Monster susceptibilities and immunities

[CunningGabe]

I'm working on reviewing which monsters are susceptible or resistant to various elements and status effects, and I'd like some feedback. First of all, we have these newish HURT_FIRE and HURT_COLD flags -- monsters that take double damage from spells of the appropriate type (and that will probably eventually take extra damage from brands.) These flags aren't currently on any monsters. Which types of monsters do you think should have these?

More generally, are there any monsters that you think should have a different set of resistances etc compared to what they have now?

[Hariolor]

hurt_fire seems good for:

jellies, molds, mushrooms
corporeal undead
ice-creatures (dragons, demons, trolls, vortices, zephyr hounds, etc)


hurt_cold?:

fire creatures (same idea as above)
reptiles (R)?
icky things
Q's (except undead Q's)
worms

[Atarlost]

HURT_FIRE for nazgul is supported by the source material.

HURT_XXX for the opposite elementals is obvious. Possibly both for water elementals.

Maybe one, the other, or even both for some jellies and related creatures as boiling and freezing would be nearly as dangerous to thin skinned sacks of unpotable water as to purer animate water.

Whatever you do you'll create balance issues. There's a reason the flags weren't in vanilla all along.

[Therem Harth]

If Nazgul are hurt by fire, they should certainly have nastier traits to make up for it...

One idea: melee retaliation. Every successful melee hit against Nazgul has a chance of stunning the player, perhaps with an additional chance of bypassing sound resistance. Also, have a chance of shattering non-artifact weapons. Hammering away at Uvatha or whoever therefore becomes a good way to get KO'd and dead.

[Philip]

If Nazgul are hurt by fire, they should certainly have nastier traits to make up for it...

One idea: melee retaliation. Every successful melee hit against Nazgul has a chance of stunning the player, perhaps with an additional chance of bypassing sound resistance. Also, have a chance of shattering non-artifact weapons. Hammering away at Uvatha or whoever therefore becomes a good way to get KO'd and dead.

And since fire SPELLS do double damage, and melee is done by warriors only, mages suddenly become awesome and warriors become useless, since mages get both frost and fire bolt. If we add melee retaliation then we'll add it to other monsters maybe without shattering.

[Derakon]

Yeah, melee retaliation was done in ToME similarly to how you're describing, and it basically means that if you're fighting Nazgul you only use ranged attacks. About the extent to which I'd say that melee retaliation can work without being broken is the elemental auras in ZAngband, where you took something like 2d6 damage before resistances, per strike you made against an aura'd target. An extra bit of attrition, not a big middle finger flip.

That said, adding susceptibilities could really weaken the monsters that have them. Look how much more trivial Sauron is if you exploit his acid vulnerability; with appropriate gear the fight takes maybe half as long as it would otherwise.

[Atarlost]

It wouldn't be so bad if the attack rods weren't jokes. It would level things a lot (as far as this change applies) if rods of fire/frost bolts/balls did worthwhile damage.

[Philip]

It wouldn't be so bad if the attack rods weren't jokes. It would level things a lot (as far as this change applies) if rods of fire/frost bolts/balls did worthwhile damage.

O has the attack rods as viable options somehow, maybe we should steal the idea whatever it is.

[Storch]

O has the attack rods as viable options somehow, maybe we should steal the idea whatever it is.

I like this in FAA (which is derived from O). Archery is weaker and devices stronger than in V.

The reasons for device effectivness are several: some devices have unresistable (or rarely resisted) effect, some have usefull status effects like stunning and, last but not least, monsters have fewer hitpoints - M has only 10k compared to 20k in V.

[Timo Pietilä]

hurt_fire seems good for:

jellies, molds, mushrooms
corporeal undead
ice-creatures (dragons, demons, trolls, vortices, zephyr hounds, etc)


hurt_cold?:

fire creatures (same idea as above)
reptiles (R)?
icky things
Q's (except undead Q's)
worms

Not sure about jellies. Anything having high water content without easily hurt surface should be hurt by cold easier than fire.

Like Atarlost says ringwraiths should be vulnerable to fire, but not necessary susceptible to it. Just lack of resist fire is sufficient.

Acid? Electricity? Maybe easier to think what isn't vulnerable than what is. Electricity could be something to hurt incorporeal undeads...maybe. Resisting it would be monsters without anything resembling nervous system like golems, jellies etc.

Incorporeal monsters would automatically be resistant to acid (nothing to corrode), vortices, adamantium and mithril beings, some golems maybe, acidic monsters like movable jellies.

[CunningGabe]

With only a couple of exceptions, the ringwraiths are already vulnerable to fire -- maybe I'll bring the others in line with that.

For the most part, the only monsters that are resistant to acid are jellies and acid-breathers (plus quite a few uniques.) What do others think of Timo's suggestion to add acid resistance to most/all ghosts and vortices?

[Derakon]

Sounds reasonable to me. If you aren't corporeal then you can't be corroded.