Transmutation inconsistencies, and some ideas

[Hurricos]

I just want to see some inconsistencies be fixed with transmutations.

Major:
* Why should Draconians keep their scales in Dragon form, but other scaly creatures not?
* Why should Spriggans move as slow as Nagas in Statue form? Why should Nagas move as slow as Statue Nagas? This makes even less sense with Centaurs, who should obviously be able to make their normal long striding motion (more slowly) in Statue form, and yet are slower than normal Nagas.

Minor:
* Why should Statue Form meld your tough skin and fur, but Stoneskin not?
* Why should Necromutation replace Bladehands / Dragon form, when it only consists of changing your composition (turning you into a skeletal Lich), and not your form?
* Why does the number of heads of Hydra form, and not one's Dex and Strength, impact its base damage if it does not make you attack with individual heads?

Future:
* Fungus form: Confusion-branded attacks, huge Stealth and EV, high AC - perhaps through Fedhas Madash? If not in Alchemy (L4 Tmut). Able to cast spells if self-transmuted, but not wield or wear anything, or move if you're being watched.
* From the DevWiki: Kyrie (Tmut/Air 8) - Transform into an angelic being and kick ass for the Lord (whichever Lord is yours, anyways). Proposed implementation: Gain rN+++ but not rTorm, rPois, rElec, Flight and Fast Movement 2 or 3, along with a halo depending on divine status with the Good gods, and perhaps holy-branded UC attacks and weapon attacks (like Lichform gives Draining). (Zin does not mind this Transmutation, as casting it causes you to enter the purest Form in his image; however, he will very much mind if you miscast and turn yourself into a porcupine. Meanwhile, the Evil gods will be offended by the use of this spell.)

[tedric]

Why should non-dragon-derived species be able to assert their own genetic traits while transformed into a dragon?
Why should magic statues move more quickly than living snake-people?
Why should a spell called "Stoneskin" turn anything other than your skin to stone?
Why should a spell that turns your entire body into a brittle skeleton not affect your hands?
Why should it matter how strong or agile you are when you are made almost entirely of razor-sharp teeth?

[Hurricos]

Why should non-dragon-derived species be able to assert their own genetic traits while transformed into a dragon?
Why should magic statues move more quickly than living snake-people?
Why should a spell called "Stoneskin" turn anything other than your skin to stone?
Why should a spell that turns your entire body into a brittle skeleton not affect your hands?
Why should it matter how strong or agile you are when you are made almost entirely of razor-sharp teeth?

Scales are scales.
Why should the statue of a swift and long-legged Centaur move at the same pace as the statue of a slow and slithering Naga? Why should the statue of a naga move as quickly as the naga itself?
Where does the fur go when entering Statue form?
Why do Liches with claws keep their claws? If liches are brittle, why can they not be Lee'd?
Why should you have no different difficulty maneuvering your heads for better bites at 1 and 70 Dexterity? (This is the logic behind limiting extra base damage from extra heads after 10 heads. Also, currently, Hydra form is the only Transmutation whose offensive power depends on spellpower.)

[Hurricos]

I want a lvl 8 tmut/poison that turns you into a giant tree that breathes corrosive spore clouds that spawn damage/debuff with a malmutate explosion (a la inner flame meets yara's, plant form immunity), cleaves with constriction, 2x HP, rTorm.

Well thanks for that, but I am trying to be serious. The movement delay baselining with Statue is actually, you know, meaningful, e.g. impacts the utility of the spell on different characters greatly, yet makes no real sense ...

[tedric]

rhetorical questions in response to rhetorical questions responding to rhetorical questions

I think you missed my point. Most of your questions seem to be based on interpretations of flavor more than on actual gameplay concerns, and flavor can be spun any way it's needed to explain the design choices that support the best gameplay. It's just as illogical to ask "where does the fur go?" as it is to ask "why are adders green?".

Hydra form is the only Transmutation whose offensive power depends on spellpower.

The movement delay baselining with Statue is actually, you know, meaningful, e.g. impacts the utility of the spell on different characters greatly, yet makes no real sense ...

These are indeed inconsistent, but why are they problems? I'm not saying they're not, just that you haven't explained why they are. There's no rule that says all characters should get the same utility out of a spell, or that all spells in a school should scale the same way.

[Hurricos]

These are indeed inconsistent, but why are they problems? I'm not saying they're not, just that you haven't explained why they are. There's no rule that says all characters should get the same utility out of a spell, or that all spells in a school should scale the same way.

Alright. So here goes:

Hydra form isn't so much an issue, but we should fix it to just make it base damage offensive cleaving with corpse-vampiricism. If we're going away from managing how many heads, we should just stop lying to players about possibly doing more damage against single targets than multiple targets by suggesting we get more hits. It's better to keep forms consistent than not, and in Hyform's case, the difference between 5 and 12 heads is enormous.

The issue with Statue form is one of flavor, but flavor impacts how newer players play the game. It's also an issue of playstyle, and it's terrifying to have your Player Character die simply because it was a fast Spriggan before casting it and is now a tanky-ish, low-HP slowbro, instead of a relatively fast-footed one still. The gigantic difference in speed can be scary and bad and leads to stupid deaths on a form that's only used in special cases, or almost nothing at all (in the case of Nagas).

[dynast]

Its called STATUE form ffs, if anything, new players will think that you cant even move when casting that(at least was what i thought when i was new to DCSS anyways).

[Pollen_Golem]

When you found out that you could move after all, did you immediately think "Ah! Then it must set my pre-slow base speed to 10 regardless of my species, even though it doesn't change anything else like size!"

[dynast]

Or i did not even grasp the concepts of size, speed or auts by that time and had just realised everything was moving faster than me. Its pretty obvious that only "experienced players" would go "oh, i can use statue form on my spriggan instead of training armour and i wont be slowed AT ALL".

[mrpyro]

Here's an inconsistency: Why can hydra form players be affected by throwing nets while monster hydras (and other big-sized creatures) are immune to them?

[neil]

Here's an inconsistency: Why can hydra form players be affected by throwing nets while monster hydras (and other big-sized creatures) are immune to them?

Because big-sized creatures, including monstra hydras, are not immune to nets: only giant-sized, the next level up:

  Code:

 You throw a throwing net.
 The throwing net hits the seven-headed hydra.
 The seven-headed hydra is caught in the net!


  Code:

 You throw a throwing net. The throwing net hits the fire giant.
 The fire giant is too large for the net to hold!


[mrpyro]

Can throwing nets have the information of what size of creature they affect added to their description then? I used other sources to try and figure out what nets affected and clearly that was wrong.

[Sar]

So Lom and other nettable lords, the guys with one-and-a-half sized tiles, are smaller than giants?

[daggaz]

Unique rune guardians just shouldn't be nettable, period. Both for flavor (they are flipping giant and super powerful, TRJ just eats your damn net come on this makes ZERO sense) and for game-play reasons, given that nets are pretty much an instant win button in most fights, and by the time you are doing these runes, you can easily have a pretty big stack of them especially if shoals loaded.

[duvessa]

It's hard to convey size in tiles. I bet a lot of players don't realize that orbs of fire are the same size as adders.

[sweetrabies]

OT: It's pretty obvious that tiles graphics are not to scale, unless you think hobgoblins are basically anorexic titans and rats are yaks with stubby legs.

Is there a difference in how speed is handled for the different "...Form" transmutations? I don't have much experience with transmuters (which is to say that I have no experience getting them to live past Lair ), but unless it changed recently, I'm pretty sure spider form makes everyone move at normal speed. If that is correct, it makes sense to me that statue form would also make everyone move at the same speed, rather than being based on your species.

[Hurricos]

OT: It's pretty obvious that tiles graphics are not to scale, unless you think hobgoblins are basically anorexic titans and rats are yaks with stubby legs.

Is there a difference in how speed is handled for the different "...Form" transmutations? I don't have much experience with transmuters (which is to say that I have no experience getting them to live past Lair ), but unless it changed recently, I'm pretty sure spider form makes everyone move at normal speed. If that is correct, it makes sense to me that statue form would also make everyone move at the same speed, rather than being based on your species.

Statue Form retains your size (and shape, e.g. can still wear weapons/hats/helmets/cloaks/shields only if the base shape could) like Bladehands (well, except with the shield/weapon issues) and Necromutation (though it does not meld torso, gloves or boots) do. It is the only transmutation to do so that also affects your base movespeed, which is my issue with it.

I find issue with the following statement: "A statue with the shape, size and gait of a Centaur moves exactly as fast as a statue with the shape, size and slither of a Naga, when Nagas move half as fast as Centaurs do." ... whereas it makes sense that two nearly-identical spiders / ice beasts / dragons / hydras move at the same speed.

[sweetrabies]

That sounds like it's working consistently with the other transmutations, then. Your size remains driven by your species because you're turning into a statue of that species rather than into a totally different creature, and your speed is set to a certain value just as it is with other "...Form" spells. Blade hands makes sense as it is (short of special-casing for species that would sensibly be walking on the blades [felids and maybe octopodes, off the top of my head], and even that is kind of covered by felids getting a stealth penalty from it). The odd ball to me is Necromutation.

Edit: Just to clarify a bit (because my mind tends to work is odd ways), the way that I see it, statue form is turning your character completely into a statue, not just giving you some kind of statue covering. Thus, when you move, you're not moving with your native locomotive means, but rather by some kind of magical "move statue" force, and so whatever your native base movement speed is should be irrelevant to how fast the magical "move statue" force can make you move.

[dynast]

Alright, so just change the name to "fat naked gray man who could have hooves, tail or tentacles form".

[sweetrabies]

In that case, you should get the base movement speed of a fat naked gray man

Semantics nonsense aside, from a mechanics standpoint, every transmutation that is based on changing the character wholly into something different gives the same movement speed to all species, with the possible exception of necromutation (based on this thread, since I haven't used it personally) (and if that is the case, necromutation is the one that should be changed, not statue form). That's already consistent.

[Velikolepni]

While we're throwing ideas for new Transmutation spells willy-nilly, let me pen down the one that I've had in my mind for a while:

Name: Raiju's leap
Level: Transmutation/Air 4 or 5

The effect is essentially that of the monster spell Blinkbolt with the following important differences: The player does not choose the target. Rather, when the spell is cast, a random valid target (straight line) on the screen is selected and the player is transformed into a lightning bolt that then traverses the target, depositing the player where the spell ends. Multizaps and reflections against walls are allowed. The damage should be good - roughly on par with lightning bolt.

The random target nature of the spell prohibits it's use as an escape tool most of the time. On the other hand it can be used offensively to close the gap with ranged monsters and deliver the pain. In addition - it's fun!

[dynast]

RAIJU FORM WAS MY IDEA! GET SUED!

[Velikolepni]

RAIJU FORM WAS MY IDEA! GET SUED!

Sorry, I must have missed that. (Goes searching...)
Is that the link to the appropriate discussion https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=14479 ?

While I absolutely agree that there is quite a substatial overlap, the proposal I had I mind would not really be a change of form, but mechanically an agressive blink that passes through a randomly chosen enemy (so that it does not overlap with controlled blink and can be a lower level spell) while doing damage.

Was your raiju form suggestion further elaborated somewhere else?

[onmach]

I figured the reason transmutations don't stack with necromutation was that undeads can't transmute, and once you are undead your other transmutations should end. Also I never really understood why necromutation gets all the extra stuff, +6 AC, +50 MR. And draining unarmed attacks, why include such a niche ability that doesn't exist on other undead?

However I do find the weird speed issue on statue form kind of strange. Seems like an easy fix. Would a naga in statue form be unplayable or would spriggan be too powerful?

[Quazifuji]

When you found out that you could move after all, did you immediately think "Ah! Then it must set my pre-slow base speed to 10 regardless of my species, even though it doesn't change anything else like size!"

For what it's worth, I'm a moderately experienced and informed player (i.e. I've got around 15 wins and read these forums sometimes, but I've got nowhere near the game knowledge of a lot of the veterans around here) and I had no idea that this was the case prior to reading this thread. I'd always assumed Statue form's speed penalty was roughly equivalent to being slowed and had no idea that it wasn't affected by your normal base speed. So I'm gonna argue in favor of this being unintuitive, personally.

The wiki also does not explain this. Not that the wiki is generally considered a reliable source of information, but it certainly doesn't help reduce the confusion for a new player who might discover the wiki before they discover learndb (or just be unaware that the wiki's information should always be taken with a grain of salt).

[Hurricos]

Spriggan statues wouldn't be particularly OP, considering they have dinky HP pools already and bad (though not infinitely so) melee aptitudes anyways.

Naga statues are already a generally bad idea, considering that casting Statue form means melding your barding and +7 scales (as well as body armour). You'll get as much AC with a maxed out Naga with TL / Barding as with Statue.

[dynast]

Spriggan statue form is already too strong, its a huge free AC boost on a species that can only wear dragon armour otherwise, which is usually too heavy for them. Not to mention the HP boost.
I dont think statue form is bad for nagas, since the change in movespeed is 0.1, but dragon form is just better in every way for them.