Deep monsters

[fizzix]

The list of deep monsters in Vanilla is pretty thin.

master mystic           50
nether hound            51
time hound              51
plasma hound            51
chaos vortex            53
storm of unmagic        53
demilich                54
elder vampire           54
archon                  55
dracolich               55
dracolisk               55
barbazu                 55
lesser titan            56
grand master mystic     57
hand druj               58
eye druj                58
ethereal hound          59
skull druj              59
aether vortex           60
nightwing               61
bile demon              61
dreadlord               62
great storm wyrm        63
great ice wyrm          63
great swamp wyrm        63
chaos hound             64
archlich                64
osyluth                 65
greater titan           66
great hell wyrm         67
beholder hive-mother    67
great bile wyrm         67
great wyrm of thunder   67
jabberwock              68
bone golem              68
nightcrawler            69
gelugon                 69
greater demonic q       71
greater draconic q      71
greater rotting q       71
horned reaper           72
nightwalker             73
black reaver            74
aether hound            74
great wyrm of chaos     75
great wyrm of law       75
bronze golem            75
master quylthulg        76
pit fiend               77
great wyrm of balance   79
great wyrm of mc        79
greater balrog          79

There are no non-unique monsters deeper than 79.

1: Do we need more non-unique deep monsters? Do they add to the game?

2: If so, what can we make? We have some free letters, namely N,F,Y. (F and Y can be freed easily) to bring in new races. I've been poking around at other variants for ideas, but like V, most of the deep monsters are uniques only.

[Derakon]

More enemy types is always good, so long as they're balanced.

[jens]

Of course we need more deep monsters! It's been on my todo list for a while now :-) I've only been thinking in terms of the current races though... New ones would be good... Hmm, about freeing letters, it's been mentioned before, but while doing this I'd add changing Angels to Ainur. Quite simmilar beings (angels were one of the inspirations for Ainur according to wikipedia), and above all Ainur belong to the Tolkien universe, while Angels do not...

[half]

The list of deep monsters in Vanilla is pretty thin.

2: If so, what can we make? We have some free letters, namely N,F,Y. (F and Y can be freed easily) to bring in new races. I've been poking around at other variants for ideas, but like V, most of the deep monsters are uniques only.

One obvious option occurs to me.

N: Nameless things

They could be pretty interesting, with all the digging.

The obvious thing though, is to rescale the depths at which other monsters are found, and at the same time to make them a bit tougher. This way you help avoid making the toughest things in the game generic while having things like the Ringwraiths be mid-game entities.

[bulian]

I'm not sure that more deep monsters adds a whole lot, as the later monsters already tend to have a pretty wide variety of abilities. Too many abilities can sometimes make monsters weak - Vecna, for example, can be more difficult than Sauron since the former has significantly fewer abilities and is more likely to summon reavers or mana storm. GWoC and GWoMC breath pretty much everything except nether/gravity/time. Will a hypothetical demon that can breath shards AND light/dark really be that distinguishable from a gelugon? Also, anything deeper than DL63 is already capable of 1-2 shotting the player, so increased damage outputs aren't really possible and similar monsters with more hitpoints aren't really that different than the current uniques.

That being said, I generally agree with Derakon.

[Derakon]

Since diversity weakens monsters, the solution is to have non-diverse monsters that do one or two things, but do them well.

For example, you could have a mobile Quylthulg, say an Ancient Necromancer, who runs around spamming greater undead at you. Or a Stone Termite -- eats walls and breeds explosively (ZAngband has greater wall monsters, which do that and look identical to granite walls...). Or an Osmium Golem who hits like a brick, casts teleport-to, and breathes gravity...though that's a bit of the wrong flavor.

[Nomad]

I'm not sure that more deep monsters adds a whole lot, as the later monsters already tend to have a pretty wide variety of abilities. Too many abilities can sometimes make monsters weak - Vecna, for example, can be more difficult than Sauron since the former has significantly fewer abilities and is more likely to summon reavers or mana storm. GWoC and GWoMC breath pretty much everything except nether/gravity/time. Will a hypothetical demon that can breath shards AND light/dark really be that distinguishable from a gelugon? Also, anything deeper than DL63 is already capable of 1-2 shotting the player, so increased damage outputs aren't really possible and similar monsters with more hitpoints aren't really that different than the current uniques.

Yeah, I pretty much agree with this. I think the place to add new monsters is probably the middle levels, so we can shunt the existing deep monsters further down, and make it more attractive to stick around dlevel 60 instead of diving straight on to 90.

I think there's room in the midgame for more 'specialised' monsters - things that can hit you quite nastily, but only with one or two types of attacks, so that players with the right resistances can risk taking them on. I think breaths like light, sound and shards are pretty underused in the middle levels. Or just have more monsters with interesting combinations of attacks - ice and chaos, poison and nexus, dark and sound, etc.

[fizzix]

Yeah, I pretty much agree with this. I think the place to add new monsters is probably the middle levels, so we can shunt the existing deep monsters further down, and make it more attractive to stick around dlevel 60 instead of diving straight on to 90.

I think there's room in the midgame for more 'specialised' monsters - things that can hit you quite nastily, but only with one or two types of attacks, so that players with the right resistances can risk taking them on. I think breaths like light, sound and shards are pretty underused in the middle levels. Or just have more monsters with interesting combinations of attacks - ice and chaos, poison and nexus, dark and sound, etc.

I think this is fairly accurate. However, it's hard to rationalize this along with a 'game needs to be harder' mindset.

[CunningGabe]

Since diversity weakens monsters, the solution is to have non-diverse monsters that do one or two things, but do them well.

For example, you could have a mobile Quylthulg, say an Ancient Necromancer, who runs around spamming greater undead at you. Or a Stone Termite -- eats walls and breeds explosively (ZAngband has greater wall monsters, which do that and look identical to granite walls...). Or an Osmium Golem who hits like a brick, casts teleport-to, and breathes gravity...though that's a bit of the wrong flavor.

+1

I'd also like to see monsters with ridiculously high AC but very few hitpoints, so that you need to take them out with spells/devices.

[Nomad]

I think this is fairly accurate. However, it's hard to rationalize this along with a 'game needs to be harder' mindset.

Well, maybe not. I actually feel it adds more from a difficulty standpoint to create mid-level monsters that the player can beat with a bit of a struggle than it does to add yet more things so horribly nasty that they're just going to run away from them. We've already got plenty of Horribly Nasty Things that players take one look at and decide to skip fighting; we need more things that they'll lose half their HP tackling because it looked like a fight worth taking on.

[Antoine]

I suggest the best way to manage all this is to add a few interesting new monsters, see what is popular and what improves the game, and then consider a bigger overhaul.

I think there is not enough consensus to justify big changes to the monster list yet.

Also, drip-feeding monster changes over several months will add more interest (new content continually popping up).

A.

[ChodTheWacko]

I have always thought that it would be interesting if various monsters had higher max hit points, but their average hit points (and experience) depended on dungeon level.

It's kind of an extension of the baby/young/mature/ancient thing we do with dragons, except for other creatures. That way although monsters start showing up at DLVL X, they still gradually get more and more dangerous the deeper you go.

It would also make Angband a bit more newbie friendly since getting breathed on by, for example, a baby green dragon lets you know what Ancient dreen dragons will do to you later.

- Frank

[Raxmei]

One of my most interesting recent fights featured a running battle with a whole bunch of orcs and two umber hulks. Some more tunnelers deep down would tend to make fights more interesting. Preferably not all of them would be as dangerous or dangerous in the same way as Black Reavers. The idea I had along that line was a tunneling golem. Bashes down walls, obliviously crushes monsters that get in its way, hits hard for acid and earthquakes.

We don't get any explosive breeders past dlvl 40. That's another niche the rockeater bugs would fill.

[jens]

I'd also like to see monsters with ridiculously high AC but very few hitpoints, so that you need to take them out with spells/devices.

Would be nice, but I think I'd like the combat system to be reworked first. Basically all classes except mages and priest have ridiculously high to-hit... Oh, well guess it's not such a problem after all, just that it will need balancing after combat is reworked :-) The highest current AC is 300 in the current RC... In that context, to make a lvl 50 warrior, with mediocre eq, hit only 1/3 of his attacks a monster would need AC 570+, to make the same warrior hit 1/5 of his attacks a monster would need AC 690+.

Well I guess what I'm saying is that there is really a lot of room to increase AC for a lot of monsters with the current system, or make a general reduction of to-hit for classes.

[artes]

Of course we need more deep monsters! It's been on my todo list for a while now :-) I've only been thinking in terms of the current races though... New ones would be good... Hmm, about freeing letters, it's been mentioned before, but while doing this I'd add changing Angels to Ainur. Quite simmilar beings (angels were one of the inspirations for Ainur according to wikipedia), and above all Ainur belong to the Tolkien universe, while Angels do not...

That's a good idea. There are a lot of names in Silmarillion that can be used. Angels from the Christian mythology feels somewhat misplaced in Angband, though they are fun to fight and I don't really feel that they must go away. Ainur could be added without removing the angels, possibly. I don't have an opinion about that. Then there's the problem how to motivate why good Ainur would hang around in Angband. Maybe they are there to trample monsters while looking for Morgoth?