Revamping the monster list

[Nick]

Any idea why Time Hounds have speed +20 while the two other hounds (nether/plasma) that are totally identical except their breath have speed +10? This really sounds like a typo to me, and the monster revamp could clearly address that issue.

Yeah, clearly Nether/Plasma need to be +20

[PowerWyrm]

Yeah, clearly Nether/Plasma need to be +20

Hahaha... and chaos/aether too?

[Pete Mack]

Time hounds have control of time?

[Derakon]

Yeah, clearly Nether/Plasma need to be +20

Nick beat me to it. Time Hounds deserve to be scary.

As far as justification goes though, yeah, anything that can wield the time element ought by rights to be pretty fast.

[Antoine]

Nick beat me to it. Time Hounds deserve to be scary.

As far as justification goes though, yeah, anything that can wield the time element ought by rights to be pretty fast.

Maybe 1 in 2 time breaths should be "You feel younger and more powerful!" (+1 all stats)

A.

[Sideways]

Borrowing from FAAngband, one change to monsters could be to include neutral monsters. Not only most townfolk, but also some of the other "p" that @ meets in the dungeon. Neutral, unless @ attacks them. Also, it could be interesting if Maggot could be negotiated with, rather than wantonly attacked, in order to obtain his drop.

Throw an artifact at Maggot, and he'll catch it and willingly drop his original item!

Two artifacts if you've killed any of his dogs.

[EpicMan]

Time breath should be changed to have a small chance to reload the game back to your last autosave - "You feel your life has clocked back - more"

[Patashu]

Time breath should be changed to have a small chance to reload the game back to your last autosave - "You feel your life has clocked back - more"

Why not take inspiration from ToME4's major anomaly effects? One of them summons your evil twin from a parallel universe to fight you!

[HugoVirtuoso]

How about player ghosts?

[Philip]

Hm, good thing Nick linked back to this, I seem to have missed the last two pages.

Oangband solved the problem of weak monsters appearing deeper partly by making monsters (including uniques) killed deep only drop gold. It is a moderately elegant and very evil solution, which is why I think V should adopt it. I'm pretty sure they also start appearing less frequently, but I'm not sure. In any case, it makes sure that if you're sneaking around very deep, where you're not very good at killing things, you don't get to have the drops you'd get for monsters native to dlvl/2 or so just by murdering a pack of novice mages. I think it would be nice if finding objects on the ground were more important. On the other hand, with fuzzy detection, that would be much more irritating.

[luneya]

I think it would be nice if finding objects on the ground were more important. On the other hand, with fuzzy detection, that would be much more irritating.

What are you talking about? A lot of the good loot is found on the ground--most often in vaults or special rooms, but sometimes on the common dungeon floor. Monster drops are only really important for midgame uniques, before vaults start to dominate the landscape. Okay, in the lategame vaults, the big monsters drop some of the good stuff, but they're mainly there to kill you rather than as a loot source. That's why TO vault-clearing is a useful strategy even though it doesn't kill anything.

[Nick]

OK, I've been promising to say something concrete here for a while; this will be vague, but hopefully indicative. I'll just list some ideas I currently have; it's not exhaustive, and some of them may not make it in the end:

• Looking at Thraalbee's page shows that there are many new monsters up to DL45, and few after that. A lot of the early monsters need to be either toughened and moved deeper, or replaced with deeper versions.
• There are a number of monsters I am considering including from FA; for example:
  • Crows of Udun
  • various archers
  • Abyss spiders
  • Nrulings
  • Serpents of the Brownlands
  • Giant black scorpions
  • Beastmasters
  • Skeleton serpents
  • Dark nagas
  • Serpents of Chaos
  • Giant paladins
  • Children of Ungoliant
  • Wolves of Sauron
  • Sky dragons
  • Hounds of Tindalos
• Many of these include the LASH spell (which is like a 2-3 grid ranged attack based on the monster's first melee blow), so I want to add that too
• Monsters that need toughening/tougher version include snakes, spiders, nagas, lesser undead, minor demons, felines, birds.
• Monsters that I'm basically OK with currently are hydras, elementals, vortices, hounds, yeeks, kobolds, quylthulgs.
• Orcs, trolls, giants, dragons, major demons and greater undead are mostly pretty good, but could probably do with a little toughening and deepening.
• As mentioned elsewhere, I think the Greek uniques could be replaced with more thematic things - that's probably mostly just a name change.
• Remember that I am currently working on improving monster pathfinding, which will have implications for the list.
• Remember also that I want to make shallow monsters less likely at deeper depths; there are a number of possible ways to achieve this.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

And, Nick, how about the possibility of "neutral" monsters, a la FA?

[Antoine]

OK, I've been promising to say something concrete here for a while; this will be vague, but hopefully indicative. I'll just list some ideas I currently have; it's not exhaustive, and some of them may not make it in the end:

I'd be sorry to lose some of the other stuff from upstream on this thread, like frogs jumping...

A.

[Philip]

What are you talking about? A lot of the good loot is found on the ground--most often in vaults or special rooms, but sometimes on the common dungeon floor. Monster drops are only really important for midgame uniques, before vaults start to dominate the landscape. Okay, in the lategame vaults, the big monsters drop some of the good stuff, but they're mainly there to kill you rather than as a loot source. That's why TO vault-clearing is a useful strategy even though it doesn't kill anything.

Huh, looks like you're right. I've been blaming the wrongs things for the phenomenon that V characters have absolutely ridiculous access to stuff. Even so, I feel like hunting down shallow monsters should not be a viable strategy deep in the dungeon, and currently it rather is. For one thing, the most effective form of statgain is murdering orcs at dlvl 70. That feels wrong.