Shape-shifter changing into Uniques?

[sffp]

I've never seen this one before
Your human warrior almost disposed of an enchantress, but she flees leaving behind a mature red dragon which you carve up.

Chasing her down the corridor, you catch up with her at a doorway where the following interaction occurs

The enchantress intones strange words.
the enchantress shimmers and changes!
(a capital D appears)
You smite Scatha the Worm.
(whiskey tango?! - did she just summon Scatha? Was (s)he hiding there?)
Scatha the Worm shimmers and changes!
You have slain the enchantress
(apparently not)

I've checked and Scatha still roams the halls in my dungeon somewhere.
I've never seen a shape shift into a unique before...

[Selkie]

I've never seen this one before
Your human warrior almost disposed of an enchantress, but she flees leaving behind a mature red dragon which you carve up.

Chasing her down the corridor, you catch up with her at a doorway where the following interaction occurs

The enchantress intones strange words.
the enchantress shimmers and changes!
(a capital D appears)
You smite Scatha the Worm.
(whiskey tango?! - did she just summon Scatha? Was (s)he hiding there?)
Scatha the Worm shimmers and changes!
You have slain the enchantress
(apparently not)

I've checked and Scatha still roams the halls in my dungeon somewhere.
I've never seen a shape shift into a unique before...

Yeah it's quite common with higher level Maia who like to turn into the elemental uniques. I've actually had two Quaker lord of the Earths on the same dungeon level.

To me it feels like a bug, but when I raised it most people thought it was fine

[Egavactip]

Sounds buggy to me, unless Angband is going to have a policy that uniques are no longer actually unique.

[Nick]

It is by design, the idea being that the monster is trying to trick the player, or to take on the powers of a stronger creature, or both. Maiar were specifically able to take on any form they chose (Sauron being the prime example).

[kineahora]

It is by design, the idea being that the monster is trying to trick the player, or to take on the powers of a stronger creature, or both. Maiar were specifically able to take on any form they chose (Sauron being the prime example).

Yeah except I think they should not be able to change into uniques that have been slain--they should be off the table just as Morgoth is unable to summon them...

I've had them turn into Quaker multiple times in fact one of my high level characters was slain when one of the maiar in a pit turned into Quaker and some bad sh*t ensued...

and I *really* don't want them turning into Wiruin!! especially after Ive killed him!

A note on Maiar: I *really* like the change from "Angels" to Maiar. However, I think we have to do a bit better--backstory-wise, about why we would be fighting a maia of Yavanna or Nienna for instance. These guys are *good* and they follow Valar that are *good*.

Could we rename the maiar to ones that are not aligned with good beings like Valar? For instance werewolves of Sauron are very nice. Unique maiar of course are all over the map--some aligned with valar, others with Morgoth, others just kinda their own being (like Saruman) who can go one way or other. Isnt there a way to have the non-unique maiar be sort of their own thing so we dont appear to be fighting valar-aligned beings?

Actually Im writing from the standpoint of a normal character. We now have blackguards and necromancers--these should be essentially evil so for these characters fighting maiar of the valar makes sense. So maybe a class-specific monster name set?!?! That would be cool!!

[ewert]

Maybe have a new flag for monsters for whether they are initially aggro or not.

Paladins attacking paladins? Meh.
Maia of good guys attacking good guys? Meh.

You attack them or any of their allies, game is on, but initially they could just be passive.

[Julian]

Yeah except I think they should not be able to change into uniques that have been slain--they should be off the table just as Morgoth is unable to summon them...

They’re not becoming the unique; they’re taking the form of that unique. If they take the form of a normal critter, they get access to that critter’s abilities, and it’s no different when they take the form of a unique.

[kineahora]

They’re not becoming the unique; they’re taking the form of that unique. If they take the form of a normal critter, they get access to that critter’s abilities, and it’s no different when they take the form of a unique.

Hmm, I see your point, and we know maiar are very powerful, so that's true, but should they really be able to get all the abilites of the shape they change into?

[kineahora]

Maybe have a new flag for monsters for whether they are initially aggro or not.

Paladins attacking paladins? Meh.
Maia of good guys attacking good guys? Meh.

You attack them or any of their allies, game is on, but initially they could just be passive.

Yeah I think this is a new frontier now that we have evil player characters in the game:

Class-specific monster attitudes. But we remain rooted that we are physically supposed to be *in Angband*. What would a Maia of Yavanna Kementari even be doing IN ANGBAND (Morgoth's stronghold) anyway?! :-)

And what would actually be the goal of a player character like a necromancer?--I would say it would be to take the place of Morgoth, sorta like the Mouth of Sauron or Saruman--they don't want to defeat evil--they want to BE the evil lord... As such they might use their appearance and knowledge of dark arts to fool the more powerful and intelligent evil in Angband into thinking they were allies of Morgoth, and I would think the spells should reflect that...

So even a necromancer, who should be fighting a Maia of Yavanna, should be doing so outside Angband, unless they happened to be in Angband during the war of Wrath when they invaded Angband--or did they even? Didn't Tulkas just go and 1-on-1 him? And the war was just to approach angband?

Maybe a necromancer should be the whole time OUTSIDE angband fighting to get there!