Owlbear
Y owlbear | |
---|---|
Difficulty | 7 |
Attacks |
Claw 1d6, Claw 1d6, Hug 2d8 |
Base level | 5 |
Base experience | 94 |
Speed | 12 |
Base AC | 5 |
Base MR | 0 |
Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
Frequency (by normal means) | 3 (Rare) |
Genocidable | Yes |
Weight | 1700 |
Nutritional value | 700 |
Size | Large |
Resistances | None |
Resistances conveyed |
None |
An owlbear:
| |
Reference | monst.c#line1929 |
An owlbear, Y, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is a large, carnivorous apelike creature that is one of the more dangerous monsters you can encounter early on, and possesses two claw attacks and a grabbing attack that holds you in place and crushes you each turn.
A couple of special messages are associated with owlbears.
Generation
Owlbears are always generated hostile.
Strategy
Owlbears represent one of the many early-game threats that require you to be cautious about how you approach monsters in combat: they can move at the same speed as you if you are unburdened and do not have a source of speed yourself, and their grabbing attack can crush your HP while trapping you in place for other hostile monsters to attack you freely.
Ranged attacks, including spells and wands, can kill an owlbear at a safe distance or weaken it enough for you to finish off in melee. If you are caught in the owlbear's grasp, you can teleport yourself free or scare the owlbear into letting you go, e.g. by using a tool to scare it or engraving Elbereth with an applicable wand; scaring the owlbear has the additional boon of keeping it away from you for at least a few turns. Inflicting sleep or paralysis on the owlbear has a chance of it releasing you, but this is unreliable since the owlbear may be awakened if you are still in its grasp and attempt to move away.[1]
Once you can reliably take down owlbears, their corpses are quite filling for you and any meat-eating pets you may have, with a non-rotten owlbear corpse providing nutrition comparable to a food ration.
History
The owlbear first appears in Hack for PDP-11, a variant of Jay Fenlason's Hack, and is included in the initial bestiary for Hack 1.0.
From Hack for PDP-11 to NetHack 2.3e, the owlbear used the o glyph. In NetHack 3.0.0, the various new and returning orcs were moved to the o glyph, and owlbears were moved to the giant humanoid monster class and used H as its glyph; in NetHack 3.1.0, owlbears were reclassified as apelike creatures and moved to their current glyph.
Origin
The owlbear is probably inspired by the Dungeons & Dragons monster of the same name.
As the name suggests, they are a cross between a giant owl and a bear; they stand upright on two legs and have fur, feathers, and a beak.
Encyclopedia entry
Owlbears are probably the crossbreed creation of a demented
wizard; given the lethal nature of this creation, it is quite
likely the wizard who created them is no longer alive. As
the name might already suggest, owlbears are a cross between
a giant owl and a bear. They are covered with fur and
feathers.