Electric eel

Useful Info

Electric eels are a dangerous aquatic creature that attacks from afar using bolts of electricity. They are often encountered in the watery areas of the Dungeon and the Lair.

Tips & Tricks

• Simply charging at electric eels is unwise. Their Electrical Bolt deals significant damage, ignores 1/2 of your AC, can bounce off of walls to hit you twice. It's rare to have rElec this early in the game, and they often appear in small groups.
• Eels cannot traverse outside water, and like all monsters, cannot attack when outside your line of sight. So, by keeping the eel at the edge of your LOS, you can safely pelt it with ranged attacks. If the fight goes poorly, retreat - it can't chase you on land.
• Certain wands are particularly effective against electric eels:
  • Wand of flame: When a wand of flame passes over water, it creates damaging steam clouds. Eels don't have much HP, so the steam alone is often enough to kill the eel outright.
  • Wand of mindburst: Often deals enough damage to kill an eel, even at 0 Evocations skill.
  • Wand of polymorph: Won't kill, but they can turn eels into other amphibious monsters.

The other wands are effective, but you'll usually want to save them for a target more important than an electric eel.

• If all else, just walk away. Eels can't leave water, so you can exclude any tile near water to avoid fighting eels. If you're caught out in the open, a scroll of fog or scroll of fear can give time to escape.

History

• Prior to 0.6, these monsters were called electrical eels. This was simply a misnomer.