Feature request: Semi-random monsters

[Derakon]

Spells can also be quite dangerous. The summoning spells and higher attack spells are pretty obvious, but even something like paralyze or confuse can be deadly if you're trying to skimp on your resistances, and I'm not convinced at all that we want to randomly punish players just because they're trying to dive "too fast".

[fizzix]

A compromise, to see if it was interesting, might be to give a random defense to some monsters, rather than a random attack. Oops, that cold attack was resisted? Surprise! But not one that would be lethal.

Another option, for monsters that are melee-centric, would be a side effect they don't normally have...poison and cuts would be good at lower levels, and might still make life interesting through mid-levels.

The big, scary thing is sudden, new breath weapons because of the high damage potential, it seems to me. Other things shouldn't be nearly as bad.

I would certainly avoid big breaths, but I like some of the ideas you have here. About half of the attacks have a chance to cut, and the other half have a chance to stun. (I don't think touch, wail, gaze do either though) So I don't think these are a good addition.

here are some random abilities:

low power
resist an element (inc poison)
resist all elements (inc poison)
blink

mid power
cast almost any spell (excepting mana storm, nether balls, water balls or darkness storms)
(melee) to reduce stat
shriek
summon a (single) monster

high power
(melee) to paralyze
(melee) to blind
(melee) to confuse
(melee) to drain charges
(melee) to disenchant
tele-to
tele-away
summon monsters

The idea is that it's almost always possible to get a turn in LoS without fear of being meleed. In these cases you should be able to determine what additional abilities there are, if any. This is different from high powered ranged attacks that can easily kill you if you aren't expecting it.