Malmutate

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Bestows a mutation on a target. The mutation is almost always harmful. It cannot affect artificial beings, and the undead will decompose if affected.

Malmutate is a monster-only spell which attempts to mutate its target.

Effect

Against players

If Malmutate is used on a player, there is an 80% chance that it will cause a bad mutation, and a 20% chance it will cause a random mutation. Willpower is useless against this, but mutation resistance functions normally. These mutations are permanent until removed.

Undead players cannot mutate, but will decompose and take stat drain, which can be cured by gaining XP.

Against monsters

When used on a monster, the victim gets the misshapen and mutated enchantment, with the following effects:

• -8 AC
• -25% HD

HD has an effect on monster accuracy, willpower, and spell damage, so the HD reduction also lowers these.

Undead and nonliving monsters are immune to this status. Abominations change their tile, and (very) ugly things will change their colour, but are otherwise unaffected by the status.

Monster Spell

The following enemies cast Malmutate:

• 2 Cacodemon
• 3 Neqoxec
• * Orb of fire
• G Shining eye

The following monster may inflict Malmutate on a melee attack (25% chance):

• & Mnoleg

Player Sources

Players can inflict the misshapen and mutated status on monsters via the following sources:

• Irradiate
• Yara's Violent Unravelling
• Plutonium sword's melee attacks
• Flux form's third unarmed attack on a monster
• Lugonu's Banishment ability (if the target resists banishment)
• The warlock's mirror can reflect Malmutate - you'll avoid malmutation, and the monster is mutated instead.

Strategy

The best method of dealing with Malmutate is to minimize the turns where you can be hit by it. It requires line of fire to hit you:

• Any method of restricting line of sight will prevent line of fire. A scroll of fog will let melee characters get close to a malmutator. Ducking behind a corner will do the same.
• Lesser Beckoning or Vhi's Electric Charge can be used by melee character to approach the enemy, without spending as many turns in line of fire.
• You can hide behind other monsters or use summons to block enemy fire; even Fulminant Prism can block LoF. Then, you can use piercing attacks, such as bolt wands or javelins, or smite-targeted attacks, like Airstrike, to attack through blocking monsters.

Fortunately, neqoxecs and shining eyes are fairly fragile. Cacodemons, while difficult opponents, are manageable enough if you're ready to explore areas where they are common (the deep Abyss, Hell, or Pandemonium). Orbs of fire are so incredibly dangerous that it's already worth hitting them with everything you have.

If you do end up taking some mutations, it's usually not immediately lethal. The ones to watch out for mid-combat are berserkitis and No Unsafe Scrolls / No Unsafe Potions, which can restrict your options for escaping. If you have any potions of mutation saved up, those have a decent chance of fixing your problems (though they might leave you with a set of new ones).

Tips & Tricks

• Mutation resistance protects against mutation, but sources are rare, and complete immunity is even rarer. You can get full immunity via Mutation Resistance 3 (as a level 3 mutation, is rare), being undead (species, or the very high level spell, Necromutation), or by worshipping Zin at ****** piety.
• All malmutators are chaotic, and thus vulnerable to silver. Silver javelins are particularly effective.

See Also

• Corrupting Pulse inflicts temporary but always bad mutations.

History

This spell was added in 0.12, replacing the monster version of Polymorph Other.