12th Archivist wrote:
That's my idea for a new type of snake. Please comment.
Um...
Puzzle potential, right?
Sea Kraits are snakes that exist in water. They cannot leave the water unless they are moving to kill you. Kraits are not original in the fact they move exactly like other snakes and cannot move diagonally. Plus, they are invulnerable to the sword, bomb, and briar.
It would make sense that anything inside water would be invulnerable to land-based object effects.
Sea Kraits can move underneath water platforms and bridges.
Urgh. I think that could get rather annoying, even if the Krait and platform were small. How could you see where the Krait is if it's underneath an object? Plus, it would lead to the interesting exception of being able to have two monsters (excluding NPCs) occupying a single square. In addition, what about trapdoors with water under them? Would Kraits move under those, as well?
Unlike a serpent, if you trap them into water blocked all around by pit, they will not shrink to death. Their only weakness is pit. If a Sea Krait's head or tail is next to pit (diagonally or orthogonally, it doesn't matter), the Krait will shrink by one tile from the tail. If two tiles of pit are exposed to a Krait, the Krait will shrink by two tiles from the tail end. A total of 14 tiles can be exposed to a Krait at any time and as such, a Krait can shrink a maximum of 14 tiles in any given turn.
This is a rather specific and highly restricted mode of death for these monsters. To kill them, you will need to ensure that you have contacting pit and water in the same room (which isn't exactly very common, nor is it currently aesthetically pleasing) and that Kraits don't entangle themselves anywhere without being in contact with said pit. In addition, would Kraits shorten if both pit and water are being obscured by platforms on both sides?
I personally think this is way too restrictive to make it a useful monster; shortening like a standard serpent by having its head blocked would be a better compromise. Also, I don't understand why there should be a 14-tile restriction on length reduction. You could technically have situations in which Kraits could shorten by up to 2*length (+2) if you put them in 1-wide water lanes lined by pits.
As a water monster, it is interesting, but IMO you need to make its interactions more intuitive (most notably dying and interacting with things on water). You could perhaps make up for its similarity to standard serpents by introducing some other special feature. For example, a crazy idea off the top of my head might be to make them electrically charged, so you can't swing your sword onto any part of them.
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Resident Medic/Mycologist
[Last edited by agaricus5 at 05-04-2009 12:59 AM]