Revise the rules for Polymorphing

[XuaXua]

At the moment, Polymorphing seems to take what... hit dice into account?

In that fashion, I can wand of polymorph an unintelligent rat into a super-smart magically powered summoning Boggart (I have in the past!) or a harmless hippogriff into a fire crab.

Reeee-eeeeeeaaaaallllyyyyy.

Shouldn't other factors weigh in here, like rats... fight poorly and boggarts... mass summon Centaur Warriors and maybe oh, Hippogriffs fly and maybe claw and Fire Crabs... shoot fire everywhere like a freaking flamethrower on a gasoline soaked month-dry forest preserve.

I'm just saying, it seems a little unbalanced. And to be honest, I'm not quite sure hitting a boggart with the same polymorph would get me a rat or a fire crab back into a hippogriff. Sure, I assume it SHOULD work, but this is Crawl it's probably a one-way street and tentacled horror, here I come! Heck, I guess I'm just pissed I was doing pretty OK so far by my own standards and then Fire Crab on D5. Really. :/

Just wanted to know if there was anything in the works to consider revising this, or if it was deemed "that's the way that's gonna work, pal" because man.

n.b.: You may also use this thread to declare bingo.

[Megika]

I don't know about "this is the way it's gunna work, pal" but I like the insane randomness of the currrent polymorph. It's not just changing into something similar - it's hugely random, and you can get bizarre results.

As a side note, wouldn't a rat into boggart be fairly non-threatening since it just casts Shadow Creatures? You'd end up with more rats.

[rchandra]

Using a different metric than HD (experience?) might make sense. I do think anything that you are polymorphing should polymorph before it falls off the wall. "The goblin falls off the wall. The gecko evaporates and reforms as a goblin! It was a wand of polymorph other." is a bit odd.

[eeviac]

we could also just remove poly wand/spell. it's never really useful against dudes and when dudes use it on you it makes you want to tear your hair out.

[XuaXua]

As a side note, wouldn't a rat into boggart be fairly non-threatening since it just casts Shadow Creatures? You'd end up with more rats.

I think Boggarts were neutered semi-recently, but back in 0.7/0.9-ish, you'd poly a rat into a boggart on D1 and it'd eat you alive with spammed summons.

[One-Eyed Jack]

Pros of polymorph wands: They provide an additional semirandom asset in combat that is not damage-dealing and does not mimic any other effects. They have different uses than other "attack" wands (which are based on MR or HP and resistances) which slightly increases tactical complexity.
Cons: The HD thing is counterintuitive and invites the use of spoilers.

I personally think they're ok.

[roctavian]

I think a problem with Polymorph is that it shuts down enemies with equipped weapons (and particularly ranged weapons) a bit easily; as a Centaur earlier today I ran into an Orc Warrior who had a bow. I polymorphed it over and over, stepping away every other turn. It became a dwarf, a centaur, a human, and an orc warrior again before I got out of sight. It had to re-equip the bow each turn and gave me ample time to escape.

[Grimm]

The bots have hippogriffs at 7 hit dice and fire crabs at 8, so it's not exact. Perhaps it should be?

Contra eeviac, poly is hell of useful in certain specific situations, especially for early melee builds with poor ranged.

[yogaFLAME]

I think a problem with Polymorph is that it shuts down enemies with equipped weapons (and particularly ranged weapons) a bit easily; as a Centaur earlier today I ran into an Orc Warrior who had a bow. I polymorphed it over and over, stepping away every other turn. It became a dwarf, a centaur, a human, and an orc warrior again before I got out of sight. It had to re-equip the bow each turn and gave me ample time to escape.

How is this a problem? It's a clever and flavorful solution to a very specific difficulty.

[galehar]

It turns the monster into one with similar HD (one more or one less is ok). It is very efficient against certain targets but always carries the risk of turning the monster into something nastier. I don't understand the OP's complaint. If it turned the monster into a similar monster, it would be very boring.

[palin]

If it turned the monster into a similar monster, it would be very boring.

I couldn't agree more.
I think it would be super cool if a failed resistance check could inflict a mutation on the monster but I don't think the coding would be worth the effort...

[Stormfox]

If you have no other good way to take down an unseen horror, polymorphing it is not likely to result in something harder to fight.

Again I cite disintegration wands: incredibly useful in certain niches.

[Eji1700]

If you have no other good way to take down an unseen horror, polymorphing it is not likely to result in something harder to fight.

Again I cite disintegration wands: incredibly useful in certain niches.

How do you figure this out though without spoilers? My personal use of the polymorph wand was use it on a couple of threatening things(oh crap snake and i'm out of cure and really can't handle poison right now) until I started making extremely OOD stuff. I mean the ability to get an early boggart is just murder.

[crate]

If you are really interested you can always go into wizmode and just polymorph some things and see what happens. Otherwise, enough experience will teach you.

[Stormfox]

Boggarts are extreme outliers for the current polymorph mechanism because their HD value is all out of proportion to their ability to kill you.

Perhaps in addition to the HD check, the native depth of the monster relative to the current dungeon depth needs to be checked. Anything more than, say, 3 levels out of depth gets removed from the list of possible polymorphs. You will still get something comparable to the original monster, but it would not likely be something unexpected for where you are in the dungeon. So no rats --> boggarts or hippogriffs --> fire crabs, unless you're testing or using that wand at boggart or fire crab depth...and if you're that deep, you should be able to handle it.

[galehar]

on the other hand, boggarts have shadow creature, so they'll summon depth appropriate monsters. And you can poly them again, they have terrible MR. I think polymorph works very well. It can be effective at disabling some monsters but carry the risk of creating a stronger one. You should be prepared.

[XuaXua]

The human evaporates and reforms as an eye of devastation!