Idea to spice up uniques

[Hariolor]

Maybe this is already done in some variants -

I think it would be interesting (maybe not practical?) to do a little more with uniques. Especially so now that Uniques seem like less-than-desirable targets due to the (apparent) increase in mediocre drops in 3.1.1. I am thinking specifically that there are several unique creatures that are the top-of-the-line of their kind. Kill them, and see no more (non-uniques) of their kind in the dungeon.

I am thinking off the top of my head:

Obvious choices:

Queen Ant
Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg
Beholder Hive Mother

Potential others:

Cantoras
Vecna
Glaurung
Kronos
The 9 W's
Ungoliant
Medusa
Lernean Hydra (replace with kavlax?)
Tselakus
The three Angels (Gabriel, Uriel, Azrael)
Draugluin (get rid of both C's and Z's?)
The four E's
The Cat Lord
Baphomet
...
you get the idea

[Sirridan]

The beholder unique is Ormax the Eye Tyrant btw.

In any case, I like that idea, at least for some, especially the cat lord, ugh cats stop being dangerous when you can melee sabertooths without going below half health.

Ant's and beholders are not a big threat (at least, they aren't common enough to be)

W's even become a joke towards the end, however the various U's G's and L's are all quite dangerous, and many are unrelated or could exist without their high-uniques, removing them all would honestly make the game easier.

[fizzix]

Man if Drauglin got rid of Zs I'd dive to depth and use up all the consumables I had to kill him. Somehow, I don't think that's every going to make it.

This sounds like a solution to a TMJ problem (where J stands for junk monsters)

Would these monsters not be selectable by the RNG or would they just get banished from the level after creation? I'm guessing the second one, because otherwise it'd make the game a lot harder, and would kind of be in-line with a change that set a maximum depth for monsters as well as a minimum depth.

That said, with the exception of Zs there isn't a group of monsters that I find annoying once I'm significantly stronger than them. So this wouldn't really convince me to go out of my way to kill them. The most reasonable one, i guess, would be omarax. But no drop and drain charges means that he/she/it is not worth it, even if it means I don't have to TO undead beholders anymore.

So (IMO) this would have the effect of cleaning up levels (less easy monsters) for higher level characters, but wouldn't have very much significant game play issues.

[Djabanete]

I would rather see more uniques drop fixed artifacts, even if the artifacts are are more flavorful than powerful.

[pampl]

I think a limited version of this would be cool flavor (no idea/opinion about gameplay effects). I can see killing off the Cat Lord making all the felines flee from Angband, and killing Dragluin making all the werewolves leave, for example, but why would Zepyr Hounds care if Drag died? Would Huan or Charcaroth leave? We already 'know' that destroying Vecna won't route the liches because he's been destroyed in his source material and IIRC the lich community was unphased.

There are some interesting questions about Tolkien uniques. Gothmog's death coincided with the destruction of most Balrogs, right? But should the Balrog of Moria hang around, on account of being one of the survivors, or should he disappear, representing him fleeing to Moria? Same sort of puzzle with Shelob and Ungoliant.

[Nightmarjoo]

So after implementing this, you never fight Glaurung, Ancalagon, Smaug, Itangast, or Scatha because you wouldn't want ancient dragons to disappear.

How about something like "kill x amount of uniques and hounds stop appearing in the game"~

[rdermyer]

I think that Farmer Maggot shouldn't show up until you kill his dogs.

[buzzkill]

I think that Farmer Maggot shouldn't show up until you kill his dogs.

I think that Farmer Maggot shouldn't be hostile until after you kill his dogs.

[Hariolor]

I was rather thinking that introducing something like this would give incentive to kill Uniques other than having them out of the RNG for the last fights with MoS, Sauron, M, and the other summoners.

As it is, Uniques are, well, not very unique. Time hounds alone are scarier than *any* unique at *any* level of play. As it is the uniques are not going to give much better rewards relative to the effort needed to kill them (and no, exp is not enough of a reward, since the majority of cool uniques are fought at the lowest depths). So why not have at least some of them tied to monsters of the same/similar type, so the bold @ can really clear out the dungeon in preparation for M.

The downside, of course, is that chasing away dragons or dreads or other good-drop creatures means less chance of scumming for artifacts and !Life and such when preparing for sauron and M.

At the very least I'd like to be able to get rid of Q,Z,C,a,e,f - not because all of them are challenging necessarily, but more along the lines of resolving the TMJ[monsters] problem fizzix noted.

[s0be]

How about tying the rate of occurance of monsters to the number of uniques of that flavor left, without completely removing them. Kill 2 or 3 unique o's, and the number of orcs drops, etc.

[fizzix]

How about tying the rate of occurance of monsters to the number of uniques of that flavor left, without completely removing them. Kill 2 or 3 unique o's, and the number of orcs drops, etc.

then you'd go out of your way to leave the orc uniques alive. Same with the trolls. You want your stat-gain potions. The easiest way to gain them is taking out orc and troll pits.

unless...i'm doing it wrong.

[Pete Mack]

I beg to differ: time hounds are not scarier than Azriel, huan, Carcharoth, The Tarrasque, Cantoras, or Vecna

[Hariolor]

I beg to differ: time hounds are not scarier than Azriel, huan, Carcharoth, The Tarrasque, Cantoras, or Vecna

well-equipped at CL50, I would only really be scared of the Tarrasque. Vecna and Carcharoth are pretty rough, but can be managed with good speed and a few healing potions.

Can't resist time though - I'd rather battle a big-time unique than take on a pack of time hounds any day.

The only weakness of the hounds is that banishment is a cure-all.

[Sirridan]

I beg to differ: time hounds are not scarier than Azriel, huan, Carcharoth, The Tarrasque, Cantoras, or Vecna

Never fought the Tarrasque, it scares me too much, Cantoras too. The only time I had Vecna appear was when something summoned a bunch of undeads and I ?destructed to escape since I was boned otherwise.

Huan and Carcharoth were jokes in my last game, I had the immunities for both, and I think I took a total of 40 damage from Huan, and about 300 from Char. (If I don't resist what both have, I run like hell.. lol)

Azriel was easy with rNether, but I still had to heal *A LOT*.

But Time hounds... I always run, there is no value to fighting them. They just obliterate your stats, your exp, and your life. If 10 or 15 breath on you at once, it can be game over before you can react.

[fizzix]

I beg to differ: time hounds are not scarier than Azriel, huan, Carcharoth, The Tarrasque, Cantoras, or Vecna

i dunno about scary. They certainly are far more annoying.

Azriel is lazy, I usually have good enough stealth before then that I don't bother with him.

Huan and Carcharoth are two of the hardest uniques for me, they're also two of the few that I hunt out before Sauron. Either becomes a piece of cake if you have immunity to cold or fire respectively.

I don't fight the tarrasque. I usually only meet up with it about once a game or so. And if it's awake, I'll destruct it away.

Oddly Cantoras and Vecna have never given me that much of a problem. yeah, their summons suck. However, I often save up a nice stack of slay undead ammo for them. I may need to teleport away a couple times, but I usually can take them down without too much of a problem.

Time hounds I'll probably meet up with about 5-6 times a game. And there's never a reason to fight them. I'll abandon a battle if someone summons them. They're just not worth it at all.

So yeah. I guess time hounds are on par with the Tarrasque, Huan and Carcaroth for scariness. But they far exceed the others for annoyance.