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 will polymorph you from time to time
• spellbook of polymorph will polymorph you, monsters, or objects
• wand of polymorph will polymorph you, monsters, or objects. Hostile monsters zap it to themselves, but never use it against you or your pets. Zapping wand of polymorph, or applying a spell of polymorph, to you or a monster will not affect your or monster's inventory.
• polymorph trap will polymorph you or monsters. Hostile monsters deliberately step into it once. Magic resistance protects against it.
• potion of polymorph will polymorph you (if you quaff it), a monster (if you throw it in a monster; this also angers a peaceful monster), or an object (if you dip an object into the potion of polymorph).
• eating the corpse of a chameleon will polymorph you from time to time to a random monster.
• eating or being biten by a werecreature will polymorph you from time to time to that creature. This can be cured by prayer or quaffing holy water.
• wearing cursed dragon scale mail or cursed dragon scales will polymorph you to this dragon from time to time.

→ 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.

Some monsters are polymorph-resistant. They are designated NOPOLY in the source code. These monsters cannot be polymorphed, and neither you nor monsters can polymorph to them.

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.

Self-polymorph

Self-polymorph is always temporary, unless you wearing amulet of unchange; 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.

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.

If you are wearing dragon scales or dragon scale mail, you turn into that color dragon instead of a random monster, although wearing gray dragon scale mail will prevent a polymorph trap from affecting you by conferring magic resistance.

Amulet of unchange completely prevents all polymorphs. If you are polymorphed already, it prevents you from returning to your old form.

Polymorph from a trap causes a (19-Con)/20 chance of causing a system shock, which results in d30 damage and exercise your constitution.

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.

Abilities and hunger

Your six abilities (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisms) are saved when you polymorph to a monster, and restored when you get back to your old form, no matter what happened when you were polymorphed. While polymorphed, you get abilities corresponding to your monster. For instance, if you had strength 16 and polymorphed to black dragon, your strength will be 18/**. If you eat a killer bea corpse, your strength may be reduced to 18/97, but after returning to a old form, your strength will again be 16.

Matters are different with special abilities, like poison resistance. As a monster you will enjoy all special abilities which you had before your polymorphed, all special abilities of that monster, and all special abilities aquired by magic items which you are wearing or wielding. You may aquire new special abilities, and they will stay with you after returning to your old form. Therefore, if you polymorphed to a dragon without poison resistance, it is a good idea to eat killer beas: the poison resistance which you acquire will stay with you, while the decline in your strength will not.

Hunger is not affected by polymorph or returning back. Even if you polymorph to a non-eating creature when fainting, you will continue to faint without a way to satiate your hunger.

Polymorphing from human to human etc.

Polymorphing to your own race is a special case. Your current and maximal hit points, current and maximal power, and experience will slightly and randomly change, and you have 20% chance to change your sex (as if you weared amulet of change). Other than this, nothing happens.

Polymorphing to your own race while being a monster just returns you to your basic form.

Polymorphing to a monster while being another or same monster is equivalent to returning to your human form and immediately polymorphing to the target monster.

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).

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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