Polymorphing

[Netbrian]

Right now, the Polymorph effect is rather useless. It seldom improves your situation, and seems to fail much of the time. For a little while, I tried using it to polymorph monsters like hydras into something that was more rewarding to fight, but it was resisted too often.

My suggestion to improve this would be to make it much harder to resist, but bias the spell so it's more likely to transform enemies into something higher leveled. That would at least make it interesting -- it will get rid of the hydra, but it won't necessarily make your life easier.

[buzzkill]

My suggestion to improve this would be to make it much harder to resist, but bias the spell so it's more likely to transform enemies into something higher leveled.

I think it already does this, but I could be wrong.
If not, morph at native_depth+10 sounds nice. An evil RNG would include a % chance to retain the same race.

[Derakon]

Back in the old days polymorph could turn any monster into any other monster. That was interesting. You could sit in the town (or another controlled environment) and try fighting monsters you weren't anywhere near ready for by polymorphing the random weaklings that came your way. It might not have had much tactical use, but people cast it plenty anyway.

As soon as the spell was changed to generate monsters of similar level as the original monster, it became boring and largely useless.

[Timo Pietilä]

Back in the old days polymorph could turn any monster into any other monster. That was interesting. You could sit in the town (or another controlled environment) and try fighting monsters you weren't anywhere near ready for by polymorphing the random weaklings that came your way. It might not have had much tactical use, but people cast it plenty anyway.

As soon as the spell was changed to generate monsters of similar level as the original monster, it became boring and largely useless.

I used to carry one thinking that if things get desperate I might as well use it and hope that result is less deadly than what I'm fighting just now. In low levels it usually wasn't, but every now and then it was. Also when you got some power you could use it to turn boring critters to something more interesting. Sometimes a bit too interesting.

[Netbrian]

Back in the old days polymorph could turn any monster into any other monster. That was interesting. You could sit in the town (or another controlled environment) and try fighting monsters you weren't anywhere near ready for by polymorphing the random weaklings that came your way. It might not have had much tactical use, but people cast it plenty anyway.

As soon as the spell was changed to generate monsters of similar level as the original monster, it became boring and largely useless.

This is the kind of feeling I'm trying to recapture here. Right now, it's boring and not very useful. I'm hoping to at least make it exciting and not very useful.

[Magnate]

This is the kind of feeling I'm trying to recapture here. Right now, it's boring and not very useful. I'm hoping to at least make it exciting and not very useful.

I would second that aspiration. If polymorph is to be in the game at all, it ought to be interesting.

[Starhawk]

If wands could be cursed, a cursed wand of polymorph could produce monsters that are vastly OoD.

[Derakon]

I would second that aspiration. If polymorph is to be in the game at all, it ought to be interesting.

Well, there's an easy fix for that then; simply replace poly_r_idx()'s functionality with a spell that picks a random non-unique monster.

[celem]

A fully random poly is going to generally weaken critters in endgame and generally produce OoD at earlygame. At least thats my understanding. At lvl 99 the majority of the critters in game will be an improvement over what you zapped.

Its gonna have to be a weighted random of some kind

[Derakon]

A fully random poly is going to generally weaken critters in endgame and generally produce OoD at earlygame. At least thats my understanding. At lvl 99 the majority of the critters in game will be an improvement over what you zapped.

Its gonna have to be a weighted random of some kind

Monsters still get a saving throw against polymorph, which is based on their level. You'll have difficulty polymorphing deep monsters to make your life easier. And if you turn a townsperson into a balrog and it pulverizes you, so what?

Weighted random is what we have right now, and it's dull dull dull.

[d_m]

Its gonna have to be a weighted random of some kind

I was thinking of doing this with a weighted set of probabilities.

That said there's no reason you can't just make it "a random monster at or above the current monster's level" and make it a one-way street.

That certainly makes polymorph worse in the endgame, but probably still way more interesting than now... especially if you bring back chaos breath's historic ability to polymorph monsters it hits!

[Netbrian]

Monsters still get a saving throw against polymorph, which is based on their level. You'll have difficulty polymorphing deep monsters to make your life easier. And if you turn a townsperson into a balrog and it pulverizes you, so what?

Weighted random is what we have right now, and it's dull dull dull.

One of the reasons I griped about it in the first place is that I think the saving throw makes using polymorph too hard. I say make it harder to resist, but produce a monster at or above the original's level.

[Djabanete]

I think the ideal solution is for Wands of Polymorph to appear in the midgame and cause full-random polymorph. That way characters have the resources to avoid instadeath by unlucky zap-ID, and if they want to have fun with Polymorph, they can assume that risk.

However, the polymorph effect of Wands of Wonder should be weighted-random, because it's not fair for zap-ID'ers to get instakilled by such an early wand. Suppose you're just learning some wand flavors and you happen to turn an icky thing into a Greater Balrog and it bites your head off? Exciting in the mid-to-late game, but unfair in the early game.

[Ycombinator]

if you bring back chaos breath's historic ability to polymorph monsters it hits!

Wait, it doesn't? Chaos strike from Kelek's definitely has a chance to polymorph target in 3.2.0 (so many times I've turned a DROP_GOOD monster into some useless critter by carelessly applying this spell...). And I don't see any special handling for spell or breath in the code.

[EpicMan]

Wouldn't it be worse to polymorph something into a Balrog which then kills you if you had invested a good deal of time in a character? I would be more upset if this happened to a lvl 25+ char than a lower level one, less time lost.

Plus its a pretty hilarious death: You zap the snaga. The snaga is polymorphed! The balrog breathes fire (x2)...You die -more-

Mordrin, the level 16 dwarf warrior, was killed by a balrog on level 17