Gelatinous cube

From NetHackWiki
(Redirected from Gelatinous cubes)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
b gelatinous cube Gelatinous cube.png
Difficulty 8
Attacks

Touch 2d4 paralysis, passive 1d4 paralysis

Base level 6
Base experience 76
Speed 6
Base AC 8
Base MR 0
Alignment 0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means) 2 (Quite rare)
Genocidable Yes
Weight 600
Nutritional value 150
Size Large
Resistances fire resistance, cold resistance, shock resistance, sleep resistance, poison resistance, acid resistance, stoning resistance
Resistances conveyed fire resistance (10%), cold resistance (10%), shock resistance (10%), sleep resistance (10%)

A gelatinous cube:

Reference NetHack 5.0.0 - include/monsters.h, line 155

A gelatinous cube, b, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The gelatinous cube is a blob monster with an acidic body that has a tendency to wander when moving and can burn through any webs in its path. Gelatinous cubes are known for consuming any and all objects that they come across, and will attempt to eat or engulf items that are on a square they move onto.[1]

A gelatinous cube has two paralysis-inducing attacks that can be partially blocked by magic cancellation or completely blocked by free action, and will not work if the cube is cancelled: the first is an active touch attack that deals damage has a 1⁄3 chance of paralyzing a mobile target for up to 10 turns, and the second is a passive attack that has a 2⁄3 chance of paralyzing the attacker for up to 4 turns if the cube was not killed by the attack, with both attacks abusing dexterity for a hero subjected to them.[2][3][4][5][6][7] Gelatinous cubes possess fire resistance, cold resistance, shock resistance, sleep resistance, poison resistance, acid resistance, and stoning resistance. Pets will avoid attacking a gelatinous cube in melee 9⁄10 of the time.[8]

A gelatinous cube corpse is acidic to eat (but not its tin) and is also vegan-compatible as with all blob corpses.[10][11] Eating a gelatinous cube corpse or tin cures stoning on the first bite and has a 1⁄10 chance each (10%) of granting fire resistance, cold resistance, shock resistance, or sleep resistance.[12] Monsters will pick up gelatinous cube corpses and may also eat them if they are subjected to stoning, though they will take acid damage and may die from that instead.[13]

Generation

Randomly-generated gelatinous cubes are always created hostile.

Cubes and engulfing items

When a gelatinous cube picks up an item or a pile of items, there is a 19⁄20 chance of the object(s) being engulfed and added to their inventory (versus a 1⁄20 chance for artifacts):[1][14][15][16] upon engulfing a pile of objects, the gelatinous cube will use up a move to eat any items in its inventory, one item or stack at a time, if a hero is not in melee range of it.[17][18][19] A gelatinous cube will not eat items that are non-organic, bone or dragon hide.

Each item or set of items eaten by a gelatinous cube that is not a pet will heal it by an amount of HP up to the object's weight, independently of whether or not that item will also heal the cube or have any other effects upon eating it.[20] If a gelatinous cube eats an organic container this way, the contents will also be engulfed and added to the cube's inventory.[21][22] A cube digesting the corpse of a chameleon, doppelganger or genetic engineer will polymorph.[23][24]

A gelatinous cube will seek out items to engulf unless they are statues, boulders, corpses that can cause stoning (despite the cube resisting stoning), or heavy iron balls, including one that is chained to a punished hero and the connecting chain itself.[25][26] A gelatinous cube will avoid engulfing or eating statues, boulders, heavy iron balls that are chained to a hero, and scrolls of scare monster (which they will respect and try to avoid moving onto under normal circumstances)[27]—they will still engulf heavy iron balls that are unchained, and will engulf and eat petrifying corpses if they move over them, as well as engulfing scrolls of scare monster that were inside an eaten container.[28][29] In addition to non-organic items, a gelatinous cube will engulf but not eat:[14] organic co-aligned artifacts, with a 19⁄20 chance;[30] organic cross-aligned artifacts;[31] rings of slow digestion;[32] amulets of strangulation;[33] globs of green slime;[34] the prize item for Sokoban or Mines' End if the hero has not yet picked it up;[35] and any game-essential items. Rider corpses cannot be eaten or even engulfed by a gelatinous cube, and the corpse will attmept to revive if a cube moves over it.[36]

Most of the above rules that govern what a gelatinous cube will and will not eat also applies to a pet gelatinous cube, with some notable exceptions and adjustments:[37][38][39][40]

  • They will never eat the hero's quest artifact, and will resist eating other artifacts with the standard 19⁄20 chance.[41]
  • They will never eat corpses or globs that polymorph them, unless they are starving or on the verge of becoming untamed, and may even avoid picking them up.[42][43]
  • Organic non-food items are considered "acceptable" in terms of food priority.[44]
  • The duration of immobility from eating is consistent with wild monsters eating items, and nutrition gain is consistent with a polymorphed hero eating the same type of item.[45]
  • They will prefer eating organic items to dropping them, unless they are of a type that the cube will not eat.

A hero polymorphed into a gelatinous cube will not automatically dissolve items that they pick up. By using e, they can eat items made of organic material as they do with normal food, which includes bone and dragon hide items that normal cubes will only engulf, but does not include containers unless they are already empty.[46] Rings of slow digestion are naturally indigestible as in other cases.[47] A hero eating a scroll of scare monster, a scroll of mail, a scroll labeled YUM YUM, or any other paper item while in this form is accompanied by unique messages, and scrolls of mail also will not grant any nutrition.[48][49][50][51][52]

Strategy

Gelatinous cubes may not seem like much of a direct threat to your well-being, but their paralysis can cause major trouble if you are careless or caught off guard fighting other monsters—magic cancellation can protect against the paralyzing touch, while a ring of free action will fully prevent paralysis from both the cube's touch and its passive attack. Ranged attacks and projectiles will also not trigger passive paralysis, and though the gelatinous cube will resist most elemental wands and spells and also engulf thrown projectiles, it also lacks any MR score and can be brought down with enough non-elemental damage—be sure not to use organic projectiles against a cube (such as wooden elven arrows) unless they are ones you consider disposable. Some heroes may consider using a cursed scroll of genocide to generate cubes and kill them for intrinsics, particularly if they are vegan.

The gelatinous cube is the only monster a hero can polymorph into that is capable of eating rings with a "wooden" randomized appearance, potentially making it a valuable strategy depending on the ring.

Cubes and stashes

The gelatinous cube's ability to engulf and dissolve organic containers makes them the bane of any stashes they come across, even if the stash's contents are not fully lost—pet gelatinous cubes are especially disastrous for a hero's stash, since they will not drop the engulfed contents unless polymorphed or outright killed. A scroll of scare monster on the stash's square can help keep gelatinous cubes away, and moving a boulder atop it is a good backup method. Ice boxes are made of plastic and thus completely inedible to gelatinous cubes, ensuring they and their contents will remain intact.

Conversely, a player trying to loot a cursed bag of holding found on a bones level may want a hostile gelatinous cube around in order to eat the bag: the cube will not immediately devour the contents, but must be defeated as soon as possible to preserve any organic items that were inside the eaten bag.

Cubes and shops

Main article: Stealing from shops

A hostile gelatinous cube can be used to completely clean out a shop's inventory of non-organic items: pile them all on a single square near the entrance, making sure to store desired organic items well out of the cube's reach if possible. Then, lure the cube onto the item pile—once it engulfs that pile, you can lure it back outside the shop again and kill it to retrieve the stolen inventory. This technique works best in shops that specialize in weapons or armor, or else have the open floor space required to safely store organic items far away from the ravenous cube.

History

The gelatinous cube first appears in Hack for PDP-11, which is based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, and is included in the initial bestiary for Hack 1.0. From these versions to NetHack 2.3e, the gelatinous cube uses the g glyph—NetHack 3.0.0 establishes the blob monster class and moves the gelatinous cube to its current glyph at b with the other existing blob monsters.

Gelatinous cubes gain the ability to pick up items in NetHack 3.1.1: from this version to NetHack 3.1.3, a gelatinous cube engulfing a container devours its contents completely. NetHack 3.2.0 introduces the current behavior for cubes engulfing containers, as well as the cube polymorphing when digesting chameleon or doppelganger corpses.

In NetHack 3.4.3 and previous versions, including some variants based on those versions, it is possible for gelatinous cubes to engulf Rider corpses without digesting them. This allows the hero to teleport the corpse(s) without reviving them or else potentially destroy them: for example, they can steal it from the cube using a nymph polyself, then place it in a cursed bag of holding on the floor and repeatedly looting it without using up any further turns. This is fixed in Nethack 3.6.0 via commit 0b95104f.

In NetHack 3.6.0, a gelatinous cube can digest a glob of green slime without being subjected to sliming, despite not digesting green slime corpses in NetHack 3.4.3 and previous versions—this is fixed in NetHack 3.6.1 via commit 440d9d74 so that it will avoid eating globs of green slime altogether.

In NetHack 3.6.7 and previous versions, including some variants based on those versions, gelatinous cubes will immediately digest all edible items in a pile that it picks up, and while a peaceful or hostile gelatinous cube will consume an organic container and harmlessly engulf its contents as normal, a pet will instead drop the former container's contents and subsequently dissolve any organic items from the pile it leaves behind upon moving over it. Additionally, a pet cube will ingest and eat a chameleon or doppelganger corpse that it moves over, causing them to immediately polymorph. Players that use hostile gelatinous cubes to obtain the contents of a cursed bag of holding in these versions can kill the cube at their leisure, rather than having to act quickly.

NetHack 5.0.0 changes the behavior of pet gelatinous cubes to match those of other cubes via commit 2108abd3, and implements the current behavior of cubes slowly consuming their inventory via commit dafd8549. NetHack 5.0.0 also changes general pet behavior via commit f54485b9 and commit f679a537 so that pets will not consider eating a corpse that would make them polymorph unless they are starving or close to becoming untame.

Origin

Wikipedia
Wikipedia has an article about:

The gelatinous cube first appears in the original Dungeons & Dragons 1974 "white box" set, along with its first supplement Greyhawk. The cube was created directly by Gary Gygax: it is a cube of gelatinous, near-transparent ooze that is "adapted" to the dungeon environment it frequently appears in, and can absorb and digest organic matter, including unfortunate explorers that do not successfully save against paralysis. The gelatinous cube is one of the more iconic Dungeons & Dragons monsters to appear in other fantasy works, and is known as much for the silliness of its concept as it is for the genuine dangers posed to player characters.

The average gelatinous cube is 10 feet in size, which takes up the entirety of a typical dungeon's passageways, and acts as a form of scavenger, absorbing living organisms and carrion from the dungeon's floor and walls and dissolving them with acidic digestive juices; larger cubes can even pull in mosses and the like from ceilings. A cube can slide through corridors and molds its body to flow around objects and fit through narrow passages, returning to its original shape once enough space is available. Engulfed objects swept up by a cube that cannot be dissolved by its digestive juices will remain in the cube's body for up to several weeks, after which they are expelled from the cube and left behind. The dim lighting of a dungeon and the gelatinous cube's transparency provide an element of surprise that allows it to engulf all but the most alert adventurers—fortunately, cubes are vulnerable to weapons and fire, and cold can slow them down unless they save against it. This is in contrast to the gelatinous cubes of NetHack, which resist fire and cold completely.

Messages

The gelatinous cube engulfs <an item>.
The gelatinous cube engulfs several objects.
A gelatinous cube has picked up an item or multiple items.
The gelatinous cube eats <an item>!
A gelatinous cube has eaten (more than) one item.
You hear a slurping sound.
You hear several slurping sounds.
As above while outside of your sight, depending on if it picked up one item or multiple.
You are frozen by the gelatinous cube!
You were hit by the passive attack of a gelatinous cube.
<The monster> is frozen by the gelatinous cube.
A monster was paralyzed by attacking a gelatinous cube.
<The monster> is frozen by you.
A monster was paralyzed by attacking you while you are in the form of a gelatinous cube.
This junk mail is less than satisfying.
YAFM that occurs if you eat a scroll of mail as a gelatinous cube—you also gain no nutrition from doing so.[49]
Yuck!
You ate a scroll of scare monster as a gelatinous cube, with a period in place of the exclamation point if the scroll was not blessed.[50]
Yum!
You ate a scroll with the random label YUM YUM as a gelatinous cube, with a period in place of the exclamation point if the scroll was not blessed.[51]
Needs salt...
You ate any other paper item as a gelatinous cube.[52]

Variants

NetHack variants created prior to NetHack 5.0.0 may not adapt the gelatinous cube's current behavior.

In variants with object materials systems and/or a wider variance of randomized appearances, certain items will be at varying levels of risk from being eaten by a wandering gelatinous cube.

GruntHack

In GruntHack, gelatinous cubes behave as they do in NetHack 3.4.3, but they are capable of hiding similar to piercers. They are also given a 1d4 engulfing attack that can suffocate targets—combined with their paralysis, this will usually lead to a swift death for the victim, making gelatinous cubes a major threat to the hero once they start generating (typically from the mid-game on).

Heroes should use their best available ranged attacks and scaring items to keep gelatinous cubes from engulfing them before they can kill the cube: gelatinous cubes respect Elbereth as they do in NetHack, and a source of warning can help a hero avoid being caught off guard by a hidden cube. A ring of free action will give a hero time to kill or otherwise escape from within the cube if they are engulfed, and zapping a wand of digging while engulfed will reduce their HP to 1 and free the hero, making killing them afterward somewhat trivial. An amulet of magical breathing or a breathless polyform will prevent the cube's suffocation from affecting the hero, and any polyform that is huge or gigantic cannot be engulfed at all.

Gelatinous cubes can also be useful as a means of zombie disposal, as they can consume and dissolve the corpses with no ill effect—their paralyzing touch and passive will also immobilize zombies that try to attack it, and a hero or another living monster can then dispose of the zombie without fearing retaliatory bites. However, they do not possess sickness resistance and are vulnerable to illness from zombie bites.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, gelatinous cubes are capable of hiding, can follow and track the hero and other creatures via scent, and take halved damage from blunt weapons and piercing weapons. Their passive attack is also given the same damage dice as their touch attack.

Some levels of the Drow Healer quest generate gelatinous cubes: three are placed on the locate floor at level creation, and four are placed on the goal floor at level creation.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, gelatinous cubes have their speed increased to 8 and their monster difficulty increased to 10, and they are also given an engulfing attack similar to GruntHack. Eating a gelatinous cube tin or corpse grants +6% each to four partial intrinsics: cold resistance, fire resistance, sleep resistance, and shock resistance.

Though they will not hide themselves, gelatinous cubes are still highly likely to be a game-ending threat, so be sure to listen out for telltale slurping noises. Giant heroes cannot be engulfed by gelatinous cubes due to their size, while vampire and draugr heroes are unbreathing and thus are in no mortal danger from the cube's attempts to engulf them. Much of the strategies involving gelatinous cubes in GruntHack are also applicable to EvilHack as well; additionally, a hero that can prevent paralysis can use a source of phasing (e.g. via polyself) to both prevent engulfing and enable an easy escape if they are already engulfed.

Hack'EM

In Hack'EM, gelatinous cubes behave as they do in vanilla NetHack and SLASH'EM instead of retaining their EvilHack behaviors, though they still keep their higher movement speed and difficulty value.

Encyclopedia entry

Despite its popularity (or perhaps because of it), the gelatinous cube is also widely known as one of the sillier role-playing monsters. It is something of a commentary on the ubiquity of treasure-laden dungeons in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, as the cube is a creature specifically adapted to a dungeon ecosystem. 10 feet to the side, it travels through standard 10-foot by 10-foot dungeon corridors, cleaning up debris and redistributing treasure by excreting indigestible metal items.

[ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1531-L1649: meatobj() function
  2. ↑ src/mhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1387-L1393: case for paralyzing passive against attacking monster
  3. ↑ src/mhitu.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2555-L2559: case for paralyzing passive from cube hero
  4. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3435-L3442: case for paralyzing attack by cube hero
  5. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3444-L3462: case for paralyzing attack versus hero
  6. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3463-L3475: case for paralyzing attack versus monster
  7. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 6054-L6064: case for paralyzing passive versus hero
  8. ↑ src/dogmove.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1134
  9. ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1923-L1927: case for stomach acid in eatcorpse()
  10. ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1611: consume_tin() calls cprefx(), but not eatcorpse() where stomach acid is handled[9]
  11. ↑ include/mondata.h in NetHack 5.0.0, line 233
  12. ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 859-L862: acidic corpses cure stoning
  13. ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 3952-L3959: stoned monster has chance to cure itself
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1585-L1608: inedible and indigestible items for cubes are engulfed
  15. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1611-L1634: devours edible organic items that it picks up, with calls to m_consume_obj()
  16. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1388-L1453: m_consume_obj() function
  17. ↑ src/monmove.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 876-L878: devours organic items in inventory one set at a time, with calls to gelcube_digests()
  18. ↑ src/monmove.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 422-L445: gelcube_digests() function
  19. ↑ src/monmove.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1669-L1673: post-move handling for cubes that eat items
  20. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1396-L1399: non-pet healing in m_consume_obj()
  21. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1400-L1401: eating a container in m_consume_obj() calls meatbox()
  22. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1352-L1382: meatbox() function; engulf_contents is set if a cube is the one eating the container
  23. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1416: denotes polymorphing corpses
  24. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1422-L1426: handling for cube that polymorphs from an eaten object
  25. ↑ src/monmove.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1003-L1004: no monster will try to pick up a punished hero's iron ball or the chain connecting it
  26. ↑ src/monmove.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1031: cubes will not seek out rock-class items, ball-class items, and petrifying corpses
  27. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1570-L1583: cubes will avoid engulfing inaccessible items
  28. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1571-L1573: monsters will not eat petrifying corpses unless they resist stoning, which a gelatinous cube does
  29. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1577-L1580: "normally mtmp won't have stepped onto scare monster scroll, but if it does, don't eat or engulf that (note: scrolls inside eaten containers will still become engulfed)"
  30. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1586: cubes will be unlikely to eat artifacts
  31. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1587: cubes will not eat artifacts they cannot touch
  32. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1591: despite comments, rings can be randomly made of organic material
  33. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1590: amulets are not organic, but this is included for emphasis
  34. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1596-L1597: cubes will not eat globs of slime since they are not sliming-proof
  35. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1551-L1555: cubes will not eat unclaimed side-branch prizes
  36. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1557-L1568: cubes cause Rider corpses to revive
  37. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1540-L1543: pets are handled in dog.c
  38. ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 995: dogfood() functions handles food preferences for pets
  39. ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1017: pets will not eat Rider corpses
  40. ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1112-L1114: slow digestion and strangulation are inedible for pet cubes as they are for other cubes
  41. ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1004-L1005
  42. ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1074-L1075
  43. ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1086-L1088
  44. ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1117
  45. ↑ src/dogmove.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 204-L212
  46. ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 114-L118
  47. ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2911-L2918: slow digestion is inedible for hero
  48. ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2432: cases for eating paper items
  49. ↑ 49.0 49.1 src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2434-L2436
  50. ↑ 50.0 50.1 src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2439-L2441
  51. ↑ 51.0 51.1 src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2442-2445
  52. ↑ 52.0 52.1 src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2446
Retrieved from "https://nethackwiki.com/index.php?title=Gelatinous_cube&oldid=204327"