🚀 go-pugleaf

>>the net could explain.
>>
>>Playing as a caveman, I found a wand. Not knowing what it was, I zapped a
>>homonculous that was clobbering me. It turned out that the wand was a wand
>>of polymorph and I had polymorphed the 'h' into a nurse.
>>
>>With only a couple of hit points left, I was hit by the nurse. Instead of
>>getting better, however, I was killed.
>>
>>What happened? Is a polymorphed nurse not the real thing?
>>
>>(I am playing an early copy of PC-HACK version 1.0.3.)
>>
>
>Yes and no.  It seems the special power of the nurse is a voluntary one.  Your
>hitpoints will increase only when the nurse is in the mood, aka when all your 
>armour is off.  However, since you polymorphed a homunculus into a nurse
>while the power was avaiable, the creature still had the personality of a
>homunculus.  Therefore the attack was a normal one, not a healing one.
>BTW, this personality trait is true in all polymorphs of other creatures.  I
>point out that when you polymorph your dog into something nice, like, say, a
>Xorn (preferably on level 2 or 3 to get at the people you dislike :-/ ), it
>still acts like your dog, helping you and bringing you things.
>
>Spoiler:  If you are being chased by an angry shopkeeper, and you have the wand
>          of polymorph, zap him with it.  He is still mad, but is no longer as
>          strong,  I like polymorphing the shopkeeper and watching him change
>          into an acid blob.  
>


The problem lies in the fact that he still had his armor on.  That is all.
He polymorphed the homunculus into a nurse, and the nurse hit him while he
had his armor on.  Nothing special about that.  Oh, and I sure hope you like
Xorns, cause the shopkeeper can be polymorphed into those too.

In article <439@excalibur.UUCP> 188622462@excalibur.UUCP (Greene T Richard) writes:
>However, since you polymorphed a homunculus into a nurse
>while the power was avaiable, the creature still had the personality of a
>homunculus.  Therefore the attack was a normal one, not a healing one.

	No!  Whenever you polymorph any "regular" monster into another, the
new monster behaves exactly like all others of its type.  Thus a homunculus
that is polymorphed into a nurse will behave exactly like any other nurse.

	By the way, I checked this on our own local (essentially unmodified)
version 1.0.3 of hack and found this to be true.
-- 
Ray Allen  | "A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it."
utcsri!ray | - Oscar Wilde as quoted in "Parachutes & Kisses" by Erica Jong

In article <439@excalibur.UUCP> 188622462@excalibur.UUCP writes:
>Yes and no.  It seems the special power of the nurse is a voluntary one.  Your
>hitpoints will increase only when the nurse is in the mood, aka when all your 
>armour is off.  However, since you polymorphed a homunculus into a nurse
>while the power was avaiable, the creature still had the personality of a
>homunculus.  Therefore the attack was a normal one, not a healing one.

Not quite true.  You are correct in that monsters retain 'personality traits'
after being polymorphed, however that isn't the reason the nurses attack 
killed the previous writer.  Nurses always attack, pretty nasty too, until
you're stripped off etc.

>Spoiler:  If you are being chased by an angry shopkeeper, and you have the wand
>          of polymorph, zap him with it.  He is still mad, but is no longer as
>          strong,  I like polymorphing the shopkeeper and watching him change
>          into an acid blob.  

I did this once and got a unicorn, which stayed mad, I was a bit unnerved
at first, but I soon realised it was a hell of a lot easier than chasing
round and round trying to corner a unicorn to throw gems at it. Instead
it kept rushing up to attack me, and as soon as it was standing next to
me I threw it a gem. My luck should have been massive, unfortunately I
got pulled into a pool by an eel. So much for luck.

-- 

Regards,
Bruce Munro.  <bruce@stc.UUCP>
...seismo!mcvax!ukc!stc!bruce