Serpent talisman

Version 0.32: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

A jade snake coiled around a nagaraja's name-day egg. Transforms the user into a giant, cold-blooded, poison-resistant serpent, ready to wind their coils around foes and crush them to death. Shapeshifting skill increases the armour provided by the snake's scales. While transformed, any equipped weapons and armour are melded.

A serpent talisman is a talisman that changes you into Serpent Form, a giant, constricting snake.

Useful Info

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

Serpent Form has the following effects:

Combat Bonuses

• HP Bonus: 120% HP
• Innate AC: Linearly scales from the following points, rounding down:
  • Below minimum: 1 AC (0 skill) - 9 AC (10 skill)
  • Above minimum: 9 AC (10 skill) - 15 AC (19 skill) ; +1 AC per 1.67 levels
• Unarmed Combat: 10 base damage.
• Constriction: When making a melee attack, you initiate constriction. You can constrict 1 large (or smaller) foe at a time.
• Stat Bonus: +5 strength.

Resistances

• rPois

Restrictions

• Melded Gear: All armour, weapon, and shield. (Can only wear jewellery)
• You cannot throw items.

Other

• Cold-blooded: You will be slowed when hit by certain cold attacks. Negated by any amount of cold resistance.
• Amphibious: Can swim in water, immune to drowning damage. Note that unless your species is already amphibious, you can't recover items from deep water.
• Large size: Species smaller than large will have reduced EV in this form. (Being large also lets you constrict large opponents and increases your resistance to knockback effects such as trample.)
• Suppresses many mutations. Species movement delay set to 1.0.

Serpent Form has a minimum Shapeshifting skill of 10, below which you get an HP penalty, and the AC bonus scales down. It has a maximum skill of 19, where skill has no further impact.

Aizul always carries a serpent talisman.

Strategy

Constriction is a strong effect, inflicting a large EV penalty while dealing extra damage. Unlike base Octopodes, Serpent Form can constrict large creatures, including things like centaurs, ogres, and yaks.

Serpent Form also gives a fair bit of AC. For many characters first entering the Lair, it offers slightly more AC than lighter armours, without the encumbrance of heavy armour. When combined with the 120% HP and the innate poison resistance, it's a moderately durable form. However, the lack of shield will reduce your defense in the long run.

Tips & Tricks

• This form can be very useful for Nagas (fittingly enough), as it lets them move at normal speed. Barachim can also move normally, though they'll lose their hop.
• Being cold-blooded can be risky when fighting monsters with freezing weapons or other types of cold damage. Note what activates cold-blooded and what doesn't; e.g. certain spells like Flash Freeze won't cause the mutation to activate.
• If you haven't found a source of flight yet, Serpent Form will let you pass through deep water even at 0 Shapeshifting skill (though using it at such low skill will greatly reduce your maximum HP).

Serpent Form

History

• Serpent talismans were introduced in 0.31, along with talismans themselves. Serpent Form had no previous counterpart, but is similar in role to Ice Form.