Talk:Polymorph

What is the requirement for breaking out of your armor when polymorphed? Is it strictly based on monster size and if so what size do you have to be to break the armor? Are all monsters that don't break or fall out of armor able to wear it? --Mogri 21:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

1 size up, (medium to large or huge, or into a monster with limbs that don't fit)

I've noticed that occasionally when I'm not using a ring of polymorph control and I eat a chameleon or zap myself with a wand, I'll sometimes transform into the opposite gender. I tried it with the ring of polymorph control, but it doesn't seem to accept gender as an argument. Can anyone verify/explain this? Skylerorlando 23:41, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

With polymorph control, poly into your own race ("human", "dwarf", "elf", "orc"). It'll run the code in Source:polyself.c#newman, and you'll have a 10% chance to change gender.

Mniot 03:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Esoteric uses of polyself

Let's start a collection of all those creative little tweaks polyself is good for. For a start:

• nymph/leprechaun: re-donate the gold or get the temple priest's robe & books, but retain temple for sanctuary or future donations
• xorn: phase your way to all those gems embedded in stone, hoping for a luckstone (using "detect treasure")

And of course, there are the well-known ones:

• nymph: take your pet archon's artifact weapon in order to enchant it
• make silver/gray dragon scale mail (hatch eggs and wait for them to grow up)
• xorn: eat jewelry for intrinsics (late game)
• gelatinous cube: eat jewelry
• cockatrice: lay eggs to trow on monsters ("stoning grenade")
• cockatrice: petrify monsters that sting, such as Yenooghu (do people really do this?)
• xorn: phase through walls to sneak up on the Named Demons (or the rouge quest nemesis)
• black dragon: breath weapon
• nymph/elemental/vortex/metallivore: get rid of punishment (do people really do this?)

Tjr 06:47, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

• xorn: phase to steal from a shop, or gain nutrition from junk armor
• giant: pick up boulders stuck against walls, especially on the astral plane
• cockatrice: lay eggs, hatch'em, kill them for a stoning corpse to make statues. I actually did that in the astral plane temple in order to polymorph for gems, the rest of the level was filled with harmless creatures. Tjr 12:39, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Found external links:

• [[1]]
• [[2]] pretty much answers this question for the early game
• air elemental: travel form

This really takes off if you have both polycontrol and polymorph rings and/or intrinsic. Does monster magic resistance also apply to players in monster form? Tjr 13:57, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

• black pudding: start a pudding farm. You have to let a monster hit you to divide, throwing stuff upwards will not work. Anger the single pudding before you split it. Alternatively, polymorph the tame ones to get powerful pets.
• own race, combined with amulets of life saving, potions of full healing and local wraiths: polyself bug Tjr 12:23, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

• a pacifist atheist who lost his pet can turn into a gremlin to get a new one out of a fountain. -Tjr 17:53, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

NOPOLY

So what's up with this tag? I always thought it designated those monsters you cannot polymorph into. Somebody removed that as misleading. So what is it good for? -Tjr 11:21, September 12, 2009 (UTC)

It does specify monsters you and other monsters can't polymorph into. What it doesn't specify is monsters that can't be polymorphed, as any pacifist who led their Archon onto a polytrap could tell you. That's the misleading part. I added a section listing all the NOPOLY monsters, specifying that they can't be polyed into, only out of. --Darth l33t 18:30, September 12, 2009 (UTC)

Playing with permanent polymorph

I don't think I've seen a recommendation for permanent polymorph (through an amulet of unchanging after polymorphing) for playing through the game. Playing as a handful of medium sized monsters will give the player useful attacks/intrinsics, good base AC, and still allow use of all types of armor and weapons. For example, polymorphing into a Skeleton will give stoning resistance, level drain resistance, magical breathing, as well as a slowing attack. Skeletons do not normally eat, but a player skeleton is still able to eat to gain intrinsics, and does not even need to worry about overeating due to the inherit magical breathing. Other useful polymorphs include aleax, vampire (lord)s, (master) mind flayers, (arch) liches, and gargoyles. All have a number of drawbacks, i.e. a vampire or mind flayer cannot at all attack a cockatrice, and most are slower than a regular player. They also have significantly fewer hit points than a regular character, but this can be remedied in two ways;

• Potions of full healing can be prepared in advance to gain a large number of hit points
• A level 30 character polymorphing into a grid bug will have the same HP as a level 1 character polymorphing into a grid bug. However, after polymorphing, the player will still gain HP and Power (although it seems to be at a reduced rate, especially for some monsters). Furthermore, level drain will reduce power but not maximum HP; thus it is possible for a polymorphed player without level drain resistance to repeatedly cast drain life to reduce their experience level and kill a weak monster to regain the level, resulting in constant HP gains.

Thus polymorphed players can potentially enjoy multiple attacks (Aleaxes have two weapon attacks and a kick), unobtainable intrinsics such as stoning resistance or flight, and low base AC that can be supplemented still with armor and divine protection. The cost of this is the amulet slot, a fixable reduction to HP, and if non-chaotic and polymorphed into a demon or undead, loss of prayer (however, a lawful undead will be able to use this to return to human form when near death, even with the amulet of unchanging). According to enlightenment, any polymorph was also giving me the aggravate monsters intrinsic, which was not there when a regular human. Certain forms will also have extreme weaknesses, especially to cockatrices and creatures with passive attacks (a master mind flayer attacking a spotted jelly will potentially take 6 passive attacks, each for (level+1)d6; easily hundreds of points of damage at higher levels).

Is this really the only negatives for polymorphing into a medium sized monster? I was not able to see any noticable decrease in weapon or armor effectiveness. The speed penalties are rather minor in most cases, and the skeleton even has the ability to slow enemies when attacking. Am I simply missing something because I was using wizard mode? There seem to be a ton of advantages for polymorphing into a skeleton and very few disadvantages, yet I haven't seen it ever mentioned here. I did see an RGRN (IIRC) post about playing through the game polymorphed as a black dragon; so it is certainly possible, and that form results in the loss of your hands. The forms I am thinking of seem to have almost no downside to them and tons of bonuses. Am I simply missing something? It even looks like a player could obtain or wish for an amulet of unchanging and ring of polymorph control, turn into a Skeleton, and take advantage of their inediate ability to complete a foodless ascension; doubly so if playing as a monk, as they receive a large number of useful intrinsics through level up. So is there a reason this strategy isn't more documented? -- Qazmlpok 22:55, February 20, 2010 (UTC)

My personal take on it is: Yes, polyself does offer great opportunities. Some of the great speed ascenders play as master mind flayer or arch-lich. Feel free to document it, perhaps start a new article. However, by the time I can pull off what you are describing, I usually am ready to ascend anyway. At that stage, my natural form deals much more damage and has few disadvantages. Also, speed really is very important, don't underestimate that. When I do polyself, it is usually to do some specific task, such as eat jewellry, acquire certain pets or cockatrice eggs, get poison resistance without the strength loss etc. For temporary uses, it isn't worth the resources to up my max HP. See also above for ideas how to use polyself. -Tjr 16:00, February 21, 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking of coming across an amulet of unchanging and method of controlled polymorph early on. Sinks can provide a source of polymorphing, a wizard has a chance of starting with a ring of polymorph control (which isn't necessary, as it's always possible to get lucky), and the amulet can sometimes be found early on, or simply wished for from a lucky fountain. It would certainly take a lot of luck to get all of that stuff, but it's probably not significantly less likely than finding a wand of wishing in a shop. So what I'm asking is; If a level 1 player were to manage to stumble upon all of this equipment and decided to play through the entire game polymorphed into a single form, would this be a viable strategy? And considering the resistances immediately gained, HP increase, bonus attacks, and possible stat increase if the target monster is strong result in a significant combat advantage, even for a mid-leveled character? Polymorphing into an Aleax doesn't seem to have any disadvantage besides the reduced speed (8 instead of 12), but unless I'm misunderstanding how weapon attack works, they should be able to do more than double the damage per attack. And for the speed, how about riding? The article states that it uses the speed of the steed, so a slow creature should end up moving as fast as a normal human with speed boots, correct? Of course, this results in another required item, and riding has drawbacks of it's own.

You mentioned that your regular form would do more damage. Does this mean that I am misunderstanding how weapon attacks work? If an Aleax has 1d6W 1d6W 1d4 Kick, doesn't that mean two weapon attacks and a kick, thus the same damage (assuming all hit) as two normal attacks when unpolymorphed plus a kick? If I'm wrong, I'd appreciate it if you could correct me. I don't believe there's an article that explicitly explains what the various attack types means, just how to interpret base die rolls. -- Qazmlpok 19:43, February 21, 2010 (UTC)

I specialize in wizards, so I don't know too much about weapons. But level 30 magic missile (with bounces from corridors...) is more powerful than anything else I've had in practise.

Polyself & weapon: People report neat tricks. A marilith gets two weapon attacks to simulate many arms. Combined with #twoweapon, that makes 4x artifact to-hit bonus and 2x artifact damage bonus.

If you have the chance, perma-polyself can be quite nifty.

IMHO, wishing for the polyself kit is a waste of wishes. DSM and a decent artifact look better. Altogether, I think the opportunity to play the early game in monster form is quite rare (without wishing). Even more rare than an actual wand of wishing, which is more of a meme than a viable strategy anyway. -Tjr 23:03, February 21, 2010 (UTC)

Well, I decided to try it out in explorer mode, using the wand of wishing to get everything needed to play as a skeleton. As expected, the early game is an absolute breeze. Inediate, 50 HP at level 1, low AC, and 18/** str. Speed certainly is a problem; it's very easy to get surrounded and have them whittle away at my HP. The normal offenders for this, i.e. ants, have been remarkably simple to take care of, for whatever reason. Then there's the biggest concern; my HP regeneration is dreadful. I don't know why, but I see to be regaining HP at about the rate a character would at level 1. It may be because I polymorphed at level 1, I'm not sure. But it's very bad to have 100 HP after gaining some levels and regenerate at speeds more suitable for 15. The other big problem is that exercise is impossible. A skeleton is a strong monster so strength isn't an issue, but con and dexterity remain at low levels. They could be fixed with potions of gain ability, but it'd require 10 to max out my attributes. It's certainly not as easy as I thought it would be, but that might be because I chose a skeleton. I get the feeling that even at level 1, with decent supplemental equipment, I could kill a dragon one on one. A vampire lord probably would've been a better choice, as they regenerate, move faster, and have lower AC. They don't have a weapon attack, so I'm not sure how that affects their damage output (they certainly can use a weapon), and I could just kick a cockatrice to avoid that problem.

I'd say that the best way to describe playing permanently polymorphed is an extreme version of the barbarian class. You get great bonuses to combat, but Nethack isn't just about combat so you end up suffering in the long run due to decreased flexibility. It's definitely not worth burning a single wish over, even though there are many advantages to polymorphing. However, as I suggested earlier, polyself is probably the best way to preserve other conducts. Being inediate takes away half the problem of foodless and bonus intrinsics help with the other half, polymorph can give a great boost in the early game that some players would try to get from a wish, the increase in AC and attacks would ease the lack of enchantment from playing illiterate or the lack of divine protection and artifact weapons from playing athiest, and early game pacifists/protection racket runners would benefit greatly from the high defenses and from being inediate. The big problem, of course, is finding all the necessary materials to pull this off, plus the problem that polymorphing at level 1 simply isn't safe. -- Qazmlpok 00:24, February 22, 2010 (UTC)