feature/monster

[Nick]

That's why I tend to change monsters really sparsely in my variant because tile allocation is a sandcastle that will crumble each time a single change is made. Basically every tile is taken and there are none for more mobs or different mobs.

Yes, indeed. My position is that I'm constrained by tiles, but I refuse to be constrained by tiles...

[PowerWyrm]

Tiles: I have been pretty lazy with this. Renamed monsters have kept their same tiles, but new monsters have typically either got the (possibly not very appropriate) tile of a removed monster, or not got a tile at all. I would be grateful for any suggestions of better tile allocation.

That's why I tend to change monsters really sparsely in my variant because tile allocation is a sandcastle that will crumble each time a single change is made. Basically every tile is taken and there are none for more mobs or different mobs.

[mrfy]

I was able to drop some damaged armour in the Armoury, a Hard Leather Cap [2, -2], which they now have for sale for 6 gold, same as a regular Hard Leather Cap [2, +0]. More interestingly, they now have a Wicker Shield [2, -1] for 4 gold but 39 Wicker Shields [2, +0] are only 1 gold each. A Pair of Leather Sandals [1, -1] is 4 gold but 16 Pairs of Leather Sandals [1, +0] are 1 gold each. Of course selling is disabled (as it should be).

[mrfy]

[*]Copying monster.txt to lore.txt works again

This is working again. Thanks! Off to explore more of the dungeon, kill monsters and die a horrible death!

[Nick]

On a general note, a couple of things that I've meant to mention about this branch and haven't got around to.

Tiles: I have been pretty lazy with this. Renamed monsters have kept their same tiles, but new monsters have typically either got the (possibly not very appropriate) tile of a removed monster, or not got a tile at all. I would be grateful for any suggestions of better tile allocation.

Group behaviour: I have said this before (in the post about the first build), but it bears repeating:

If a group monster is awake, they may wake other monsters in their group that they can see.

This is possibly the change with the greatest effect, as it considerably nerfs the playstyle that revolved around high stealth and picking off members of a sleeping group one by one. That strategy is still partly viable, but if you're not killing the monsters pretty quickly they're likely to wake their group.

[Derakon]

The Purple Worm is a D&D monster, albeit one of the more obscure ones. It's basically a Dune-style sandworm. I've never been particularly attached to it, but if you want a nasty deep breeder, it'd feel a little odd to repurpose the Purple Worm to that end without renaming it in the process. It'd be a bit like claiming that, say, Owlbears are known for their lightning breath: people who know the source material would be quirking eyebrows left and right.

But yeah, if you want to ditch one of the two high-level worms in favor of a breeder, I'd rather see the purple worm go than the wereworm.

[Nick]

They're similar, granted, but the wereworm has over twice the HP and an experience-draining attack, making it a lot less pleasant to melee. I guess you could buff the purple worm, but giving it either experience drain or some other unpleasant ability like disenchant or charges drain seems kind of inappropriate for a natural monstrosity. The most unpleasant melee abilities are all undead-themed.

Yes, points taken. I was actually wondering whether wereworms as I had made them were going to become a monster that required the player to leave the level...

Maybe a better move is to put wereworms back where they were, and push the purple worms deeper and make them breed. Thoughts?

[Derakon]

They're similar, granted, but the wereworm has over twice the HP and an experience-draining attack, making it a lot less pleasant to melee. I guess you could buff the purple worm, but giving it either experience drain or some other unpleasant ability like disenchant or charges drain seems kind of inappropriate for a natural monstrosity. The most unpleasant melee abilities are all undead-themed.

[wobbly]

I figured it was almost indistinguishable from the giant purple worm, so we only needed one of them.

I encounter a lot of wereworms but rarely see the giant purple room, so you may need to jiggle the depth & rarity if the purple worm is meant to be in it's spot. (note I'm still talking about older build here)

[Nick]

Yeah, the old wereworm had a really important function in the game, specifically, a monster beefy enough not to be worth killing at range, but horrible enough in melee not to be worth engaging in melee. Teaches players to run away without really having any instakill potential.

I figured it was almost indistinguishable from the giant purple worm, so we only needed one of them.

[MattB]

"You see a giant Nan"
Argh!

(If you ever met my great-grandmother)

[Philip]

Yeah, the old wereworm had a really important function in the game, specifically, a monster beefy enough not to be worth killing at range, but horrible enough in melee not to be worth engaging in melee. Teaches players to run away without really having any instakill potential.

[Derakon]

I always kind of liked the old wereworm. It's like a mini-Nightworm. Could we have something like it back, maybe as a snake?

[Nick]

New builds for Windows and macOS now up on the build page (source is here), with the following changes:

• Worms:
  • New monster (from O, but enhanced), abyss worm mass
  • Wereworms moved deeper, made easier to kill, but now multiply (!)
• Vortices:
  • New unique, Wiruin the Maelstrom (from FA)
  • Storms of Unmagic buffed and moved very deep
• Zombies:
  • Mummies given more hit points
  • Greater mummy renamed mummified chieftain, buffed and moved a bit deeper
• Nan and Gilim are now uniques
• Copying monster.txt to lore.txt works again

[Nick]

Killed Nan & he was missing from my history. Checked & I have killed 1 Nan the giant. I look forward to killing 100 Nan the giants

Edit: There's no unique flag on Gilim either. Time to fight an army of Gilims. What depth do Gilim pits appear I wonder?

Oops.

New version doesn't seem to read lore.txt and give full monster memory. Tried copying monster.txt as normal.

Ah, I think I know what that is. Will try to fix and update soon.