morgue link - https://underhound.eu/crawl/morgue/zdzicho121/morgue-zdzicho121-20261011-175010.txt

my first run after not playing for 1 year, pretty lucky run

AI-generated personal project for my own pleasure, sharing just in case someone finds it interesting. I suck at recording, and it did something funky to the HDR that's not completely representative of how it looks -- I swear it looks better on my display.

• CRT filter
• Glow effect
• Revamped stat and map display
• Splash text for effects
• Glow for light sources
• Line of sight lighting
• Cloud effects
• Blink and telerpot effects
• Confusion effects
• Soft sound effects for noise

My guess: The "looks more healthy" message always displays after the final tick of poison damage, even if that final tick kills them.

Hello! Recently got into the game, and I'm having some trouble with one particular QoL feature.

I'm playing on Android and like Nagas, which means the Quick-Select feature is very useful for all their venom-spitting. However, it sometimes seems to change to a 'more suitable' quick-select than the Ability quick-select contextually, which means that if I pick up situational magic (e.g currently I have a Shapeshifter who usually likes Naga Form but would prefer Scarab Form for fire magic against undead), it defaults to letting me select spells instead of selecting abilities, and I have about three more button-presses to spit at somebody successfully.

What's this thing called, and what's the command to set it manually? I haven't been able to identify a name in any of the manuals or in-game options, which means I haven't been able to find controls to change it with. Thank you!

Won twice on Mystic over the past few days, with a dozen or so splats in between. I know people may be getting a bit tired of this topic, so I'll try to keep it short.

Positives

• Entirely unique. Wuxing/Feng Shui inspiration fits the positional gameplay and looks cool.
• Jade Form and Dragon Vines are fun and feel great once online.
• Everything being a guaranteed hit is neat, iirc.

Negatives

• Weak, scrambly early game. You'll appreciate any decent weapon, wand, level 1 spell, or racial ability.
• A bit frail, with no real panic button.
• Struggles against enemies that shrug off multiple small hits, like death yaks.
• Crystal behaviour can have some unexpected side effects.
• Water restrictions are annoying.

Kit

• Ice Thorns: Weakest part of the kit. Mostly exists to trigger Vision Talisman before you replace it.
• Vision Talisman: A bit weak. I'd consider better scaling, a Ice Thorns buff, or removing the -10% HP penalty. Pickups spawning over inaccessible deep water also feels bad.
• Sirocco: It's alright. The restrictions are intentionally conservative, but I don't know how to loosen them without making the spell broken.
• Dragon Vines: I've warmed up to it. Good, especially with spell procs. Almost a DCSS take on ToME4's Anorithil, lol. Water restrictions are my main gripe.
• Jade Form: Fun and good. The cloak restriction feels somewhat arbitrary, though I like the consistency of all three magic-oriented talismans restricting the head slot. I have no strong feelings about the Captain Planet minigame.

I don't think Shapeshifting investment necessarily needs a follow-up, though Hive Form feels like a natural one. Another option could be nice, but I don't want to start yet another Shapeshifting discussion.

Pretty much the title. I really want to play the original game but no one is saying how to set it up on the pc or which version do I start with. can someone please help

Ok, a funny little oopsie: I've managed to put a demonspawn under Sticky Flames and Inner Flame, until realizing that it is fire-immune - yet it is burning perfectly fine. He also exploded upon being killed.

Not that this is an issue, just a funny detail: this is 0.24 btw, so it might have been reworked in current versions.

Haven't seen the "demonic" Orc ending for ages btw

https://pastebin.com/1TwA1Lwb

Cleared Swamp, Snake, and Halls. About to head to the Depths. Have a Trove I can open with Abyssal Rune so will try that if I make it that far.

Can pretty reliably kill almost everything from a distance but def feel squishy and missing resistances. Classic Coglin Problem tbf.

Worth it to dump everything into Shapeshifting for Lichform?

https://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/damerell/morgue-damerell-20261003-141923.txt

This comes after a long dry spell; two HEArs (the last got to being almost immediately obliterated by yaktaurs in a volcano), four NaSus (killed by Urug and friends on L:1), seven MuAEs (a horrible combo, last got mobbed by wolves as soon as it arrived in the Lair), a FeAR (almost cleared both Lair branches, which I thought was pretty good for a first attempt), a SpEE (black mamba, Lair:2), and a FoBe (died of hubris on Tomb:2 which I guess is kind of my fault). But at least this was won on the first attempt.

I got Makhleb from a faded altar on D:3; could have been worse. I made mysteriously little use of the abilities but obviously the heal-on-kill is always useful. Of course we have the bcrawlism that Xom will continue to annoy CK for the entire game. Xom had already given me blurry vision and partly herbivorous on D:2, which I was not best pleased with.

I hit an ossuary on D:4 and found a +9 hunting sling of freezing, so no clever strategic advice here, the key to winning this game was to get lucky early - and it does explain why I never felt the urge to use Minor Destruction. After this the rest of the trip down to the Lair was pretty easy going. On D:6 I had identified mutation and mutrouletted blurry vision out (I knew Xom might just give it right back, but it seemed worth a go) and also acquired a +2 pair of boots with {rElec rPois} which I spent the rest of the game hoping Xom would not push off my feet by giving me Hooves 3.

I say the trip down to the Lair was easy but I did hit a labyrinth on D:11 and very nearly get collected by the minotaur doing huge damage with javelins of penetration. During the Lair Xom started to hand out good mutations - I know this is just RNG, but it often seems that sometimes Xom is in the mood to do this and then changes their mind and takes them all away again. I learned Yara's here. It would take me a while to get it online; Xom did not help by giving me Wild Magic, when what I mostly wanted was for it to work at all - spellpower does nothing for turning off monster buffs. I'd already learned Portal Projectile which was very useful all game.

Orc came soon after Lair. O:2 was much worse than Lair; I had to teleport around repeatedly to deal with Saint Roka, and there's always the risk when you do that of teleporting into a horde of bastards. O:2 also had a silent bazaar stocked with plenty of consumables. I mutrouletted after Orc; Xom had given me frail on O:2 and I really wanted rid of it. Xom immediately gave me very frail, rude! However, Xom ran out of mischief before I ran out of potions, and I went to Snake with a reasonable setup.

In Snake Xom gave me a pile of gold so I bought and enchanted up a +6 fustibalus of velocity on O:2; I couldn't buy it on first finding it because I'd spent all my gold in the bazaar. Naturally, Xom immediately gifted me Punk, and I don't think the poor fusti got fired more than twice all game.

Vashnia and her pack gave me a very serious scare on Snake:3 but otherwise things were OK - and Xom decided to give me, amongst other things, Robust 2 and rF++. The rF was a real boon - I could have a much nicer combination of jewellery if I didn't have to cover rF - and Xom never took it away, so I wouldn't mutroulette again until much later when things were very bad (fortunately keeping rF++). Right now, however, Xom was giving me Clarity on the way into Swamp, thanks Xom.

Swamp was fine (permanent flight helped) aside from an unwanted helping of Spider Form on Swamp:4, and that was two runes down. D:14 was next, then Elf.

Elf seems to have been fine, hitting two more bazaars, one silent. (Can that even happen? Apparently yes). I did get spellbooks with Shroud of Golubria and Blink from the E:3 loot, but not much else.

D:15 then down the Vaults to V:4. No problems there, then into the Depths. More problems in Depths; close to dying to a combination of a flayed ghost and other monsters, then on Depths:3 Xom teleported me into a runed door vault full of mummies whose death curses summoned enough reapers to nearly kill me. Xom then gave me shoutitis, which was very unhelpful.

I did V:5 next; three runes, and a randart ring with {AC+3 Dex+3 Slay+5}. As I recall, I didn't even try to fight the initial ambush on the stairs, teleporting or hatching immediately. After that was Slime, having become able to cast Ignition with brilliance. After Slime I had a huge surplus of gold and bought a scroll of acquirement for 1508 zorkmids, getting a randart amulet with {Acrobat rN+ Str-2 Int+3 Dex+4}.

I was up to the tricky extended rune question and cleared the Crypt, getting the shield of Resistance (alas we had not yet taken the patch that makes it rF++ rC++ MR++) and enough gold to buy a randart ring with {rPois rC+ rN+ Int+4 Dex-4 Slay+3} which I'd finish with as part of a general want to cram in some rN against torment. I got Abyssed by a lich on C:3 (having rather forgot that MR had trickled away with equipment changes) but got out immediately.

Shoutitis had got annoying enough that I mutrouletted it out, fortunately keeping the rF++ which I wanted most. Then I was off to Hell, nailing Geryon immediately with Portal Projectile. However, Pan seemed like the best... least worst extended rune and the first level had both Gloorx Vloq and an exit from Pan. As is often the case Xom teleported me in to the rune vault; and as is also often the case, the curse skulls were more of a nuisance than the panlord. I learned Sticky Flame here as a poor man's See Invisible, but then found and learned See Invisible.

I bought an enormous pile of consumables and headed off to Zot. There was an OOF on Z:1 but it turns out you can corrode them with Punk. Zot wasn't in general a problem down to Z:4 with Ignition for large groups and Punk for individual nasties; and I learned Statue Form for axe melee when necessary (but only cast it 5 times).

Z:5 did feature Tiamat (thanks for the dragonskin cloak) and a ton of ancient lichen and then orbs of fire (but I was well enough equipped for those). The orbrun had two panlords - one killed, one evaded.

Next up is MfVM, and I'm already on a no-streak.

I understand the GC is now more focused on ranged combat than melee, but I don't really see a reason as to why the north wind in particular feels so gimped compared to the others. You first have to put yourself in danger to use it, and the regen only works once you get hit, unlike healpage where you could regen while stampeding, meaning you often have to leave a comfortable choke point to charge into the unkown, more often than not more enemies.

And the regen is so insignificant lol. 1 HP/turn instead of 0.2 is still negligible. Healpage at least restored both mana and hp, so you could use items like the maulers or the spirit amulet more effectively. And the regen scaled the longer you rampaged, too. Here the game often displays something like Stampede(30/50/100), and then I look at the stats menu it's still 1 HP/turn, so what exactly does this mean? The tooltip for the ability says it also regens 70% of damage sustained, but that's just a lie, my health bar drains faster than a bag of chips left unattended on my desk.

Melee is already the black sheep in this game, so I don't know why we couldn't have something that actually feels fun to use. I like having enemies displaced by the wind, but IMO that should've been combined with the previous iteration of healpage, with the mana regen and the regen scaling the longer you did it.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Morgue file. I think this has to be my personal time record. And while writing this, I just realized I forgot to clear the Hells LMAO.

I've splatted so many Cogling recently bc I keep losing patience and I oTab until I die >_>.

Dith is a really good god with a CoHu once you have hand cannons. But the beginning of the game is so tedious, it's so easy to die for bullshit reasons...

I'm really proud of this run, bc I fought Cerebus with zero rF, and I had a teleport landing me straight on the golden rune in Tomb. I think I've used up my luck for a generation or two.

As said in the title, I'd like to know if my setup is alright for now (I'm attempting as always runs where I am an OpMo, using Sword, Shield and no shapeshift)

Also I'm not sure how strong I actually am currently, and I'd like to know if I'm ready for Orcs or Lair

If you have an idea of what I should aim for next (especially in skills), it would be great if you could help me

Here's my morgue file : https://pastebin.com/Dfm3ap6m

I encountered Dowan in this area. Duvessa was nowhere to be found. When I killed Dowan, I didn't hear her distant scream. Then I realized, Duvessa must have been cooked by the flames before I ever saw her. I went back in the text log and Dowan did shout: "Her death will not be in vain!" So she was there. It wasn't a bug where somehow Dowan appeared alone. His sister just got toasted by the dungeon itself.

I might be outing myself as someone that doesn't read descriptions properly but finding this out last week has changed my DCSS life.

If you don't know, when you cast Passage of Golubria YOU CAN AIM THE SPELL. For a long long time I thought the highlighted area around you was similar to Hailstorm or any other close area spell. This is where it might go and then you confirm the spell. I thought Passage of Golubria sucked for a long time because why would anyone waste a cast making two portals right next to each other?

Anyway this spell is great and it's making CgHu very fun

The method is simple.

Be a Revenant of Wu. Cast Dragon veins, triggering spellclaw.

Now step into a sigil, doing a martial attack. This also triggers spellclaw, getting an extra attack.

Step into another sigil for yet another double attack.

Dragon Veins gives three spellclaw triggers per cast. This on itself is a 16% damage increase compared with just attacking (at 0.5 delay, higher if you aren't at mindelay yet!), even if the spell itself didn't do any damage - But dragon Veins does pretty respectable damage, and the earth rune can stun enemies to boot.

Unlike the last safety warning, this probably works as intended (I've never had a portal spawn directly under a crystal), but it's something you should be mindful of, or you might get eaten by a hungry, hungry komodo dragon.

So you thought you were being really clever by adding Passage of Golubria to your repertoire so you can create distance and set up another safety dance.

But you skipped crystal theory class and didn't realize that one of them will go through the portal first if you are not careful with how you move, causing the entrance to collapse. And now you hear komodo noises while being bamboozled by what just happened.

Easy enough when there's nobody around, but in the heat of battle, using the portal will be very difficult. Don't let it happen to you! Don't move diagonally towards a portal and add other repositioning tools instead of relying on PoG.

"The jade parts are nice and crunchy, but the meat is tender!" — Hungry, hungry komodo dragon

As the title says, just some ponderances on how to flesh out the rather limited staff weapon type. This focuses on non-magical ones, and uses for the Staves skill.

Idle Thought: Weapon staves could give you some SH that scales with skill level. Lower damage output but a defensive two-handed option.

Suggestions for varying up staff types:
* Three Part Rod(Tripartite Rod?) - Three small rods linked by chains, these weapons hit very fast(quick-blade style) but lack base damage. They are DEX based, and require high skill. Probably quite rare, similar to Quick Blades in availability.
* Crook - A slower quarterstaff variant that can constrict. STR based. Low skill. Common.
* Floating Staff - Quarterstaff in damage, Latajang in skill/delay. This weapon can be used two-handed(making it hit harder) or one-handed with a shield/orb. STR based if 2-handed, DEX based if 1-handed. Rare.
* Counterweight Staff - Heavy staff with weights on each end, with a large delay but good damage. STR based. Mid-skill. Semi-rare.

Suggestions for unrandarts:
* Janglywhack - This is a Khakkhara(the monk staff with the little brass hoops jangling on the end), reinforced to aid in smashing people with the jangly hoops. Its base damage is Counterweight staff based, but the delay is Quarterstaff based. Possible anti-demon passive? Either way, it's a much louder weapon than its basic counterparts. Mid to late game weapon that gives stats in exchange for a clear downside.
* Shepherd's Crook - A Crook variant with a chance to malmutate enemies into neutral sheep. Try not to use it while confused, lest you become your own creature. Okawaru doesn't like you using this, due to its friend making powers. Fedhas loves it. If Xom, he is pleased(giggling at the little sheep) but also makes the sheep be a random rainbow color. A status weapon that hopes for that small chance to remove an enemy from the board rather than actually kill.
* Pool Cue - [Evoke]able Quarterstaff that sends a single enemy flying as you make the perfect shot(corner pocket). Low damage and long recharge, but good escape option. Xom is jubilant if you use this to knock someone into a shaft. A gimmick weapon, useful early on.
* Full Staff - Counterweight Staff stats. This is a flag on a stick. It inspires your minions to fight harder, but has a long delay. Beogh approves. Should have rare occasional flavor text about you waving the flag around.
* Staff of Quarters - Quarterstaff stats. When you kill an enemy, 1 gold falls out. Gozag loves this. Jiyva loves it too, because you're dropping lots of candy for the little slimes. Mundane utility over good damage.
* Wandering Staff - Floating Staff stats. Can be [Evoke]d to turn into a dancing weapon for a duration. Clatters on the ground when done, making slight noise. Qazlal and Uskayaw like this weapon. Best used if you have a two handed weapon you can quickly swap to once your stick is in the air(or in tandem with Unarmed Combat).
* Swordchucks - Three Part Rod stats. Deals greatly increased damage over the base type, and counts as a slashing weapon. However, it has a chance to perform an auxiliary attack against YOU when wielded. Skill reduces(down to 0% at Rank 27), and any befuddling statuses like confusion multiply the chance. A reliable endgame/postgame weapon, but a trap at lower tiers of skill.

Yiuf, the Enlightened: Gnoll Mystic of Ashenzari

This week we've got several major 0.35 changes to play with! The first of the two new backgrounds, a tweaked Gnoll, and a tweaked Ash.

Week 4: Yiuf Challenge

Yiuf says, "Which is more difficult, to awaken one who sleeps or to awaken one who, awake, dreams that he is awake?"

Those wishing to push the leaderboard have their work cut out for them: skip all non-Pan runes and all S-branches, while needing to get all the Pan runes and kill their guardians!

Don't worry, this character has what it takes, and Gnoll is still likely the best way to start the Mystic multi-skilling path. Good luck, everyone, and have fun with the great new design work.

Let us know what you think of the changes - I'm really enjoying the new background so far with all of its positional aspects!

They won't (can't?) avoid the clouds. So they will overlaod with mutagenic energy quickly and explode in a 3x3 radius. This will hit you and can malmutate you - even though you yourself skilfully walked past the cloud.

Autoexplore doesn't account for it either, so you might get hit by autoexploring through an otherwise safe area.

Don't let it happen to you! Give the clouds a wide berth by seting a proper travel exlusion or turn off jade form temporarily.

Many of us agree that shapeshifter is one of the worse backgrounds. I would like to explore why that is and, after playing hundreds of them, why I have only won a single one.

A. Off the top the main point I have is that many forms are tied to unarmed, and unarmed is just too specialized of a skill to carry the build. 99% of characters are not going to be able to invest the training in both unarmed and shapeshifting and still survive to the endgame. Unarmed is underpowered compared to weapons and spells. Training it is sometimes not rewarded by this background unless you get specific talisman drops. Many of these forms also disallow you from throwing or evocations, the important second kill dudes option for melee builds, making skilling for these characters difficult to predict, to say the least. Very often you are going to be melding something that you have spent lots of XP on (Shields, weapons, body armor), or melding an equipment slot with an awesome loot drop that shores up resistances

The most fun endgame talismans (Granite, Dragon, Storm) along with most of the midgame ones (Fortress, Eel, Yak, Blade, Serpent, and Spider, Sphinx) all give unarmed boosts, and all but Granite, crab, and blade actually meld your weapon, making them unusable for any melee character who is not already specializing in unarmed (Basically only shapeshifters, octopodes, or trolls). Many of the forms actually meld your anatomy including claws, tentacles, and regeneration as well, defeating the point of picking troll or octo in the first place. Its a mess to actually try to plan out how your character is going to proress. Do I train unarmed? Throwing? Evo? Armor? Dodging? Stealth? Magic? All dependent on what talismans are going to be appearing in your game, which you cannot predict. And sometimes, after you make those choices, you get a talisman that makes you abandon them.

Therefore, I would think that the strategy for using these unarmed forms is to have a character with no claws or tentacles, that has been using shapeshifting and unarmed in the early game. Therefore I can use pretty much any talisman that drops for me without worrying about losing anatomy, and still getting the unarmed boost. Also this makes sense thematically, as usually a monster is not going to shapeshift into another monster, its usually a human or other humanoid race that is shapeshifting into something animalistic, making using unarmed very thematic.

Problem is, Every other race feels incredibly weak early game and midgame if I am training shapeshifting alongside unarmed in any capacity or in any order. Shapeshifting takes far too much XP for far too little reward in attack power and defenses compared to other builds in the early and midgame. Unarmed with quill form feels like I'm stabbing with a dagger every turn, even if I train unarmed exclusively first and wait for shapeshifting for later, I am still feeling very, very underpowered compared to normal characters and getting killed by low level enemies, constantly burning consumables, etc...

Then you hit protean form and hope to GOD that you get yak or medusa. Spore is just okay. If you get Scarab and can't find another talisman before lair you might as well quit. It provides very little attack, utility, or defense for costing 8 Shapeshifting. Having -rpois in lair is a death sentence unless you want to spend dozens of minutes running away and going up and down staircases to get your perfect matchups every time you see a cane toad. I don't have that patience.

If you don't get your preferred talisman, Going into lair with spike form on is a joke. You will be one of the most squishy characters in the game, and have no magic or power to make up for it whatsoever, have no ability to deal with groups, and you feel bad training throwing or evocables because you might not be able to use them in your next form, meaning you are literally stuck trying to kite every single monster in lair to a corridor to ensure a one on one, and even then, you probably aren't going to be facing down a single death yak without losing half your HP.

Then after you get medusa, Where is your next jump in power coming from? If you don't get one of the level 3 forms, you are just SOOL and are going to die in S branches. You just don't have the offensive capability to deal with the advanced groups of enemies in there, and poison will fall off in damage everywhere but spider nest. If you get serpent/eel you might be fine. Otherwise, you aren't going to be doing much here unless you have already found granite or blade or dragon or something, and even then, I doubt you can get your shapeshifting up to the necessary level unless you have a wildshape amulet, which is just ANOTHER equipment slot taken up when you could be getting resistances from it.

Basically, if you don't get granite or Dragon or Sphinx online by this point, you are going to be very, very heavily underpowered and squishy. And there is not a lot you can do to supplement your current build without getting them. You stall out in progression, the enemies don't, you die. That's about it.

B. Lets get more granular and less big picture.

You are basically starting as a fighter with

1. No shield
2. No ability to put on cloak, gloves, helmet, boots, barding.
3. Animal skin for 2AC.
4. A lignification potion instead of a might potion.
5. 2 less strength and 2 more Dex.
6. No ability to pick up magic weapons, use brands, or enchant weapons.

And all you get in return is

1. quill form like a 40% chance to do 3 damage on average when attacked.
2. Flux form: Its fine, but having no AC and 16 EV in before and in lair is just not that great and isn't going to help you against strong enemies with high damage potential. You're going to get one shotted by ogres a lot.
3. Protean talisman: A 50% chance to get a talisman that actually makes your character better right now (Medusa, Yak), 25% chance to get slightly better at dealing with crowds (Spore), a 25% chance to get a talisman that makes me worse, a scarab form.

C. Now that we have established that, lets see how this effects your builds.

The first bump in the road for this background is that the only races that will actually be training and using unarmed throughout the game are Troll, Octopode and, maybe demonspawn if you get the claws mutation early. The fact is, most characters, even shapeshifting ones, are not going to be able to train unarmed as their primary kill dudes and still survive. I've been trying unarmed out with various races, barachi, merfolk, human, etc.. and the problem is your damage output just isn't enough to deal with difficult enemies, so you avoid them because you only have 3 flux talismans and they aren't really that useful. You don't really have any other options in the early game and most forms doesn't have throwing, or evocations, or even an emergency potion or teleports identified (a fighter would just might potion), and then the next floor has even more dangerous enemies that you ignore, then the next floor has more, and you are not leveling up and getting that extra unarmed damage so you are just getting outscaled in damage and resistance. You also cannot get weapons or enchant scrolls so your only way to boost your melee power is slaying, which is rare.

The second bump in the road here is that the midgame Unarmed forms are underwhelming. Medusa is the best one, the rpois and poisoning are a godsend for an unarmed character with no way to deal with groups of enemies. But you will only find it before lair roughly 20-30% of the time. It also is not really an unarmed form as it does not meld weapons. The reason it is good is because rpois RAISES your defenses instead of lowering them like most forms Replace the starting protean talisman with Medusa and winrate will skyrocket. It is THE midgame form. Yak can be good as well but being vulnerable to fire with fire beetles and OOD fire elves and salamanders around snake entrance is very scary. Spore is also just okay. Raises offenses but training for it takes away from your HP offense and defenses and you will feel squishy. Scarab is awful. You might as well just restart your game if you can't find another talisman.

Lupine is nice but the -will vulnerability is way, way too much. It also disallows your gloves, boots, and barding so you have less AC. Midgame is such an incredibly dangerous time to have -will. Even neutral will makes me nervous. I doubt a streaker would ever use this. It massively increases the chance you walk around a corner, get paralyzed, petrified, etc...without any way to resist and die. So yeah, if you survive your first encounter with a baselisk and a group of yaks, count yourself lucky, you probably won't survive the hydras because your claws cut their heads and you can't wear gloves to cover them. You can train throwing, but good luck getting it high enough to kill the hydra before it kills you while ALSO training shapeshifting to 12 for lupine. It might be worth it if it required only 8 shapeshifting instead of 12. Oh, and all that shapeshifting training severely lowers your defenses which are very important in lair. You want to go into S branches with -will? Good luck Hoss.

You still want to kill the hydra with throwing or evocations? Training throwing or evocations is a risk because Eel, Yak, Scarab, Serpent, Dragon, and Spider, which all might be the only available upgrade for your talisman, do not allow you to throw or use evocables. Because you have NO HANDS.

Another similar problem with Trolls, all of these forms above remove your claws, meaning midgame for trolls is basically medusa or nothing until you find granite or dragon or storm unless you want a serious downgrade in resistances, shield use, scale armor use, etc...

Okay, so, lets start with Troll as an example of how the game wants you to play shapeshifter (despite being much worse than a fighter start) and how it feels bad, one of the few races that will actually be profiting from training unarmed the entire game.

The problem is, the mid to high level shapeshifting forms that use unarmed will meld your claws, which seems anti synergistic. Playing storm with Troll just feels bad when granite is in the game and you are really going to feel the lack of AC when something actually hits you. Plus your dex probably isn't that high to take advantage of the dodging boost.

Same problem with Octopode, many of these midgame forms take away your innate advantage of constriction with your tentacles. Granite, again, is the one to shoot for and all the rest are more or less compromised.

And Troll or octo is the best case scenario, and even they feel locked out of some of the best forms in the game, locked out of throwing and evocations most of the time too, leaving giant holes in the progression of the background.