What do lice add to the game?

[Derakon]

"Bad stuff in a game should never serve purely to annoy"...
Whyever not?

Because annoyance isn't fun, and games should be fun.

Alternatively the thing to do is get rid of lice, and make more things like Hummerhorns, Fireflies and Neekerbreekers. I rember something called a programming bug in ToME that might suit. Or Greater Wall monsters.

I'd actually be okay with this. These monsters are legitimate threats, so having them deny an area to you is less galling than having that area be inaccessible because it's filled with an infinite supply of one of the weakest monsters in the game. At least when hummerhorns are about, you know you need to tread carefully lest you be confused to death.

[Djabanete]

I like that breeders force some creative thinking. They *usually* don't block a vault, but it is really frustrating when they do.

You can always keep Wands of Stinking Cloud handy.

There's a really nice item in Heng called a Rod of Pesticide that deals a tiny amount of damage to everything in sight and recharges quickly (3-4 turns). They're well balanced because they allow the player to be insured against low-level breeders, but at the cost of an inventory slot. Also if there's one lying around on the level you can go snatch it if an infestation gets out of hand, and ditch it afterwards. I think these would be good in Vanilla.

[will_asher]

DAJ has a staff of zapping which is meant to help clear away breeders. (it has been made a little more effective for next release)

hmmm... I wonder what a PASS_WALL breeder would be like...
<evil laugh>

[Derakon]

ToME 2 had what amounts to PASS_WALL breeders, since lice could fly and the first two dungeons' walls were passable by flying creatures. Compound that with characters starting with terrible stealth (since you were expected to invest skillpoints in improving it) and the first thing I did whenever downloading a new copy of ToME 2 was remove the MULTIPLY flag from early monsters, with no shame or remorse whatsoever.

Late-game passwall breeders? Zangband had the Greater Wall Monster which could do this. It's been a long time since I encountered them, though, so I can't remember what it was like. Lesser Wall Monsters just had KILL_WALL instead.

[meJustmeNotyou]

Cool... A vault with a measly ancient white dragon and a few undead.... i can handle this..... wait... what's that over there ?!?!?! .........LICE.... RUNNNNNNNNNN !!!

(sorry, but when i started reading this thread i had to laugh)

for me, I like that angband can force my hand from time to time and i'm not always destined to rule the level (just, almost always)... as for lice you got me thinking... just like i need to prepare for freaking drolems when i see em again (i have my plan) maybe there are lame items we usualy throw away that are great for just lice ?

earthquake staves, sleep staves (maybe they wake up too quick though)... i don't know... lame things you'd normal not bother with, but you should have one or two of to kick em around ?

maybe then you can rename yourself... Derakon, Lice Bane

(this topic amuses me sorry, haha)

[dos350]

blah blah blah, wat im sensing is u were slain by lice, or hav lice IRL, eee~ plz no rage

[fizzix]

So I just had a game experience which reminds me of this thread.

I'm in a labyrinth and it has some monsters I can't handle in it. However, it also has a black lice which I allow to bread and fill up a good portion of the level. I can mow them down but other monsters can't navigate to me. Thank you lice!

[Antoine]

i like dos350's post

A.

[Narvius]

IIRC ToME had this evil thing that are mutating breeders. White Worm Mass breeds, breeds, breeds, but one point, suddenly there's a Red Worm Mass in the group. Keep fighting them early on and you face vermin that can instakill you.

Which, incidentally, would probably make lice more dangerous instead of annoying, without removing the creative-thinking part or the lice itself.

[Djabanete]

Mutating breeders eh? I like it. Perhaps 1 in N clones would turn out to be a stronger variety, where N is pretty large, like ~100-250.

[takkaria]

Mutating breeders eh? I like it. Perhaps 1 in N clones would turn out to be a stronger variety, where N is pretty large, like ~100-250.

This would be excellent, does someone want to write a patch?

[Narvius]

I'm not up to it, I don't have any knowledge of Angband's inner architecture.

But:

We have obvious "families" of vermin (lice, worm masses) which can breed one another I think, but then there are also family-less breeders (hummerhorns, I think?; blue icky things or whatever the breeding ones were) - will they be able to mutate into others of their species (even if the mutation can't breed? - that would make blue icky things funny, they could have a very high mutation chance and basically serve as entry point for a slime army).

Can uniques of that species be bred?

Are down-grade mutations possible?

[nppangband]

Great idea...Another aspect of this that makes it even more dangerous..... The 99 monster limit per level is there specifically to kep breeders from taking over an entire level. In the early version of Moria they could cut you off from stairs and all means of escape, and even strong characters would eventually be taken down by sheer numbers.

But once one breeder mutates to another race, that's another 99 creatures that can become a part of the infestation. We will have to be more careful around them with the possibility of a mutation doubling the size of the swarm.

[Narvius]

Which makes the question about the possibility of down-grade mutations even more important.

[bio_hazard]

IIRC ToME had this evil thing that are mutating breeders. White Worm Mass breeds, breeds, breeds, but one point, suddenly there's a Red Worm Mass in the group. Keep fighting them early on and you face vermin that can instakill you.

Which, incidentally, would probably make lice more dangerous instead of annoying, without removing the creative-thinking part or the lice itself.

Mice were something to watch out for, a swarm of mice would occasionally spawn a rock mole monster that could dig through walls. Can't remember- maybe ware-rats too.