New monster ideas

[Pete Mack]

I like the icky queen--another weak summoner unique (beyond the two yeeks) is a good idea. I am not sure about shrieking for help, however. Throw in summoned blue ickies...

[pav]

As for unique i, I always liked this one from Ey:

Squish. Larger than the normal icky things, and twice as icky.

http://angband.oook.cz/monsters.php?q=squish&t=&s=&v=

[Djabanete]

I like the Unicorn, the Centaur, and the Watcher in the Water. None would break the "vanilla" feel.

[Hariolor]

One idea I've had for a variant that I'll never actually make is stationary summoners. Maybe use x for this? eg:

x (red) - Hellish Portal: tons of HP (scaled to level), immune to elements, vulnerable to stone-to-mud. Never moves, always awake. Once @ moves within a certain (very large) detection radius, it has a 50% chance to summon one level-appropriate demon every turn until destroyed.

could do the same thing for Holy Portals, Draconic Portals, Nether Portals, Chaos Portals (summons a random vortex), Slime Portals, etc

These would be pretty nasty level-ruining monsters for characters playing with preserve off. But on the other hand, serve as a way to grind levels for those equipped to handle the summons. I thought about giving them teleport-away, but that'd just be meeeeeeeean.

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I also love the idea of adding centaurs as essentially a faster, beefed-up version of the role the uruk plays in the early game. I feel the mid-levels need more interesting melee challenges that have appropriate ranged attacks to discourage trading arrows all day.

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I also really like the idea of "vents" using the "." symbol. Essentially could be used to create rooms filled with firestorms/poison clouds/acid storms, etc

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another thought that I think has been done in some variants: scouts - creatures of type (p, o, O, T, h, etc) with very high speed, weak range and melee, very good AC, and low HP for their type. They are always afraid of @, and are able to call for help. Never asleep - basically a mobile shrieker.

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limpet (j) - fast, breeds explosively, very high chance to-hit for 1d1 damage. Hits to slow (-1 speed per blow, cumulative).

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and slightly off topic, but while we're at it - why has the basic moated pit not been changed to have six doors? (two on the long walls, one in each short wall) It would make pits significantly harder to handle without making them unapproachable.

[EpicMan]

I would like to see a few dangerous monsters that resist TO. It wouldn't even have to be immunity, just give them a decent save against it.

I agree that we would need to be careful to avoid monsters that get summoned. Maybe have a NO_SUMMON flag, or maybe only let them be summoned by SUMMON_UNIQUE so the Morgoth can call in some un-dismissable help.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

I'm not suggesting eliminating TO altogether...not even close. If we chose to implement a monster defense to TO, it would have to be on a *small* fraction of the monster base.

I wouldn't mind a side effect: a monster that can't be TO'd, also can't be summoned.

[fizzix]

Pete, then we need some, fairly narrowly and carefully selected, Scary Monsters that can't be teleported away. NOT many. But perhaps a fundamental issue that has to be addressed, is that TO is the Universal Defense. We can make interesting, nicely challenging monsters, but when anyone can just tell them SHOO!...do we really get anywhere?

TO goes hand in hand with summoning. If you can't TO monsters away, it's ridiculous to have the option for a single dragon to summon 8 others just like it. Summoning is monsters' overpowered attacks and TO is @'s.

Some monsters also have TO btw. They are dangerous!

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Pete, then we need some, fairly narrowly and carefully selected, Scary Monsters that can't be teleported away. NOT many. But perhaps a fundamental issue that has to be addressed, is that TO is the Universal Defense. We can make interesting, nicely challenging monsters, but when anyone can just tell them SHOO!...do we really get anywhere?

[Pete Mack]

@atarlost:
The standard defense against Scary Monsters that Don't Need to be Killed isn't careful tactics in fighting, it's Teleport Other.

Be careful that you don't overdesign for the 10% case.

[Atarlost]

What I'd do after a successful grapple would be just taking away the ability to move, removing dex based AC, and making the monster follow you if you teleport and take you with it if it teleports. Every time you damage the monster in melee there's a chance of breaking the grapple.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Derakon: what I mean by the tactical player, is the one who oh-so-carefully does something to get into *just* the right spot, and he's being very reliant on that. There's nothing wrong with tactics; tactics is a Good Thing too. This effect class just makes you Pay Attention...because all of a sudden you're not in your wonderful position any more.

And yeah, I figured it wasn't in place and would need code. If it was for just 1 unique monster, I'd say...not worth it. If we like the monster, we use Teleport To, and at that point remove the paralysis attack...I agree that teleport-to and paralysis would be a bad combination. Stun could work, but I'd rather have something that's fairly different from mystics in mechanical terms. But if we can develop 8-10 monsters at various depths which can share this approach, then perhaps it's worth doing.

Question: one side change that would be required for this, is that melee attacks would need something like a Reach flag, or Max Range, or somesuch. This means monster.txt's format would change. Would this break save files? If so, then it's not something we'd do in a simple monster tweak.

fyonn: Frodo didn't take damage per se, no. IIRC, he felt something cold and slimy, but wasn't sure what it was until it started yanking. So, no, no damage in this case. But I'm taking some (hopefully mild) liberties, to get something a bit more distinctive. We've got teleport-to types all over the place. I want a grabber. A grabber inhibits movement until you can break free. The trick is the translation of that part. We could:

a) paralyze
b) slow
c) 'grapple'...invoke the stunning effects (penalties to combat and casting) but skin it differently

Teleport-to and Slow would obviously require no changes, and (along with pretty decent melee damage) would make an interesting, fairly nasty mix....

[fyonn]

fyonn: I thought about teleport-to, but if a tentacle is reeling you in, you've been hit, and should therefore take damage. Cause/effect is backwards.

I'm not sure I agree with this. doesn't one of the beasts tentacles wrap around the leg of frodo and he only realises when it reels him in. ie no damage caused, just pull in towards the beast where it can start being bitey!

dave

[Derakon]

Also, a nice thing about this attack style is, it threatens to wreak havoc with the tactical player. So they'd be rather worrisome, and to me that's a Good Thing.

Hang on, why is tactics a bad thing?

Having monsters that require you to use different tactics is okay, so long as they don't show up with monsters on whom those different tactics would be worse than useless (e.g. trying to fight a melee beast with shoot 'n scoot when there's a draconic quylthulg in the room). But we shouldn't be trying to obviate smart play. For example, a monster spell that summons the player and can be cast even when the player is not in LOS would be a bad idea.

On the other hand, I don't have an inherent problem with spells that can push the player around to a limited extent. After all, we already have teleport-to. That said, I think it'd be better to avoid trying to get too exotic here, if only because every new effect you dream up requires code to implement.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

fyonn: I thought about teleport-to, but if a tentacle is reeling you in, you've been hit, and should therefore take damage. Cause/effect is backwards. If we have:

a) can do a tentacle melee attack against anything within 4 (?) spaces. Note that this is better to be distinct from doing any melee attack out to range 4, because now you can support a normal 'bite' attack that does LOTS of damage.

b) as a side effect of hitting, can draw @ one space closer, with Trample (so it drags @ even past weaker monsters)

we'd be golden, but I don't think that's supported.

I think it would be interesting to incorporate these, tho. The Balrogs should have this, for example (the whip that tripped Gandalf), and it would be a nice basis for a swath of non-uniques. It might well be that they're mostly relatively shallow, but...one monster I recall from old D&D is the Thessalhydra. IIRC, it had a reach attack with 3 pincers. If they hit, it had the chance to toss you into its capacious maw...where you took bite damage AND acid damage, and a LOT of it. So, I think we can get something that would belong down at DL 50+.

Also, a nice thing about this attack style is, it threatens to wreak havoc with the tactical player. So they'd be rather worrisome, and to me that's a Good Thing.

[ekolis]

There are no monsters which use the symbol 'x'. Is that by design? Granted, it's difficult to come up with monsters that start with x... Also, only three monsters use the symbol 'X': Umber hulk, Xorn, Xaren.

OK, maybe I will offer some suggestions...

Xerophile - An amorphous blob of protoplasm that lives in the desert. Its attacks drain stats and/or XP, but it is vulnerable to water and ice attacks.

Explosive rune - Doesn't really begin with X, but then, snakes don't begin with J either! A magical ward placed by a sorcerer. Attacking it sometimes causes it to explode, damaging you (if you're foolish enough to use melee) and anything else nearby. It doesn't move or attack, but does cast fire spells.

Xorvos - A unique X, a demon resembling a giant crow. Moves quickly and has powerful melee attacks, but is vulnerable to magic, especially fire.