feature/monster

[Nick]

I wanted novices for the three new classes. Tamer I agree isn't a standout, but it was the best I could come up with - happy to consider other suggestion. Ruffian I'm really happy with. And I'm actually pretty happy with witch too - reminiscent of the Witch-King. Healer was an introduction (in 4.1 IIRC) by takkaria to test the HEAL_KIN spell, and I think giving it to priests (and possibly some other monsters) seems like a sensible evolution.

Easterling warrior was OK, but I hope to have something more specifically Easterlingish when I do more on people, and I wanted to have each of the player classes appear as an actual monster. Similarly master rogue becoming rogue seems like a win, because master rogue and master thief are a bit similar, and I'd like to add some more interesting thieves (like maybe O's legendary hobbit rogues). Bandits could easily come back in, as could black knights - I certainly haven't finished with people. In fact, having blackguards be more like ninjas might be a decent plan.

As usual, opinions welcomed and considered.

[tangar]

Healer replaced by tamer (novice druid)
Bandit replaced by ruffian (novice blackguard)
Easterling warrior renamed warrior
Master rogue renamed rogue
Black knight tweaked and renamed blackguard

- Tamer - is a guy who tame animals (in a lot of games it's so, like in Ultima Online). Healer is logical and understandable.

- Bandits are cool. Ruffians too. Let's have both?

- Easterling warrior.. I just get used for this guy, it adding 'salt', flavour to boring warriors.

- Master rogue.. Classic. Also do not want it to go. How much meetings with Master rogue had an unpredictable consequences.

- Black knight Why do we have ninjas then, which are certanly are off-Tolkien - this feels like double standarts (someone likes ninjas, so they should stay in the game no matter what?). How come that ninjas which are off classic fantasy genre at all are still in game and Black knights should go away? Blackguard is ok to add as a new monster, but it's even nearly close to Black knights 'spirit'.

New monster witch (novice necromancer)

'Witch' is a good name for town folk ('t'), not for a monster, and not for a necromancer especially..

[MattB]

Soooo relieved that gelatinous cubes escaped their execution - I love/hate those little beggars! Whereas I feel no strong emotion either way for acidic cytoplasms. Black puddings do make me smile a little, though.

[MattB]

Slight oddity, but admittedly from a few nightlies back, so may have been fixed by now.
If I kill Beorn as one of his shapes, the other ones still shows on my tilde list as alive. Presumably I don't have to kill him twice. Or do I?...

[Nick]

NOTE: Old Man Willow has no AC defined and none inherited from the monster_base either.

Thanks! He'll be easy to hit until I fix that, then.

[Thraalbee]

Nice! Need to find time to do another test run.

NOTE: Old Man Willow has no AC defined and none inherited from the monster_base either.

[Pete Mack]

Nick
If you are adding trees, make them vulnerable to axes (and halberds, maybe SoS.) They should be invulnerable to blunt weapons, too...

Also: black-hearted huorn should be evil. All should be fire vulnerable (and maybe electric.) Probably resist cold.l and certainly poison.

[Nick]

New builds of this branch for Windows and macOS are now up on the builds page (source is here). Changes are:

• New monster type added, trees/ents, with five monsters:
  • old forest tree
  • Old Man Willow (from ToME)
  • huorn
  • black-hearted huorn
  • hasty ent
• Ochre jellies and gelatinous cubes return, acidic cytoplasms leave, we'll see if that's the end of the jelly story...
• Remember how I nerfed summoning by making nonliving summons evaporate? Well, the more I thought about that the less sense it made, and it was a never-ending fountain of bugs, so it's been reverted
• Some changes to people, specifically player-class monsters:
  • Healer replaced by tamer (novice druid)
  • Bandit replaced by ruffian (novice blackguard)
  • New monster witch (novice necromancer)
  • Easterling warrior renamed warrior
  • Master rogue renamed rogue
  • Black knight tweaked and renamed blackguard
  • All player class monsters' spell lists examined, and made more like the spells the actual player classes use

I still intend to make more changes to people and humanoids (as discussed in this thread), but I feel that they still require some thought and discussion.

I am considering this as the last update to this branch before pulling it into the master branch. This doesn't mean "no more changes to monsters", it means that the major surgery is done, and it's mostly balancing and tidying up now.

Any opinions on this update, or the whole branch, or the plan are most welcome.

[Hounded]

What if Osse breathed lightning instead of Nether?

Why are we getting rid of those jellies that I love to hate? I love to hate them, and if you remove then I will no longer have that aggravating displeasure of smashing my keyboard when they get in a nasty bout of acidic destruction; nor will I get to come here and complain about them.

Acidic cytoplasm is a straight upgrade to ochre jelly; I don't see what's wrong with this? Big brothers are a big theme in Angband.

Yeah... I have to say I'll be disappointedly relieved to see the jelly family shrunk. A jelly pit is the one thing in the game that makes me close the door and walk away (unless I know there's something unidentified in there of course).

[Grotug]

What if Osse breathed lightning instead of Nether?

Why are we getting rid of those jellies that I love to hate? I love to hate them, and if you remove then I will no longer have that aggravating displeasure of smashing my keyboard when they get in a nasty bout of acidic destruction; nor will I get to come here and complain about them.

Acidic cytoplasm is a straight upgrade to ochre jelly; I don't see what's wrong with this? Big brothers are a big theme in Angband.

[Philip]

Osse having nether breath seems to be an artefact of him being a reskin of Azriel. There is no good reason for him to have it that I can find, aside from possibly him having briefly allied himself with Melkor. However, given that even then he spent his time raising the massive waves that Tolkien found so dreadful, it seems obvious that Osse should get water bolt, ball, and breath, which, conveniently, are absolutely terrifying to deal with. Given his affinity for storms, perhaps some electricity powers would not be out of place as well, though that could actually weaken him by diluting his powerful spells.

[Thraalbee]

Small bug in the monsters - when I click on mage, I get the info for dark elven mage.

Thanks. Small mistake in the SELECT statement. Fixed now.

[wobbly]

If you're getting rid of one of the gelatinous cube/black pudding pair can we have something else that picks up item? It can lead to fun situations & I'd like to see more of it, rather then less.

[Pete Mack]

@grotug:
I fully agree with your analysis except for one minor detail. Osse corresponds better to Proteus than Poseidon.

[Pete Mack]

I agree that picking one each from ochre jelly/acidic cytoplasm and gelatinous cube/black pudding is the right move. However, Ochre jelly + black pudding is the better choice. OJ, because it is first, and you are less likely to be ready. BP, because it sometimes is worth killing.

Edit: that said, I also understand why GP isn't a bad idea: an early high-HP acidic wrecker is not without merit. I agree AC is worthless. It is functionally indistinguishable from OJ.

So bring back ochre jellies and gcubes and ditch acidic cytoplasms? Fair enough.

Hydras apparently fine then