Feature request: make "summon unique" do nothing when there are no uniques

[bron]

Right now, if a monster (say, Morgoth) use the "Summon Unique" ability, but there are no uniques, instead a bunch of High Undead get summoned in their place. If I go through the trouble of killing all the other uniques, I find it annoying that my reward is often a facefull of Nightwalkers and Black Reavers, which certainly doesn't feel like much of a prize. In fact, I find that it is a good tactic to deliberately *not* kill selected uniques, precisely so that there is something to be summoned; something of one's own choosing (i.e. weak). This all seems wrong to me: killing a unique should be an unqualified positive thing.

To that end, I propose that "summon unique" should fail and do nothing when there are no uniques available. Further, Morgoth should use something like "summon HIGH unique" so that weak uniques are not summoned and I'm not rewarded for failing to kill the Queen Ant or the Cat Lord (my two favorite targets to NOT kill).

[Derakon]

Are you saying you'd rather have Charcaroth show up instead of a Black Reaver? It seems to me you're still getting a weaker summon than you would if you hadn't killed all of the local uniques. From Morgpoth's perspective, he's summoning something powerful to kill you with. If he can't get his best buddies to take you down, he'll get the next best thing.

I do agree that summons should avoid pulling monsters that are much weaker than the summoner. I don't know if the Cat Lord is too weak for Morgy to summon, but the Queen Ant probably is.

[tummychow]

I still frankly agree with bron; it should either do nothing or summon a majorly useless monster (ie half the level of a randomly chosen dead unique).

[buzzkill]

If there are no uniques, then it shouldn't waste his turn. He should get a chance to do something else. That's just weak AI, kinda like fully healed monsters healing themselves.

[will_asher]

I just got a dangerous idea.. If uniques of rarity 0 can be summoned by the summon uniques spell (can't happen in vanilla 3.0.9 / current DJA, but that can be changed), then you can make several uniques which will never appear unless summoned by that spell.

[Nick]

I just got a dangerous idea.. If uniques of rarity 0 can be summoned by the summon uniques spell (can't happen in vanilla 3.0.9 / current DJA, but that can be changed), then you can make several uniques which will never appear unless summoned by that spell.

I assume you're familiar with the abbreviation EMFH?

[will_asher]

I assume you're familiar with the abbreviation EMFH?

Yes (actually I just looked it up), but I fail to see how it's relevant.

[PowerDiver]

I assume you're familiar with the abbreviation EMFH?

Edacious Monsters Favor Hobbitses ?

[Magnate]

Edacious Monsters Favor Hobbitses ?

Evil Maintainer From Hell. Leon, Nick, Will ... all those sadistic guys.

[Timo Pietilä]

I assume you're familiar with the abbreviation EMFH?

Educated Monsters Fear Hobbitses?

[konijn_]

Evil Maintainer From Hell. Leon, Nick, Will ... all those sadistic guys.

DarkGod..

T.

[Djabanete]

I thought it was going to be Eat My **** Hat.