Blade talisman

Trunk-only: This article pertains to a feature of Crawl which is being tested. It will likely change before the next release, and may even be removed entirely.

Causes long, needle-thin blades to grow from the user's hands and smaller fragments of metal to grow inside their body, deforming them and reducing the effectiveness of body armour. Shapeshifting skill mitigates and eventually eliminates the latter effect, as well as increasing damage dealt. While transformed, equipped weapons, shields, and gloves are melded, and casting spells becomes somewhat more difficult.

For the spell present in 0.30, see Blade Hands.

A blade talisman is a talisman that gives you Blade Hands, increasing your damage in Unarmed Combat.

Useful Info

When eVoked, a blade talisman grants Blade Hands, which lasts until you end the form. Entering or exiting a form takes 5 turns.

Blade Hands has the following effects:

Combat Bonuses

• Unarmed Combat: 14 - 18 base damage, scaling linearly from 9 to 20 Shapeshifting skill.
• Your off-hand punch gains +6 damage.
• Reduces base AC of body armour by a factor of Shapeshifting / 20, where AC is rounded down (50% AC at 10 Shapeshifting).
  • Does not impact enchantment, and AC gained from Armour skill is still calculated with the armour's full base AC. Stacks multiplicatively with Deformed / Pseudopods.

Restrictions

• Melded Gear: Weapon, shield, and gloves. Claws are also melded.
• You cannot throw items.
• Makes spells harder to cast (increases raw spell failure rate by +20%).

Blade Hands does not block mutations (other than claws), does not change your size, and gives no innate bonus to HP / AC.

It has a minimum Shapeshifting skill of 9, below which you get an HP penalty. It has a maximum skill of 20, where skill has no further impact.

Strategy

Blade Hands is essentially two-handed Unarmed Combat. Even at 0 Unarmed Combat skill, you'll hit harder than a great mace, while keeping the off-hand punch and swinging faster. It's certainly strong, but melds the shield slot and reduces AC (until max skill).

Unlike certain other forms, Blade Hands doesn't meld body armour. It's great for Shapeshifters wanting to focus on Armour skill.

History

• Introduced in 0.31 in the transformation overhaul. Previously implemented as a spell, Blade Hands.

The previous spell had 22 base damage, cut hydra heads, and didn't have an AC penalty. (However, since it was a spell, heavy armour made it harder to cast).