then you keep the jackals as pets.) The similarity ends when as the jackal, you or the monster lose all of your health. You will become your normal race again, while the monster will die without transforming back into a human.
SLASH'EM changes the behavior from vanilla NetHack. In SLASH'EM, monster polymorphs behave more like player polymorphs in that monsters who are killed while polymorphed will revert to their original form. Polymorphed items will also return to their original forms after a certain amount of time.
SLASH'EM
SLASH'EM features a new monster, the genetic engineer, whose attack polymorphs you.
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