nethack
I am a lawful human Valkyrie that crawled down the dungeon to the Oracle with a cat and a dog. The problem is that my cat accidentally stepped on a polymorph trap and he turned into an invisible monster. I do not have related intrinsics or extrinsics and I cannot see him, nor do I know what kind of monster he is now.
What is the best way to cope with such a pet?
There was a very good article targeted at Doppelganger's as a player character race that might have some helpful information.
Before gaining Polymorph Control:
- Medium-sized humanoids can wear all armor and use weapons.
- Hill orcs are guaranteed at level 2, and are strong monsters
- Elf and dwarf mummies are reasonably fast, and do not have to eat, making them if you want to wait around and sacrifice at an altar
- Doppelgangers can start polymorphing into mind flayers with a reasonable chance of success at level 6 or 7; the brain-eating attack will make short work of most monsters, but is useless against those without heads or brains, and downright dangerous against monsters with passive attacks. Note that mind flayers will not be stoned by attacking cockatrices; the tentacle attack is instead turned off.
- Although not guaranteed until level 8, a level 5-7 character has a reasonable chance of polymorphing into a basilisk. They are essentially stronger cockatrices, with the same passive attacks. As such, they can be very handy for getting through the Gnomish mines. Note that nutrition can be a problem, since you can't eat statues. Also, the similar asphynx may look appealing, being faster, but it can carry very few items, and cannot pick any up at all.
- Blue jellies have a powerful passive attack and are a guaranteed polymorphable form at level 4. Unfortunately, they are also immobile and their lack of carrying capacity will result in nutriton burn if you do not first drop ALL of your equipment. If a non-cold resistant monster attacks you in melee they will take damage and heal you, possibly also causing you to split creating tame blue jellies. This can be useful for survival in the Gnomish mines, and the tame jellies can be abandoned and killed after becoming untame as a source of cold resistance.
- Gargoyles and Winged gargoyles can sit and lay eggs that will hatch has gargoyles, winged gargoyles cannot wear body armor but normal ones can. Both forms also have excellent natural AC.
- Baby dragons are guaranteed starting at level 4. They can lay eggs, which will then hatch tame. Unfortunately, the larger disparity between the base levels of baby and adult dragons in SLASH'EM makes getting pets dragons from baby dragons harder, although not impossible.
- Demons have low natural AC, good attacks, and are a source of powerful pets through demon gating. The weaker demons become guaranteed polymorphable forms before a doppelganger gains intrinsic polymorph control at level 9 as well.
- Chasmes can attack quickly and can repeatedly put foes to sleep. Great for killing shopkeepers (though this will come at the cost of -5 alignment if you kill the shopkeeper without having him/her become angry with you due to not waking up).
After gaining polymorph control
- Giant shoggoths are about the most powerful form, making short work of just about any monster, including One-Eyed Sam. They are stoning resistant, can eat metal, are quite fast and have teleport control. Unfortunately, they are also blind, and have no hands. Thus, they make poor traveling forms, but are excellent for problem-solving.
- Crystal golems are too large to wear body armor, but intrinsically possess magic resistance, reflection, fire, cold, sleep and shock resistance. They will always have 300 hp as well. While their melee attack only does the damage of your wielded weapon/bare-handed combat abilities, they also possess a random breath weapon, possibly including disintegration.
- Skeletons are somewhat slow, but are reasonably strong, stoning resistant, have a good natural AC and can wear all armor and use weapons. The slow speed can be offset by intrinsic speed or (better) speed boots.
- Master mind flayers are stronger than normal mind flayers. Note, however, that in SLASH'EM they oddly have fewer brain-eating attacks than normal mind flayers.
- Dragons of any color have excellent defensive and offensive capabilities and by sitting they can lay eggs, which can then grow into pets.
- Black dragons have disintegration breath, which is instadeath to most things.
- Xorns and earth elementals have the ability to travel through walls. Stealing from shops is easy and escaping into the middle of nowhere to heal up is a great bonus.
Sokoban and the Gnomish Mines present an interesting set of choices. When you think about which one to attempt first, you have to think about the rewards you'll get, and the dangers you'll face. I'll enumerate these in this answer, but let's first directly address the decision.
In a general sense, Sokoban tends to be easier. The darkness, traps, and occasional out-of-depth mumak attacks in the Mines can utterly destroy characters before they even get anything out of the trip. Meanwhile, most of Sokoban's treasures can be gotten with relative ease.
That said, the treasures in the Mines tend to be more valuable, and the zoo in Sokoban can be a pain. I always find it more useful to step into the Gnomish Mines first and see what it's like before making the decision. If they are well-lit and I can see a good haul and the stairs fairly close, then progress is usually safe. Having a strong pet that has been trained on the earlier floors also makes it a lot easier to take down monsters. But if it is dark (especially if I lack a magic whistle), or if I spy a nasty foe, then I'll high-tail it and do Sokoban.
The rewards of the upper levels of the Gnomish Mines are random tools, fair equipment, and access to Mine Town.
Each floor of the mines is guaranteed to have a tool or two, which if you're really lucky can be a magic lamp or tinning kit or skeleton key or bag of holding. The normal tools aren't all that bad, either, as a spare lantern, towel or sack never hurt anyone.
From the dwarves, you have a chance to find things like dwarven mithril coat or dwarven mattocks. Dangerous to try and get if you're low level, but dwarven mithril coat offers very good defense for the early game. If you don't want to anger dwarves (or can't beat them due to the armor), hobbits sometimes carry elven mithril coat which is almost as good.
Finally, there's Mine Town. It has an altar, whose advantages are highlighted in the other answers. There's also shops that can stock even more tools like found strewn about, and Izchak's shop. Never underestimate the usefulness of a functioning lamp. There is a food store, and sometimes the tool shop stocks an ice box chock full of corpses. Don't buy the ice box, but instead just buy corpses - they tend to be cheap and can be sacrificed.
The dangers of the Gnomish Mines are dangerous foes, traps, and darkness.
Dwarves and gnomes are a painful lot and they can come in decent numbers, and also will not hesitate to break through walls to reach you. Some of them also carry wands, which hurt a lot. Fire and cold will end you very easily. More dangerous, though, you tend to run into things like bees or rothes or mumaks... or if you're really unlucky, soldier ants. The open-ness of the mines makes it very dangerous to engage these.
Traps hurt a lot if you aren't prepared. Magic traps can destroy your equipment, but far more often leave you blinded and surrounded by hostiles. Spike pits deal hefty damage, and may be poisoned to cause your death if you aren't Poison Resistant. Consequently, there are no traps in Sokoban other than the pits that you're just plugging up.
Some levels have a chance to be dark, and these represent a very dangerous trek in the mines. Even with a light source, the benefits of being to immediately see the staircases and incoming danger are very high. If you run into the mines and they are dark, it will only be much harder. But if they are lit, and you can spy close stairs, you can possibly avoid many of the dangers and reap your rewards.
The rewards of Sokoban are lots of food items on each floor, two scrolls of earth, a handful of rings and wands, and either a bag of holding or an amulet of reflection, if you make it through to the end. The food items can be varyingly helpful to an adventurer who is running low, and the rings and wands are simply nice to get somewhat safely.
The final prize can actually change your decision. The rooms in which either prize are found are fixed - so if you've played long enough to know which room is which, you might choose to back away instead of dealing with the zoo.
The dangers of Sokoban are the zoo at the top, mimic boulders, luck penalties and creatures getting in the way.
The zoo is filled with monsters, which may be poisonous or acidic or otherwise an extreme pain. If you're really unlucky, there can be winter wolves or other breath weapon users. Telepathy really helps if you have it, but otherwise you might consider just getting the non-final prizes of the place if you think the battle will be too difficult.
Mimics hurt a lot. That's really all there is to it. If you aren't prepared for it, it can end you. Telepathy, once again, helps.
Luck penalties are had when you botch things up, which tends to happen when creatures get in the way. If you lack methods of firing through boulders, or if you have problems with the puzzle, you can suffer quite drastic penalties as a result of workarounds. And if you're super unlucky, it's actually your pet that's on the other side of the boulder (A magic whistle helps here, as well). So I find that if I lack any method of dealing with enemies getting in the way, I'll skip Sokoban until I find at least something.
Best Answer
Since the polymorph trap doesn't disappear until you step on it, just push your pet onto the trap again (after letting it heal up so it doesn't die of systemic shock). it should turn into some other, ideally non-invisible monster.
If the polymorph trap is gone there are usually some in the lowest levels of the Gnomish Mines.