New monster ideas

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  • Derakon
    Prophet
    • Dec 2009
    • 9022

    New monster ideas

    One thing we could stand to do to add interest to the game is to add new monsters in the 2000'-5000' range. So this thread is for brainstorming new creatures to smush. They don't need to be fully statted-out (and the names and abilities are open to critiques); just important abilities and general difficulty level.

    Centaur Knight: a melee-oriented, very fast 'q' that shows up a bit after Death Knights do. No spells, but hits much harder than Death Knights do and has decent chance to stun (DKs are 6d6 and 2x 5d5; CKs should be more like 6d12 hit and 2x 10d3 trample).

    Unicorn: The unicorn is to angels what the enchantress is to dragons. Shows up around about 3000' (Archons are native to 2750'; the unique angels to 3050', 3100', and 3200'), very fast, and likes to summon angels. A white 'q', naturally.

    Abyssal slime: Think ochre jelly, but drains experience instead of hitting you with acid. Maybe let it walk through walls too. Most of the early life drainers are pretty fragile; this could be sturdier.

    Dark matter vortex: basically a gravity vortex. Fragile, but (very?) fast and breathes frequently.

    Solar Fiend: a plasma-based greater demon. Has shocking and burning melee attacks, breathes plasma -- a plasma vortex with a brain and way more hitpoints. I've noticed that we actually don't have very many fire-based demons; it's mostly the balrogs and pit fiends. This creature should of course show up before those do; somewhere in the 2250' range should be good.

    Animate Armor: a golem made of razor blades. Still doesn't have any subtlely to it, but its attacks will cause heavy wounds. The most powerful "basic golem" is the Eog Golem at 1700'; this could show up around 2600' and move very quickly (Bone golems are at 3400', and bronze golems at 3750'). Could also call it a Diamond Golem.

    Vent: an entirely new set of monsters that use the '.' character like Trappers. These are stationary, mindless monsters whose only ability is to breathe a specific element. So e.g. you'd have Fire Vents, Poison Vents, Gravity Vents, etc. They'd show up roughly when the corresponding vortex does and have a similar number of hitpoints.

    Skeletal Wyvern: an early undead 'd' dragon, showing up with the early ancient dragons. Take a wyvern, boost its hitpoints and melee, and give it a life-draining bite.

    Feel free to post your own ideas or critique these.
  • Tiburon Silverflame
    Swordsman
    • Feb 2010
    • 405

    #2
    One thing I would prefer to NOT see, is critters that are overly D&D, especially when it feels like "oh we'll take this monster and put a template on it." I don't expect that's what you're thinking by any means, but over on D&D boards I see way too many vampiric hellspawn dragons, offered with more Gush than you can put on the back cover of a romance novel. So e.g. the abyssal slime just strikes a bad chord with me. Reskin it, and it'd probably be fine.

    How many higher-end archers, and ONLY archers, are there? I know there's a ranger chieftain, but he's got a whole bunch of goodies. Centaur knight got me to thinking about a really good archer, cuz centaurs are arguably the perfect platform for mobile archery. So something that's a single ranged attack but conceptually with a heavy crossbow, with seeker bolts...something like 16d5 + 20.

    How much of a pain would it be to introduce a new attack type? Plasma is electrical + fire; I'm thinking anti-plasma (yeah the name bites) might be cold and nether. Or Miasma breath...nether + confusion, or possibly blindness + confusion (altho that feels redundant, in that they're both principally status effects). Miasma cloud...parts of it shift and coalesce and re-form. Its behavior is much like a will o' the wisp, portaling regularly, but it's got a 'breath attack' as a different part of the cloud coalesces around you.

    Seriously evil combination for a vortex: distortion vortex. Time + hallucination, or arguably gravity + hallucination...your senses reel as space shifts around you.

    Comment

    • Atarlost
      Swordsman
      • Apr 2007
      • 441

      #3
      The original Fall of Gondolin (lost tales volume 2) includes a number of creatures of artifice. Off hand I remember fire snakes and giant steel snakes full of orcs. I think there was something of bronze or brass as well.
      One Ring to rule them all. One Ring to bind them.
      One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness interrupt the movie.

      Comment

      • Derakon
        Prophet
        • Dec 2009
        • 9022

        #4
        Tiburon: to be fair, a lot of Angband monsters are already templates applied to a base class. White, red, blue, green, etc. jellies, nagas, snakes, scorpions, worm masses...I chose "abyssal" because it's a neat "undead" adjective that we haven't worn out yet. Is it a D&D template? I wouldn't be surprised. But that's not what I had in mind. Still, if you have an idea for a better name, by all means!

        As for the archer, I don't think we have an upper-level archer class, no. The Ranger Chieftan is mostly a high-speed animal summoner in my books. We could make a Master Archer 'p' monster, but since that letter is already so overloaded I wouldn't have a problem with making it a Centaur Archer instead. Fast or very fast, shoots arrows one time in two, has trampling melee attacks.

        I dig the distortion vortex. Gravity + hallucination is the combination I'd go for. I suppose that makes it a gravity/chaos vortex with hallucinating melee attacks.

        Also, I think the aether vortex should be moved shallower (current native depth: 3000') and made more common. It's a good introduction to exotic breath attacks since it doesn't use the nasty ones all that often, and only has 420 hitpoints. They're pushovers when I find them in-depth, and worth too much experience.

        Plasma isn't really fire + electric; it's just that those are the associated "normal" elements. Having those resists doesn't help you any; it just determines which items are vulnerable to the breath.

        Atarlost: those would be good. I tried to think of good names for deep snake monsters, but unfortunately I don't think that e.g. a Tsuchinoko would really fit into Angband. Sadly the orc-carrying steel snake wouldn't be much good in the deeps, but on the other hand if it showed up around 1200' or so it could still pose a legitimate threat. We'd need a summon-orc spell though.

        Comment

        • Nick
          Vanilla maintainer
          • Apr 2007
          • 9637

          #5
          Monster lists of variants would be a good first port of call here - for example O has a good range of archers.
          One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
          In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

          Comment

          • nppangband
            NPPAngband Maintainer
            • Dec 2008
            • 926

            #6
            Agreed. Along with Oangband, UnAngband has alot of additional monsters as well.

            NPP has about 40-50 additional higher level monsters. Replacing Angels with Ainur opened up many possibilities for monsters for deep levels.

            But higher level "people" characters, such as top level priests, rogues, warrioers, etc....have potential to add many higher level creatures without raiding the AD&D monster book.

            Although I am sure there are some good monsters to be found in AD&D as well.

            A more off-the-wall idea would be to take 1-2 monsters from other popular fiction, such as HP lovecraft, or even dementors from Harry Potter.
            NPPAngband current home page: http://nppangband.bitshepherd.net/
            Source code repository:
            https://github.com/nppangband/NPPAngband_QT
            Downloads:
            https://app.box.com/s/1x7k65ghsmc31usmj329pb8415n1ux57

            Comment

            • Atarlost
              Swordsman
              • Apr 2007
              • 441

              #7
              They're giant metal snake-like battering ram/siege towers big enough that an orc can stand upright inside of them. They smash through the walls of Gondolin, a city as noted for the strength of its fortifications in the first age as Minas Tirith is in the third age. That to me says they bore through rock, are absurdly tough, and hit for massive damage, possibly with a shatter effect. The orcs are incidental to the danger and serve primarily to prevent hack and back.
              One Ring to rule them all. One Ring to bind them.
              One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness interrupt the movie.

              Comment

              • fizzix
                Prophet
                • Aug 2009
                • 3025

                #8
                Isn't the unicorn just the knight templar?

                I would really like to see a unique w. I'm thinking Jormungandr

                Comment

                • Pete Mack
                  Prophet
                  • Apr 2007
                  • 6883

                  #9
                  Originally posted by fizzix
                  Isn't the unicorn just the knight templar?

                  I would really like to see a unique w. I'm thinking Jormungandr
                  Jormungandr is a "serpent", and is not evil. Also, he's on the bottom of the sea (or something like that).

                  If you want a unique worm you have to go to Frank Herbert (ugh.)
                  Maybe Shai-Hulud, even though it's not actually unique (from Dune Wikipedia page.)

                  Comment

                  • Pete Mack
                    Prophet
                    • Apr 2007
                    • 6883

                    #10
                    Edit:
                    Or you can stand on the shoulders of giants:

                    Comment

                    • fizzix
                      Prophet
                      • Aug 2009
                      • 3025

                      #11
                      Originally posted by Pete Mack
                      Jormungandr is a "serpent", and is not evil. Also, he's on the bottom of the sea (or something like that).

                      If you want a unique worm you have to go to Frank Herbert (ugh.)
                      Maybe Shai-Hulud, even though it's not actually unique (from Dune Wikipedia page.)
                      A unique J could also work. I don't see any consistency problems with him being at the bottom of the see. When have you ever heard of a bunch of heffalumps (mumaks) in a cave?

                      Comment

                      • Nick
                        Vanilla maintainer
                        • Apr 2007
                        • 9637

                        #12
                        Originally posted by fizzix
                        A unique J could also work. I don't see any consistency problems with him being at the bottom of the see. When have you ever heard of a bunch of heffalumps (mumaks) in a cave?
                        Yes!

                        The Heffalump ('q')
                        A great enormous thing, like--like nothing. A huge big--well, like a--I don't know--like an enormous big nothing. Like a jar.
                        One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
                        In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

                        Comment

                        • Whelk
                          Adept
                          • Jun 2007
                          • 211

                          #13
                          A massive slime mold (j) that oozes around, bent on avenging its devoured lesser brethren by itself devouring their devourers.

                          Comment

                          • Derakon
                            Prophet
                            • Dec 2009
                            • 9022

                            #14
                            Originally posted by fizzix
                            Isn't the unicorn just the knight templar?
                            I hadn't realized that knight templars could summon angels. Clearly they don't do it enough (spells 1 in 4, 6 different spells, so only 1 in 24 actions for a merely fast monster summons any angels). I imagined the unicorn as being more focused. Spells 1 in 3, options are summon angels, heal-self, and teleport-to.

                            Comment

                            • ekolis
                              Knight
                              • Apr 2007
                              • 921

                              #15
                              *wisely refrains from making suggestions, having played a lot of Dragon Quest 9 lately*
                              You read the scroll labeled NOBIMUS UPSCOTI...
                              You are surrounded by a stasis field!
                              The tengu tries to teleport, but fails!

                              Comment

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