Potion of polymorph
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| |
|---|---|
| Name | polymorph |
| Appearance | random |
| Base price | 200 zm |
| Weight | 20 |
| Monster use | May be used by monsters as misc items. |
A potion of polymorph is a type of potion that appears in NetHack. can be used to
Contents
Generation
Monsters may receive the potion of polymorph as a miscellaneous item.
Description
The potion has various effects depending on its use, and can polymorph items, monsters or the player.
Quaffing, throwing and wielding
Quaffing this potion will cause you to polymorph. Monsters can also quaff this potion; mercifully, this will not generate out-of-depth monsters.[1] Throwing this potion at a monster will cause it to polymorph, as will wielding the potion and smashing it on them.
Dipping
Dipping an item into this potion may polymorph the item. Invocation items, the Amulet of Yendor, and spellbooks/wands/potions of polymorph will never be polymorphed; other artifacts have a 95% chance of resisting, while other items have a 5% chance of resisting.[2] The usual checks for golem creation, items vanishing, artifacts resisting, etc. are skipped, but large stacks still merge to small ones.[3] Dipping this potion into another, non-water potion will similarly polymorph the other potion, rather than resulting in random alchemy.
Items that resist polymorphing will not use up the potion or break polypileless conduct - however, an item may accidentally polymorph into itself, which 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.
Strategy
Wielding the potion and hitting a monster is not advised because if by an unlucky chance that monster becomes a cockatrice, you will be petrified.
Identification
Most players can easily identify the potion by dipping an item into it, especially as quaffing may destroy some of your armor. Some conduct players prefer to price-id or otherwise identify 200zm potions to avoid breaking polyselfless or polypileless conducts. Here are a few other methods that do not require magical identification:
- Dipping a resistant 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 uses up the potion, but prevents it from taking effect; fortunately, all the other 200 zm potions are safe to drink as well (although you may want to bless them first).
- Quaffing with a source of polymorph control will pull up a prompt; you can then choose to polymorph into your own race, which doesn't break the conduct, but may have other undesired effects.
- Monsters with difficulty 5 or less are occasionally generated with one as their miscellaneous item, and watching one drink the potion will identify it. You could also try leaving 200 zm potions in the path of intelligent monsters.
- Dip-testing with a unicorn horn is a suitable method, provided you are not using your only unicorn horn; using a spare horn can also yield a magical tool.
References
This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.
It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.1. Information on this page may be out of date.
Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-361}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.
