Spider Stomper
Posts: 247
Joined: Monday, 10th November 2014, 21:32
Remove Catoblepas
Catoblepas encourages scumming. Catoblepas itself is a fairly low-threat monster that allows you to successfully petrify high threat or unique monsters on the floor, provided you are willing to chain one of them around. Additionally, given Catoblepas have a ranged cloud attack, it is extremely easy to kite them in a way that presents zero risk to your character.
Catoblepas require unusual modifications to the cloud system. Typically, clouds damage you or have their effect on the same turn you enter them. However, to prevent Catoblepas from instantly and continuously petrifying players, Catoblepas clouds do not affect the players on the turn they are generated. This is an obtuse mechanic and it could easily be unclear and read that the clouds merely have a chance to petrify the player (as e.g. chaos, storm, or sickness clouds have a chance to impose status effects).
Because of this modification to the cloud system, Catoblepas are also very low threat monsters that encourage dragging them into a cleared open area so you can simply sidestep clouds and beat them to death. This is... vaguely interesting, in that it counteracts the usual desire to fight monsters in a corridor, but it also just turns them into a joke.
The Catoblepas vault typically found on L:6 is an autoexplore trap, with at least one corner having a long narrow path that ensures any players autoxploring will be petrified by the catoblepas at the end of the vault. This is not necessarily a mark against the monster, but if the way Crawl has decided to make them interesting is "set up a special-case that bypasses the special-case we made to stop them from being bullshit", it's not a good sign they're a useful addition to the game.
Overall, I just don't see the benefit of Catoblepas unique breath mechanic/movement requirements outweighing the fact they're weak monsters that let you petrify enemies freely and need an autoexplore trap to be remotely threatening.
Alt suggestion: Let Catoblepas cast Orb of Petrification, which is like an Orb of Destruction that can't be blocked and guarantees petrification.
- For this message the author milski has received thanks: 2
- duvessa, TeshiAlair