should uniques be trample-able?

[fizzix]

Twice I've had uniques get trampled by their summonses. Once lorgon and once ulfast (or ulwarth, I can't remember which one summons). Ironically, in both cases the trampler was a berserker.

I personally don't feel that uniques should ever be trampled. Especially as they're often more dangerous than a monster at a much higher level.

[Timo Pietilä]

Twice I've had uniques get trampled by their summonses. Once lorgon and once ulfast (or ulwarth, I can't remember which one summons). Ironically, in both cases the trampler was a berserker.

I personally don't feel that uniques should ever be trampled. Especially as they're often more dangerous than a monster at a much higher level.

I think that is a bug. Uniques at least didn't used to be vulnerable to KILL_BODY -effect. IE. no killing Balrog of Moria by Horned Reaper even that Horned Reaper is deeper than Balrog of Moria.

[fyonn]

oh I don't know. if you'd avoided grip all these turns and then he appears in front of that horned reaper, would you really expect the poor little doggie, even as a unique, to hold the reaper back?

[Derakon]

You could replace trample with push-past if the target is a unique monster.

[PowerDiver]

Twice I've had uniques get trampled by their summonses. Once lorgon and once ulfast (or ulwarth, I can't remember which one summons). Ironically, in both cases the trampler was a berserker.

I personally don't feel that uniques should ever be trampled. Especially as they're often more dangerous than a monster at a much higher level.

I don't have any problem with monsters trampling uniques. I wouldn't mind if that meant they were marked as killed. OTOH, I don't think a summoner should be able to summon a monster natively deeper than itself.

[fizzix]

OTOH, I don't think a summoner should be able to summon a monster natively deeper than itself.

I've made that suggestion before and was roundly shouted down...

or maybe it was just ignored. Hard to remember between the two.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

I agree a monster's summoning should be depth-limited...maybe allow a *little* out of depth, but not often. And do the converse, as noted in one of the recent-winner threads: put some kind of cap on how weak a summoned monster can be, so M doesn't give you a nice 2-3 free rounds because he summons the orc uniques, complete with papier-mache escorts....or is it that they only act like they're papier-mache?

[NotMorgoth]

Or could you just make it that a monster can only trample another monster that is both lower level and has less (maximum) hitpoints. Since most uniques have a lot more HP than other monsters at their depth this would normally prevent them being trampled, but not always, eg Grip and the horned reaper as above.

[Timo Pietilä]

I agree a monster's summoning should be depth-limited...maybe allow a *little* out of depth, but not often. And do the converse, as noted in one of the recent-winner threads: put some kind of cap on how weak a summoned monster can be, so M doesn't give you a nice 2-3 free rounds because he summons the orc uniques, complete with papier-mache escorts....or is it that they only act like they're papier-mache?

I don't see any real reason to limit summoning shallower monsters than caster, even if it means that Morgoth summons Grip which in turn tries to bite Horned Reaper ankle when it tries to roll over it. That's just another tactic that is just quite funny. You kind of set trap for him:

"Morgoth summons special opponents"...hmmm damn, just my luck, I got Lagduf again. What is with this guy? Does it run from all adventurers? And what's that little puppy over there? I asked for Carcharoth, not some hobbit pet. Oh well, lets continue to kill that adventurer... "Morgoth casts manastorm".

OTOH summoning monsters that are way deeper than summoner doesn't feel right.

[nullfame]

I don't have any problem with monsters trampling uniques. I wouldn't mind if that meant they were marked as killed. OTOH, I don't think a summoner should be able to summon a monster natively deeper than itself.

I don't think they should be marked as killed.

I think a monster should be able to summon something natively deeper. It keeps summoners dangerous longer. There are interesting moments in the midgame where a demon summons something OOD. I don't think those should go away. There should be a reasonable cap on how OOD it can be but I assume that is already true.

As far as the OT is concerned I don't know enough about how trampling works. I assume you can't trample something with higher level than you? In that case I'm not surprised that both times were a berserker with a human summoner. How many other situations are possible? Moria and horned reaper? I don't think HP solution would fix that but I otherwise like it.

If it's true that there are few cases where this is even likely, removing trample from berserker and making him push past would be almost as effective and trivial.

[PowerDiver]

I've made that suggestion before and was roundly shouted down...

And we shall be shouted down again.

[Timo Pietilä]

I think a monster should be able to summon something natively deeper. It keeps summoners dangerous longer. There are interesting moments in the midgame where a demon summons something OOD. I don't think those should go away.

There is at least one case where I think OOD summoning is completely valid: Enchantress. Enchantress summons dragons and is dlvl 40 monster. Only ancient dragons that are same level are white, blue, green and bronze. All others are deeper. Its a completely different thing to get Dracolich from it than Ancient White.

There are probably quite a few other similar cases too. So maybe there is nothing wrong in summoning after all.

Trampling uniques is odd though. Uniques are not allowed to be killed by other monsters, so trampling should not be any different to that.

Someone suggested that if KILL_BODY is not allowed it should translate to MOVE_BODY instead. I think that KILL_BODY should need monster to be both weaker and quite a bit shallower than monster that is doing that. Not same level but something like 50% shallower and and has a lot less HP. If that is the case then do MOVE_BODY instead.

I wonder if we could add monster size as some stat to angband. I have one paper and dice RPG that has size as one factor of monster abilities. Large enough and it can just step on you (or other monster) and be done with it, small enough and it is really hard to hit unless you use a flyswatter (area effect weapon). Large size makes targets easy to hit for ranged attacks, but difficult to melee, and vice versa. Think Godzilla (new movie). Think large swarm of gnats. (Northern parts of Finland have some places where there are so many small (couple of mm) blood-sucking gnats that might literally suffocate you if you stay there too long. I have no idea how many of those are in one swarm, but it is enough that you don't want to be there. Luckily they don't follow you very far).

Also add monster AC do same as player AC: reduce damage from melee and missile weapons (especially missiles) in addition to making it harder to hit (unless weapon has effective slay, or make some more complicated calculation that separates slay and raw damage). I have always thought about separating evading AC and blocking AC from each other and wanted to add that to my variant (if I ever get that done, doesn't look like it gets done ever).

This is getting OT, but if we think The Hobbit and how Smaug got killed, there were no problem to hit it, but damage it. IOW Smaug had a high blocking AC armor with one fatal hole in it.

[Sirridan]

Here are my thoughts on the subject:

1. If trampler attempts to trample it's summoner, do MOVE_BODY instead, and perhaps a message like "Horned Reaper pushes past it's summoner/master." Although that demonologist got what he deserved after summoning reapers.

2. If a trampler attempts to trample a unique, do MOVE_BODY if the monster_max_hp >= trampler_max_hp. Saruman is quite smaller than a reaper though...

3. Possibly add flags to indicate size, or maybe an integer. Eg. Tiny -> Small -> Medium -> Large -> Huge -> Colossal (ala D&D).
Larger by two steps or more always tramples.
Larger by one step tramples 50% of the time, pushes past otherwise.
Equal size tramples 25% of the time or pushes past.
Smaller by one step tramples 10% of the time, otherwise pushes past.

Eat rock + trample always kills such monsters that are vulnerable to earth moving.

In any case, for "realism" purposes, that horned reaper is walking right over Lagduf. For game balance purposes, Lagduf just goes to the orc hospital only to be summoned into a manastorm by Morgoth later.

[PowerDiver]

This is getting OT, but if we think The Hobbit and how Smaug got killed, there were no problem to hit it, but damage it. IOW Smaug had a high blocking AC armor with one fatal hole in it.

You are losing the point of the abstraction of hitpoints. If there is 1/20 chance of a kill shot else no damage, hp abstracts that as doing 5% of hp each round. So in hp terms, Bard did, say, 5% of Smaug's damage every round until he finished with the black arrow.

HP are explicitly described as including luck and evasion, at least in early versions of D&D. If you want to go to a kill shot system, that is entirely different.

[Timo Pietilä]

You are losing the point of the abstraction of hitpoints.

No, I say that it just doesn't do its job very well.

Lets introduce new monster type: swarm monster. Lets say that all ants are that type of monster. Very hard to kill with sword, arrows etc. but single fireball kills it immediately. That's application of avoidance vs blocking. In current angband terms a 1000000HP monster that dies to single shot with proper weapon. Dragon could handle arrow damage without getting practically any damage and doesn't hurt much from fireball either, but you do hit it with every shot. It then gets just matter of time when it dies. Get a weapon that goes thru that block and it dies a lot faster (weapon of slay dragon).