How to get an early FDA?

[gdami1]

Hi

I might be unlucky these days but I don'f find any FDA! Sometimes in V:5 when I'm lucky...

Is it possible to polymorph some early monster to turn it into a FD? I think there's a trick of this kind to find a GDA...

thanks

[daggaz]

Polymorphing large HD creatures (like hydra) has a pretty good chance of giving dragons, not sure if creature type plays into that as well.

Whats the point tho? FDA is nice but its not the end all is all of crawl by any means. Better to learn how to play and win despite, or rather because of, the quirks of the RNG.

[stickyfingers]

Polymorphing a monster with the same holiness and HD over terrain that is impassable to as many other monsters as possible gives the best chance of success. In case of a fire dragon (and ice one too) that would be a griffon over lava. However, don't really get your hopes up too much, it still isn't very likely.

[and into]

Polymorphing high(ish) HD monsters *is* likely to get your ass killed though, so there is that, at least.

Even if you polymorph an enemy into a dragon, you then have to kill the dragon, which in early game is not trivial, and even then there's no guarantee a corpse drops, so it isn't something I would waste time trying to do.

There are vaults with dragons in them fairly early, and a couple of Lair endings that involve dragons. Dragons start spawning more frequently on D:15 and D:16, and especially in Vaults and Depths, if you hold out that long you have a good shot at them. (Just bad luck that you've hit a dry spell.) Swamp Dragon hides are basically guaranteed if you roll Swamp.

All those are good armors, but they aren't the end all, be all of armor choices, so you shouldn't be sweating it if one doesn't turn up. Mottled is often better on a lot of characters and tends to be available earlier, for starters, and plate mail or +3 leather or elven mail are strong options as well, depending on how much strength you have and how much you are relying on casting, dodging, and/or stealth. Or a +2 robe with a good resistance on it like MR.

[Lasty]

I haven't used swamp dragon armour in forever, but now that MDA has slightly higher ER and isn't compatible with Ozo's Armour, is swamp dragon armour worth using? My guess is that it's effectively trading about 1 to 1.5 EV, a small amount of stealth, and sticky flame resistance for slightly more than 2 AC (thanks, armour skill) and poison resistance, which sounds like a good deal.

Edit: oh, and increased spell fail, which I would imagine is offset by 2-ish levels of spell training on each spell skill you care about.

[Amnesiac]

so you can make a dragon armour using a wand of polymorph on a griffon? I think I've learned an interesting trick *trollface*

[Hirsch I]

dont poly hydras. just... dont.

[Patashu]

I haven't played this game in a while, is it possible to determine a monster's HD without out-of-game material yet?

[duvessa]

nope

[Arkhan]

dont poly hydras. just... dont.

what if polymorphing X headed hydras created X headed dragons

[Tiktacy]

dont poly hydras. just... dont.

what if polymorphing X headed hydras created X headed dragons

Or maybe an X-headed elephant slug?

[Hirsch I]

an X-hydrad head.

[duvessa]

  Code:

<minqmay> i had a dream once that i watched a cursed youtube video with my cat, and at the end, the video shot my cat in the eye
<minqmay> but then my cat grew a second head, like some kind of cat hydra, so that it had 3 working eyes, so it was ok

[Hirsch I]

this sounds awesome!

Spoiler: show