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Potions and transmuters: how to use appropiately?

PostPosted: Friday, 7th January 2011, 01:53
by Roderic
Hi there,

I am a newbie in Crawl coming from Nethack and Slash'EM.I don't understand the use (if any) of potions of confusion and poison because I cannot dip any item to make them poisoned or throw the flasks to shatter on any monster (is it possible?).

I don't get the point of having a transmuter starting with poison and confusion potions unless to identify them from start, but with the first spell you can obtain more potions like this from corpses, which for me are useless by now. Indeed I cannot go very long with transmuters for they can only fight or be silent... is there something else I can do with potions ?

Re: Potions and transmuters: how to use appropiately?

PostPosted: Friday, 7th January 2011, 01:58
by lollipopman91
The second spell in your starting book (atleast i think it's the second one...) lets you throw them at enemys. Confusion bottles makes confusion clouds and poison bottles make poison clouds. Both are very good early game. (you can also throw other bottles with various effects i haven't tried em all yet so someone more experienced may have some more advice)

Re: Potions and transmuters: how to use appropiately?

PostPosted: Friday, 7th January 2011, 01:58
by Mike255
Check the third spell in their book ;)

Re: Potions and transmuters: how to use appropiately?

PostPosted: Friday, 7th January 2011, 02:17
by starless
The spell's name is Evaporate.
Refer to this for a detailed description and some tips:

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=Evaporate

Re: Potions and transmuters: how to use appropiately?

PostPosted: Friday, 7th January 2011, 02:37
by starless
With the clouds being 3x3, don't forget you can target the squares next to the enemies.
For example when you are chased closely and cannot throw the potion directly at the hobgoblin, you can decide to throw it next to him for the same effect.

Re: Potions and transmuters: how to use appropiately?

PostPosted: Friday, 7th January 2011, 20:35
by Lugh
Don't assume you can stave off hunger with transmuted potions of water, either - you still have to chop chunks. I learned the hard way.

Re: Potions and transmuters: how to use appropiately?

PostPosted: Saturday, 8th January 2011, 13:00
by fspades
Lugh wrote:Don't assume you can stave off hunger with transmuted potions of water, either - you still have to chop chunks. I learned the hard way.


Although water potions are fine as smoke bombs.

Re: Potions and transmuters: how to use appropiately?

PostPosted: Saturday, 8th January 2011, 17:14
by marikvulpina
fspades wrote:
Lugh wrote:Don't assume you can stave off hunger with transmuted potions of water, either - you still have to chop chunks. I learned the hard way.


Although water potions are fine as smoke bombs.


it might be my imagination, but i always seem to do a nice bit of damage to jellies with any potion that defaults to steam. does steam do bonus damage to them due to their less than solid nature?

Re: Potions and transmuters: how to use appropiately?

PostPosted: Saturday, 8th January 2011, 17:48
by KoboldLord
No bonus damage, but they don't have all that many hit points to begin with and they're too dumb to move out of the steam clouds if there's something they want. The acid is really their main defense, and it doesn't apply to steam clouds. Evaporated potions of water are actually very helpful pre-Temple, simply because so many threats are still extremely fragile.

Re: Potions and transmuters: how to use appropiately?

PostPosted: Sunday, 9th January 2011, 13:19
by fspades
One question that's bugging me: does potions of strong poison create more toxic (as in stronger) clouds or are they exactly the same with standart poison potions? Should I carry them around?

Re: Potions and transmuters: how to use appropiately?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 12th January 2011, 17:10
by Stormfox
lollipopman91 wrote:(you can also throw other bottles with various effects i haven't tried em all yet so someone more experienced may have some more advice)


If you know Evaporate, looking at a potion's item description will tell you what kind of clouds it generates. Degeneration is fun and can show up pretty early if that ogre is kind enough to leave a corpse.