Maw talisman

Version 0.34: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

Transforms the user's midsection into a giant mouth, gnashing and ready to devour foes. The mouth may devour slain creatures, healing the user to an extent increased by the user's Shapeshifting skill and the power of the creature eaten. Skill also increases the damage done by the maw.

A maw talisman is a talisman that changes you into Maw Form, which adds a giant, gnashing mouth in place of the stomach.

Useful Info

When eVoked, a maw talisman turns you into Maw Form, which lasts until you end the form. Entering or exiting a form takes 5 turns.

Maw Form has the following effects:

• Maw aux attack: Adds a biting auxiliary attack. Unlike other aux attacks, your bite attack happens every 15 auts, independent of attack speed. 75% of your strength is added to the bite damage. Damage scales linearly with Shapeshifting skill:
  • Below minimum: 14 damage (0 skill) - 23 damage (12 skill)
  • Above minimum: 23 damage (12 skill) - 29 damage (20 skill)
• Devour on kill: Whenever you kill an enemy that can drop a corpse in melee, you have an independent 66% chance to devour it, increasing your Regeneration rate. You don't need to make a maw attack to devour. The duration of regeneration is based on monster HD. Regeneration rate scales linearly with Shapeshifting skill:
  • Below minimum: 0 Regen (0 skill) - 2.20 Regen (12 skill)
  • Above minimum: 2.20 Regen (12 skill) - 5.00 Regen (20 skill)

• Growling stomach: Your maw's appetite is insatiable. Whenever you first encounter an edible monster, there is a 1 in 6 chance to become Mesmerised by it and let out a loud growl.

• Melded Gear: None. However, AC from Body Armor is reduced by 75%.

Maw Form does not block any mutations, does not change your size, and gives no innate bonus to HP / AC.

Beogh followers will not devour orc corpses. Gozag turns corpses into gold, stopping this effect. Death drops still generate, so you won't miss out on dragon scales and the like. However, Animate Dead and Infestation won't function for corpses you devour.

Rupert may carry a maw talisman.

Maw Form has a minimum Shapeshifting skill of 12, below which you get an HP penalty, and the maw's damage scales down. It has a maximum skill of 20, where skill has no further impact.

Strategy

The maw auxiliary attack has a bite speed of 15 auts (1.5 turns). Therefore, unlike most aux attacks, faster attack speeds will not result in more bites.

The mesmerising effect can be quite dangerous as it may lock you in combat until the enemy is killed. When packs of enemies come into view at once, there is a very high chance of this occurring - a good reason to consider how much the regeneration rate and high bite damage will negate the risk.

Species that do not wear body armour (draconians, octopodes, felids) incur no penalty from using Maw Form (other than any penalty resulting from insufficient Shapeshifting skill).

History

• 0.34 Maw form was changed to a Tier 3 talisman, increasing damage and skill requirements, changing the heal to a regeneration effect, removing shoutitis, and adding a chance to mesmerise the player.
• 0.33 Maw Form changed to reduce your body armour's AC by 75% instead of completely melding it. The damage was be reduced a bit, and the player received a shoutitis-like mutation. The skill requirements changed from min 10/max 19 to min 8/max 14.}}
• Maw talismans were introduced in 0.31, along with talismans themselves. Maw Form had no previous counterpart.