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I'm currently playing with a ghoul and read that they don't breathe. Ghouls don't breathe so why can't they travel in water?

One of the inexplicable mysteries of Crawl - like why you can't fly over bushes, and why monsters that follow you up the stairs always get up there before you.

I've always explained it by saying that ghouls and mummies sink to the bottom and get stuck in the mud, while grey draconians have webbed feet so can walk across the bottom without getting stuck.

See the discussions on c-r-d and on the wiki.
We don't want to give all undeads the ability to cross deep water. There was a proposal to make them dissolve in water, but then why wouldn't they dissolve in shallow water? The issue was left open.

galehar wrote:See the discussions on c-r-d and on the wiki.
We don't want to give all undeads the ability to cross deep water. There was a proposal to make them dissolve in water, but then why wouldn't they dissolve in shallow water? The issue was left open.

Mummies would definitely avoid water at all costs... Toilets are their mortal enemy.

Water used to be merfolk's exclusive territory. Now there's also Octopodes and Grey Dracs. I think that's enough. More would water down theme (hehe).

galehar wrote:More would water down theme (hehe).

And perhaps even drown it out altogether?

I guess if undead could move through deep water, then theoretically anyone could, via Necromutation - which might make it too easy to make underwater stashes.

What about some sort of bloat effect? When an undead enters any sort of deep water they get bloated and it cuts their movement down to naga speeds, and it takes a bunch of turns on land to dry out to remove the effect. I guess it wouldn't really cut back on underwater stashes though.

Ghouls can't swim. They aren't flexible enough. Mummies are dry - thus the fire vulnerability - and dissolve in water. The end.

And what about vampires?

(not that I'm particularly bothered either way).

Aren't vampires afraid of open water of something. Not as if they couldn't fly over it...

minmay wrote:And they can't walk along the bottom because...?

Because they aren't flexible enough. The pressure is too high.

But only from the chest up, so they can stand in shallow water for years with no effect.

Non sequitur. Their legs dissolve, their torso drops into the water, their torso dissolves. Quod erat dissolvandum.

Vampires: Vampires breathe air. See: every vampire movie ever made.

The end.

Grimm wrote:Because they aren't flexible enough. The pressure is too high.

Deep water isn't that deep - large creatures can still wade remember.

I could imagine Liches walking along the bottom of water - maybe with speed penalty and unable to cast spells (effectively Slow & Silence) which would prevent a lot of tactical abuse and differentiate the mechanic from swimmers.

Yarr, I'm entirely with minmay on this one. And Merfolk would still be the undisputed oceanic champions... for most people (or maybe I just mean "me"), underwater stashes would be more hassle than they're worth.

Do I remember Nethack cutting off your FOV dramatically if you're at the bottom of deep water? It's been a long time since I played. That would eliminate a lot of abuse potential...

Well, what if ghouls and mumies (and licheform living) rotted at a relativley high pace while in deep water? If you want to be consistent then they should rot in shallow water as well but at a lower pace. Then they could actually walk into deep water as they don't need to breath, but it would be a risk and not really abuseable.

minmay wrote:I'm not really seeing any abuse potential. Levitation is freely available, and quite a lot better than walking through water. An underwater stash is not nearly as safe as a Lair:2/Hive:2/Temple stash.

why lair/hive 2? Why not lair/hive 1? thats what I usually do

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