Sea monster

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The sea monster is a monster class that appears in NetHack, and is represented by the semicolon glyph (;). Sea monsters are designated internally by the macro S_EEL.[1]

The class contains the following monsters:[2]

Common traits

All sea monsters are flagged as amphibious and capable of living and hiding in pools and moats[3][4]—while they can exist and move on land, as can a hero polymorphed into one, they will also become scared and gradually lose HP with a 7⁄8 chance on each move, which slows down as they lose health and stops at a minimum of 1;[5][6] a sea monster stranded this way will try to move into a pool or moat as quickly as possible.[7] Sea monster corpses zapped with a wand of undead turning or the turn undead spell will not revive.[8]

As the Plane of Water is a fully-underwater level, sea monsters can move freely within it, including in and out of air bubbles. Sea monsters cannot hide if they are stuck in traps other than pits or spiked pits.[9]

All sea monsters are neutral except for the chaotic kraken]], are all animals except for the jellyfish, and are all slithy except for the kraken again—with the exception of both named monsters, sea monsters are also oviparous. Sea monsters have no MR score.

Most of the sea monsters except for the jellyfish and kraken attack using bites, and the eels and kraken can also employ holding attacks that can grapple the hero, drowning the victim if they land another one while already holding the hero. A hero that kills a sea monster with a wrapping attack while not amphibious or breathless is given bonus experience.[10] A sea monster that attacks a hero in the form of a monster hiding on the ceiling will not voluntarily swap places with that hero if doing so would move them onto land.[11]

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.

Per commit ca99dfae, jellyfish and other non-eel sea monsters are no longer considered slithy, which is done in order to give proper messages for the hero seeing an aquatic monster hide underwater.

Generation

Sea monsters are not randomly generated, and normally-created ones are always hostile. They are all valid targets for polymorph except for the kraken.

Several watery locations generate sea monsters in some manner at level creation, though not all of them are placed using monster class-based generation:

  • Eels and piranha are often generated in swamps at level creation.
  • Medusa's Island features several types of sea monster that are created in the waters of the area at level creation.
  • Random sea monsters are placed on some levels of the Healer quest via class-based generation at level creation: one sea monster is placed on the home level, two are placed on the locate level, and one is placed on the goal level.
  • Several sea monsters are placed on the Plane of Water at level creation, with four of them picked randomly via class-based generation.

Strategy

While most of the weaker sea monsters are annoyances at worst, sharks can deal decent damage with their speed and bites, while eels and kraken can bring instant death to any hero they can successfully get a grip on—greased outer armor or an oilskin cloak will prevent this, with the grease potentially wearing off after each time they slip free, and magical breathing will keep the hero from being drowned, though they may still end up underwater and wet their inventory.

Ranged attacks such as wands and spells are the best to use against sea monsters, since a hero can safely keep out of range of any possible eels or kraken. The aklys, lance and polearms are also viable in terms of weapons, since they do not require limited resources (i.e. energy or charges), though there are notable drawbacks: a wielded aklys that is thrown may fail to return; pounding can be tedious to target without the required skill in polearms or lances, and a hero may want to spend their skill slots elsewhere in the long term, especially by the point that they begin encountering sea monsters regularly. Rocks can be used as expendable projectiles, with a sling being entirely optional, but they can also skip across the water's surface, increasing the chances of them missing.[12]

Wands of cold and fire can strand sea monsters outside of the water, making them much easier to deal with briefly, and can also scare eels and kraken into releasing a hero they have a hold on—a scroll of earth can also be read to restrict their movements with the land squares made from the resulting boulders. Sea monsters in smaller bodies of water can be easily trapped on land this way, especially with the cone of cold and fireball spells, leaving them at the hero's mercy with no fear of drowning; pets that are strong enough can also attack sea monsters without worrying about drowning. Sea monsters' lack of MR score also leaves them vulnerable to wands, magic and other items in general: putting a sea monster to sleep in particular can render them very easy targets, and only the jellyfish and electric eel have resistances of any kind.

Even if you are not forced to engage a sea monster in melee, have escape items handy just in case: if a sea monster successfully swings itself around you, you have one guaranteed turn to prevent drowning, and should not rely on the eel to miss any further drowning attempts. Common methods include: using teleportation, either by teleporting the sea monster (especially on no-teleport levels) or teleporting yourself if the level allows it; engraving a single Elbereth into the ground with a wand of fire, lightning, digging, or an athame; or scaring it with an applicable musical instrument or other means, which will always work. Taming will also succeed without a chance to miss due to their lack of MR score. If relying on a directional wand or engraving, make sure you are not impaired to ensure 100% success.

If a hero has a form of levitation that they can reliably remove or otherwise cease in one turn (i.e. the ring, the blessed potion, or the spell at Skilled level, but not boots), ending levitation over land will startle the sea monster into releasing you. If all else fails, avoiding them as much as possible in the first place is a valid strategy.

Heroes that reach the Plane of Water will often save a blessed scroll of genocide for this monster class to wipe them all out upon entering the level, minimizing the chances of being subsequently drowned (as pythons and couatls are still capable). Finally, simply running away is also a viable strategy, especially on the Plane of Water.

Some people use the options to replace the ; character with a more readable one (such as 7) to better distinguish the symbol from the water glyphs.

History

The giant eel first appears in Hack for PDP-11, which is based on Jay Fenlason's Hack. While not included in the initial bestiary for Hack 1.0, it does appear in Hack 1.0.2, which credits PDP-11 Hack's creators Michiel Huisjes and Fred de Wilde for inspiring both the monster and the swamp special room, and continues to appear from this version to NetHack 2.2a.

In NetHack 2.3e, the giant eel is replaced by the electric eel. NetHack 3.0.0 adds both monsters to the default bestiary, and establishes them as part of the monster class of sea monsters alongside the freshly-introduced kraken, giving the monster class its current macro. The jellyfish, piranha and shark are added to the monster class in NetHack 3.3.0, with the shark debuting previously in NetHack-- 3.0.10.

Message

You smell fish.
A monster polymorphed into a sea monster while out of your sight.[13]

Variants

SLASH'EM

SLASH'EM introduces one new sea monster to the monster class:

UnNetHack

UnNetHack introduces one new sea monster to the monster class:

dNetHack

In dNetHack, sea monsters can be randomly generated if a level has water and a water square is selected as a spot for random monster generation, and will often be generated on such floors at level creation.

dNetHack also adds some new sea monsters to the monster class:

Several sea monsters are generated for the Sunless Sea and Paradise Island maps of the Sea at level creation. Sea monsters make up 1⁄9 of the monsters randomly generated on Elshava within the Mithardir variant of the Chaos Quest.

Several wards and staves can repel sea monsters:

xNetHack

Earlier versions of xNetHack changed the symbol for this monster class from ; to z, removing zruties.

notdNetHack

In addition to dNetHack details, notdNetHack adds one new sea monster to the monster class:

notnotdNetHack

Main article: Octopode (starting race)

In addition to notdNetHack details, notnotdNetHack adds the octopode as a playable race of sea monster and adds their corresponding monster to the monster class:

References

  1. Jump up ↑ include/monsym.h in NetHack 3.6.7, line 71
  2. Jump up ↑ src/monst.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2611
  3. Jump up ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 811
  4. Jump up ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 507
  5. Jump up ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 628
  6. Jump up ↑ src/allmain.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 468
  7. Jump up ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1329
  8. Jump up ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 786
  9. Jump up ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3211
  10. Jump up ↑ src/exper.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 119
  11. Jump up ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 433
  12. Jump up ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3346
  13. Jump up ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 4246
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