Least Favorite Monster

[Mondkalb]

Hm, it depends on depth.

First nasty ones are basic element hounds because they can destroy (expensive and useful) parts of your inventory or damage your armor.
Well, I just tend to ignore the armor damage and struggle my way to deeper levels since soon enough acid resistant armor will show up.

Then there are some early uniques and monsters that can disenchant which really can be painful if a powerful weapon gets disenchanted.
All the undead that drain stats are similiar naughty.

Later on when you are powerful and may have resistance to disenchantement and even immunities to some elements you have to fight monsters that drain charges from your precious speed and healing staves.

And the game has monsters to attack you with powers beyond any resistance (most hated are plasma and gravity) or where resistance is very hard to get like nether (which can cause immidiate death).

Even with hold life and sustain stats you fall victim to time breathers.

What a cruel game!

[ehertlein]

I see I have so much to look forward to. I have been more successful lately then ever before and it seems that success will be rewarded with more monsters I will avoid like the plague!

[Arphod]

Black Reavers. Won't even go near them.

[Whelk]

Filthy street urchins. I fancy a quick trip to the general store for some apple juice and I get jumped by a million and a half of the little cretins. Thank goodness for ball-spell activators.

[Omnibus]

Those darned 'Z' hounds. Nothing else causes me more aggravation.

Also, time vortices. "Time" is such a cheap mechanic. "So you worked hard to get all your sustains, and hold life? Well, they DON'T work!"

Also, Time Hounds, because they're an unresistable disenchant away from being the Perfect Storm of "cheap".

[Atarlost]

I'm kind of fond of death molds.

There used to be a point in a mages life when he could crack a jelly nest and splatter everything but the death molds with fireballs. Then he could get a few thousand exp using magic missile on the deathmolds since they have no ranged spells and don't move. That was when Ben Harrison was maintaining, though, and things have changed a lot since then.

My most hated is probably the hummerhorn. I had a traumatic experience with them as a child. Well, early teen. Boolean status ailments allways feel somehow unfair to me.

[Djabanete]

Hounds.

First it's annoying blinding ones, then the annoying ones that wreck your kit, then the ones that can kill you, then the ones that can wreck your kit and kill you at the same time, then the ones that kill you and you can't resist it and you just want to genocide all of them all the time but you can't because you're a warrior.

/wrists

[Zikke]

I forgot to mention Storms of Unmagic.

Undetectable by telepathy, burrows through walls, and has God-knows-what shooting out of them..

[Fenrir]

The Tarrasque!

... followed closely by Dreads and the higher level hounds.

Chaos Hounds are particularly high in my "least favourite monsters list"; reminds me of one game where I got to Chaos hound depth at about level ten and one breath later I was at experience level zero and dead. It was hilarious to be at about level ten and that deep in the dungeon!

[saarn]

I second the hummerhorns. . . breeding and confusing. Can't phase door out, and get nibbled to death in a corridor 200 turns later.

[Solarn]

Anything that breeds explosively, especially on early levels. You can encounter lice as early as level 3 or 4 I believe, and if you don't have a line of sight to a stairway, you might as well just give up.

Later they can be annoying, but on low levels, explosive breeders are deadly.

[Pete Mack]

Anything that breeds explosively, especially on early levels. You can encounter lice as early as level 3 or 4 I believe, and if you don't have a line of sight to a stairway, you might as well just give up.

Later they can be annoying, but on low levels, explosive breeders are deadly.

You just need to leave the level. Breeders are annoying, but you can get away.

The reason people all mention time hounds is that:
1. If there are several in LOS you are dead.
2. They move "very quickly", so they can always run you down.
3. Even a single breath can have really nasty side effects

[Mondkalb]

The Tarrasque!

/signed

Just got killed by the damn thing. How much fire damage can it breathe? Even with resistance I lost ~600 points with one single breath.

[Solarn]

You just need to leave the level. Breeders are annoying, but you can get away.

The reason people all mention time hounds is that:
1. If there are several in LOS you are dead.
2. They move "very quickly", so they can always run you down.
3. Even a single breath can have really nasty side effects

Yeah, I know, but breeders have an annoying habit of getting between you and stairways. And as I said, they are only annoying on higher levels, but in the beginning, they hit as hard as anything else, so early on they are the worst thing that can happen to a character. I don't even know how many new characters I lost to giant white lice.

Of course, once the really broken hounds start showing up, you'll cry for the times when all you had to worry about were lice or worm masses.

[Nick]

Just got killed by the damn thing. How much fire damage can it breathe? Even with resistance I lost ~600 points with one single breath.

With single resist, it'll keep doing 533 fire or cold damage per breath until you have it down to 5 stars. Double resist or immunity or run away.