Mutation lottery

[siggboy]

Is there anybody here who deliberately quaffs mutation potions (probably early in the game) in order to improve their characters? Especially when you already have an identified cure mutation potion that doesn't seem the worst of ideas.

I'm sure this has been discussed before many times, so if this topic is boring or repetitive I would be happy for some pointers to earlier threads.

[Davion Fuxa]

Generally I don't quaff Potions of Mutation 'Willingly' - I quaff them once in a Quaff-ID but no more after that.

If I am purposing trying to mutate myself, getting 3 Mutations at once can be bad if all 3 happen to be bad mutations; so I avoid quaffing Potions of Mutation in serious runthroughs. Eating Mutagenic Flesh is a little more manageable so I do that instead. I can usually manage one seriously Bad Mutation and if I find a Deck of Changes or Deck of Wonders - well, I have my Bad Mutation for the Helix Card.

[Davion Fuxa]

The way I see it, if I Quaff-ID early in the game then I haven't played long enough to care about restarting - if the Bad Mutations are even bad enough to cause me to do that which very few are capable of being.

[byrel]

But the reason to avoid quaff-ID isn't the mutation potion; it's all the awesome potions you waste.

I used to drink mutation early game all the time. Till I got burned enough times, and realized the odds were against me. (That and I won a few times, which makes me care a lot more about how reliably I can do it than how lucky I can get)

I still will rarely. Once, it even directly saved my life: early-game poison (IIRC a kobold with blowgun), I IDed and quaff IDed all my stacks of potion looking for healing, but didn't find it. A few hitpoints from death, I figured I'd try the mutation in hopes of robustness putting off my death long enough for it to wear off. I got two levels of regen, which was much more than the poison damage.

But also incredibly unlikely. Usually, it's a bad idea to quaff-ID. If you've found cure mut, it's safe enough. If you don't count throwing away one of the most valuable potions in the game for a chance at some decent powers as unsafe. Which I do, so I don't want to burn cure mutation.

The one time I will always quaff them is if I've signed up at an early-game Jivya altar. It just gives you a headstart on the gifts, and you'll be able to get rid of them in a few floors if they're bad.

[Davion Fuxa]

The way I see it, the only awesome potion I might be wasting is Cure Mutations - the rest are nice but I'd rather know what they do and Scrolls of Identify aren't plentiful enough that you can go around IDing them all. I generally don't die due to not IDing my Potions with Read-ID Scrolls either, I die because I haven't Quaff-ID them when I have no Scrolls of Identify.

[byrel]

Scrolls of Identify aren't plentiful enough that you can go around IDing them all.

Thing is, they usually are. Try using scrolls of id exclusively on potions some game. You'll be able to ID them all, 95% of the time. I only quaff-ID under duress,, or when I get a stack of four-five and the game refuses to give me another ID scroll. This issue is actually why I made a thread asking about ID scroll use recently, and the posts made me reevaluate my ID strategy. I now care more about IDed potions than almost anything else. It works wonders for having your potions available when you need them.

[KoboldLord]

The way I see it, the only awesome potion I might be wasting is Cure Mutations - the rest are nice but I'd rather know what they do and Scrolls of Identify aren't plentiful enough that you can go around IDing them all. I generally don't die due to not IDing my Potions with Read-ID Scrolls either, I die because I haven't Quaff-ID them when I have no Scrolls of Identify.

A potion of speed is the most powerful offensive one-shot consumable item in the game. The only reason it is not the most powerful offensive consumable item in the game is because it also has a wand form, but you probably don't have that if you're considering whether to quaff-id. There is no vanilla ring or amulet in the game that is higher priority to scroll-identify than that one potion of speed you would waste by quaff-identifying it.

Next up is the potion of curing. It is absolutely critical for managing status effects. Monsters are designed with the assumption you have potions, and if you are caught by a confusion effect that has high spell power you are basically dead if you can't remove it. There are many potions of curing that generate during the course of a normal game, but it is not unusual to be extremely short on them for the bulk of the early game. You can't necessarily afford to waste multiples on correcting bad potions.

After those critical potions, you also have heal wounds, might, brilliance, berserk rage, agility, and resistance. Some of these aren't useful to some builds, and others eventually become obsolete, but at the beginning of the game you need every advantage you can get. Quaff-identifying one means you are likely to be completely roadblocked at some point that would have been worth large amounts of xp had you retained those consumables.

[Sandman25]

Potion of speed does not contaminate you while Wands of Haste, Haste spell and Finesse do.

[siggboy]

It's fascinating how quickly the thread has changed from discussing the original question to a continuation of byrel's ID-scroll topic ;-). Thanks for the answers, though. I also feel that the early mutation lottery is not worth it in "serious" attempts.

[Sandman25]

IMHO:
Early mutation lottery with quitting if unlucky would be very similar to start-scumming.
Late mutation lottery could decrease joy for a win (due to thoughts like "Would I be able to win without being lucky with mutation?") and would increase frustration for a loss ("It's all due to unlucky mutations, I did not deserve it").

[hxy]

Potion of speed does not contaminate you ...

It does. You may not get the "Contam" status immediately, but it will show up after a few turns.

[Sandman25]

Potion of speed does not contaminate you ...

It does. You may not get the "Contam" status immediately, but it will show up after a few turns.

Being in Fast state is another source of contamination, please see http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Magic_contamination for details:

  Code:

Your magic contamination level can be increased by:
 Haste
 Spending time under the influence of Haste while not Berserk.
 +1 point for becoming hasted using a Haste spell or wand of hasting.
 +1 point for having your already-in-force Haste effect extended by:
 rage extension (Z)
 a potion of haste or berserk rage (Z)
 Xom sending you berserk.
 invoking Okawaru's Haste power
 +2 points for having your Haste extended by:
 the Haste spell or a wand of hasting. (Z)

[XuaXua]

I have 6 unused Cure Mutation potions (quaff id'd, yet!) and have yet to find a Mutation potion, but damn if I ain't gonna drink it.

[byrel]

Uhhh. Yeah. You should start chowing down on ugly things too.

[siggboy]

What would polymorph into a Sky Beast with high probability? They sometimes leave mutating corpses.

[CykusX]

I usually quaff mut potions in the beginning. But I always stop when I get at least 2 good muts (scales or stat up) and one manageable bad one. Even if i get a bad one, I usually switch to Jiyva later on to get the rune, and get rid of all my bad ones.

[partial]

I do it all the time

tbh it works out well more often than not. last time I got +1 dex +blink and rF+

I like to do it early game so I can just scrap the character if it's an unplayable combo

[ZoFy]

Once i had a game, after which i said NO to mutation roulette once and for all. After playing the roulette, being unsatisfied with the result and drinking my only curemut potion, suddenly saw a zombie stepping into a Zot trap and got red glow and several bad muts, most notable ones being berserkitis and deterioration 1. Tried to cure them with more roulette but instead blundered into a Zot trap myself (man, my T&D skill was at 12!) and ended up having frail 2 in addition to those two. No curemuts to the very end of the game.
If you want to improve your char with mutations, just play Ds or worship Jyiva. I also heard rumors about Xom being buffed and somewhat playable since 0.11.

[rebthor]

Once i had a game, after which i said NO to mutation roulette once and for all. After playing the roulette, being unsatisfied with the result and drinking my only curemut potion, suddenly saw a zombie stepping into a Zot trap and got red glow and several bad muts, most notable ones being berserkitis and deterioration 1. Tried to cure them with more roulette but instead blundered into a Zot trap myself (man, my T&D skill was at 12!) and ended up having frail 2 in addition to those two. No curemuts to the very end of the game.
If you want to improve your char with mutations, just play Ds or worship Jyiva. I also heard rumors about Xom being buffed and somewhat playable since 0.11.

If you had blurry vision, your trap sensing ability goes way down; you can't detect any new traps at all until you stand on them. As does swiftness - you can't detect traps at a distance.

[ZoFy]

If you had blurry vision, your trap sensing ability goes way down; you can't detect any new traps at all until you stand on them. As does swiftness - you can't detect traps at a distance.

Good point but neither of these assumptions were the case. And i'm so glad to know that in 0.12 the issue of surprise traps is mostly solved.

[mopl]

I usually quaff them when I already have some bad mutations, like after making my way in Slime. Sometimes it even cures them...
And as I know I will have to drink a Cure mutation one...

[daggaz]

I dont play the lottery except if I find an early deck of changes. Then I will gladly yank cards and hope for a helix or two, as you have considerably better odds of getting some good mutations. Even then, good mutations are more of a pleasant little bonus than any kind of game breaker... If you really need them to up your survival rate in the early game (where the vast majority of them will have any appreciable effect), then you really should just forgo the lottery and learn to beat the curve the hard way.

[Konebred]

Xom loves that shit.