The Watcher in the Water

[Selkie]

Would anybody else like to see the Watcher in the Water included as a vanilla unique?

It's one of the most mysterious monsters in the trilogy and deserves a cameo in Angband.

My suggestion would be a non-summoning, living, evil, animal creature with a capital "M". It can strangle to attack eight times, can cause whirlpools. I think it should be very high HP. I think it should also have the ability to hold you (perhaps a mechanic similar to webs, because free action would be too common by this stage)

Ok now I'm going to go sightly off-piste...

Essentially it was a sort of gatekeeper to Moria and I like the idea of having a challenging, mid-game unique you have to kill in order to advance further - at dlvl 50 for example.

If there's interest then I'll happily write a sample flavour text.

[Pete Mack]

The Watcher doesnt belong in the Pits of Angband (neither does the Balrog of Moria, but presumably remains for historical reasons, from when the game actually was Moria .)

[Selkie]

The Watcher doesnt belong in the Pits of Angband (neither does the Balrog of Moria, but presumably remains for historical reasons, from when the game actually was Moria .)

Nah, I don't buy that argument. I think Angband is just a wrapper for the entire Tolkien universe. Otherwise what is old man willow doing in Angband?

[Pete Mack]

He was a recent addition that i dont really like. Sil does a better job of plants in the dungeon.

[Selkie]

He was a recent addition that i dont really like. Sil does a better job of plants in the dungeon.

Well old man willow is not the only exception. The entire game is totally anachronistic and littered with monsters who would never have set foot in Angband.

The Watcher in the Water was likely a creature created by Morgoth (I'm sure I read Tolkien wrote that). So it's likely he was created in Utumno and is therefore highly canonical

[Sky]

forget the watcher

Farmer Maggot ...
..he kept three huge dogs called Grip, Fang, and Wolf.

THIS is the real scandal. WHERE IS WOLF??

[Hounded]

I'd like to see him (insert water discussion here) even without water implementation.

Not sure how I'd feel about him as a checkpoint unique. Would suck for the sneak-dive characters to run into a roadblock. Possibly if it was designed in such a way that you could sneak around (only 1 or 2 squares in melee range or tunnel through 10+ granite) to get to the only down stairs? Would need a fixed room design.

[Nick]

I'm pretty sure the Watcher is in ToME; I guess it would be at least as plausible mechanically as Wiruin. Maybe if we do put water in for 4.3 those two can be water-only monsters.

The anachronisms always used to annoy me, that's part of the reason I originally made FAangband and got rid of everything after the first age. It's also why I put the quote on the splashscreen, so it can be as if Morgoth has brought everyone back for the last battle

As far as specific anachronisms go, if we're assuming first age the balrog of Moria would be fine, as all the balrogs were around then and he appears in the third age because he's been sleeping. Old Man Willow is less certain, but he is meant to be, you know, old.

[PowerWyrm]

Yes, the Watcher is in ToME. In my variant, it looks like this:

name:The Watcher in the Water
base:aquatic
color:v
speed:120
hit-points:2700
hearing:30
armor-class:100
sleepiness:80
depth:45
rarity:3
weight:0
experience:12000
blow:CRUSH:ACID:8d8
blow:CRUSH:POISON:8d8
blow:CRUSH:PARALYZE:8d8
flags:UNIQUE | EVIL | COLD_BLOOD | PWMANG_BASE | PWMANG_FIXED
flags:DROP_4 | DROP_GOOD | DROP_GREAT | ONLY_ITEM
flags:IM_ACID | IM_COLD | IM_POIS
flags:NO_CONF | NO_FEAR
flags:FORCE_DEPTH | FORCE_SLEEP
spell-freq:5
innate-freq:29
spells:BA_WATE
spells:BO_WATE | BO_ICE
spells:BR_POIS | BR_WATE
spells:HOLD | TELE_TO
desc:A vile creature which seems to consist mostly of tentacles, it seeks to 
desc: drag people to their doom in the water. Few have ever escaped its grasp.
locations:The Small Water Cave

[tangar]

and in Tangaria it looks like this

name:The Watcher in the Water
base:aquatic
color:v
speed:120
hit-points:2700
hearing:30
armor-class:100
sleepiness:80
depth:45
rarity:3
weight:0
experience:17000
blow:CRUSH:ACID:8d8
blow:CRUSH:POISON:8d8
blow:CRUSH:PARALYZE:8d8
flags:UNIQUE | EVIL | COLD_BLOOD | PWMANG_BASE | PWMANG_FIXED
flags:DROP_4 | DROP_GOOD | DROP_GREAT | ONLY_ITEM
flags:IM_ACID | IM_COLD | IM_POIS
flags:NO_CONF | NO_FEAR
flags:FORCE_DEPTH | FORCE_SLEEP
spell-freq:3
spells:BO_WATE | BO_ICE
spells:HOLD | TELE_TO
friends:100:1d3:giant octopus:servant
friends:100:1d3:seahorse:servant
friends:100:1d3:giant squid:servant
friends:100:1d3:mermaid
desc:A vile creature which seems to consist mostly of tentacles, it seeks to 
desc: drag people to their doom in the water. Few have ever escaped its grasp.
locations:The Small Watery Cave

(rebalanced BR_ as it's instadeath if you not lucky)

[will_asher]

Everybody's doing it.
(Here's the RubberBand version)

name:The Watcher in the Water
base:nulx  (nulx are tentacled swamp monsters 'N')
color:v
element:4
speed:114
hit-points:1739
size:5   (size is 1 to 6. Humans are size 3)
hearing:18
smell:16
armor-class:59
sleepiness:61
depth:37
rarity:5
experience:2091
blow:HIT:HURT:7d4
blow:CRUSH:HURT:4d7
blow:CRUSH:BHOLD:4d8  (grabbing is separate from paralysis in RB)
blow:BITE:ACID:5d9
flags:UNIQUE | EVIL | DEMON | FORCE_SLEEP
flags:DROP_2 | DROP_GOOD | NO_FEAR | MOVE_BODY | MOVE_SLOW
innate-freq:12
spell-freq:9
spells:SHRIEK | TELE_TO | TELE_AWAY | BO_ACID | BO_WATE
friends:12:1d2:kalnulx
friends-base:22:2d4:orc
friends:22:1d3:cave troll
friends:22:1d3:nulx
friends:40:1d2:large nulx
friends-base:40:3d4:orc
desc:A huge demonic tentacled monster guarding the doors to the 
desc: mines of Moria.

[Pete Mack]

Why speed 114? That is a peculiar number.

[will_asher]

Why speed 114? That is a peculiar number.

I like peculiar numbers. Lots of monsters in RB have speeds in-between the round numbers for fine tuning, and more tweaks will be made obviously. (I don't often get to the dl40s or beyond to test the deeper monsters.)

[Selkie]

So basically everybody else is doing it, so should Vanilla. Only Vanilla can do it better, right? I don't like the flavour text of the variants.

I like Nick's suggestion of waiting for the water implementation. This would make the Watcher unique feel slightly new and special.

I also think he should treasure drop. I hate uniques who don't drop.

[Werbaer]

I also think he should treasure drop. I hate uniques who don't drop.

Maybe he could drop a Hobbit?