DoD has been a lot of fun, and I recently decided to buy the expansion. Right now I'm testing out a vegan / werediggle combo, and I've been having fun with that. Because the vegan gives good health bonuses to leveling up, my own max hp soon exceeded the werediggle max hp considerably. I noticed when I transform into the werediggle at full health, my hp and maxhp drop to the werediggle value. But when I transform back, only my maxhp returns, and I'm left with decreased health. Should this be the case? It discourages me from transforming unless I have less hp than the werediggle. I'm hesitant to call it a bug, so I'm putting it here to see if maybe I'm missing something.
Whenever your max HP goes up due to stats changing your current HP doesn't seem to be effected. Similar things happen with Berserk Rage- when that skill procs its buffs it boosts Burliness and Cadishness, both of which give you more maximum HP, but your actual HP doesn't go up. On the other hand, it doesn't seem to be universal. Pact of Fleeting Life gives +3 but you get the HP from that. Equipping items that boost HP give you HP equal to the boost and acid burns (which effect Burliness) reduce and increase HP as they take effect and expire. I can't really say I've noticed a pattern, other than the fact that sometimes your HP goes up when your max HP changes and sometimes it doesn't. Maybe there's heals built into some of those effects, I'm not sure. Werediggles are hard to build around. One of these days I'm going to try a build that has nothing but proc skills and see how I fare. But you're right, the way polymorph is done right now there does seem to be more incentives not to shapechange. Sad, but true.
I'm trying out a funky pure Wizard with WereDiggle on PDGR, with plenty of buffs from Astrology and Viking Magic and enough magical skills/ to survive out of Diggle form.. So far it is interesting, I'll try to test around with the max hp thing if I can get far enough to do so. Edit: As far as I can tell it isn't a bug, although I would have to change my build to something a bit more Warrior focused to be sure. It might not be an intentional effect to lose after changing back though, since the Developers might not have considered your 'human' form having more than your transformation. What I do think is weird though is the fact that your 'Vegan' bonuses don't effect your 'Diggle' form bonuses, logically I would think that you would still gain after transforming.
Actually I believe the Vegan bonuses do stack with the werediggle, as if I incur vegan shame as a werediggle my max drops considerably. Or maybe they're stacking and vegan shame just transcends either form. Huh.
Any stats and abilities that you get from other skills disappear when you polymorph. The only thing that's preserved are procs. Try crafting while polymorphed.
Vegan Shame is a buff and buffs like Power of Magic Steele, if active before your transformation, stay active after the transformation. The passive bonuses from vegan don't carry over, though. This is true for all polymorphed forms although the demon form will tend to drain all your mana, ending stuff like Power of Magic Steele if you had it running.