feature/monster

[Nick]

Trolls: I went with snow troll because of the quote; I'd be happy to revert them to ice trolls if people preferred, though.

Dragons - Sky Dragons I already liked from O/FA. Then when I was looking at the really deep non-unique dragons, we had one that breathed sound and shards, one that breathed chaos and disenchantment, one that breathed sound and shards and chaos and disenchantment, and one that breathed the basics and poison - and it just seemed we could do with better variety. I didn't think of the implications for dragon scale mail, I must admit - but we already have PDSM with no power dragons, so that's not necessarily a disaster.

I must say, I find the whole law/chaos/balance thing a bit forced. I can understand the concept, and chaos and disenchantment work fine for the chaotic side, but I don't really see anything particularly lawful about sound and shards.

I wouldn't mind a bit of tidying up there, but I am really happy with the new deep dragons, especially the wyrms of annihilation

Hummerhorns only moved two levels deeper - I don't think that really matters either way.

[Carnivean]

Trolls: I went with snow troll because of the quote; I'd be happy to revert them to ice trolls if people preferred, though.

I vote to keep the new name.

we already have PDSM with no power dragons

This is something that should be fixed! Bring back the Power Dragon (even though I'm fairly certain they never existed).

In general I agree with the gist of Derakon's analysis and Powerwyrm's points. It makes sense that the dragons/drakes/wyrms should be available in different threat levels and that the dragon armours should match the family of D's that they come from. Having items that have no clear origin is confusing. Having each element belong to a type of D/ a type of D for each element makes intuitive sense too.

Balance/Chaos/Law dragons don't make a ton of sense unless they fit the above pattern. I'm fairly certain that they're from a D&D background too, relating to the alignments from that game.

I also like the idea of Greater Wyrms and think that dragons should only be able to summon from the level below their own.

[Derakon]

This is something that should be fixed! Bring back the Power Dragon (even though I'm fairly certain they never existed).

I think ZAngband was the first variant to introduce Great Wyrms of Power, able to breathe every element, of course resistant to every element too, and with massive health pools and some unpleasant melee damage. I think the ZAngband version also has all the elemental auras, which damage you slightly each time you hit them in melee.

Having Great Wyrms of Balance without the Law/Chaos versions is definitely strange, especially since Law Drakes and Chaos Drakes are still in the game per your listed changes.

[PowerWyrm]

I don't really see anything particularly lawful about sound and shards.

Cops enforce the law... but how many are lawful?

But yeah, the law/chaos/balance names seem to directly come from D&D's lawful/chaotic/neutral alignments and I'd also like to find a good name for them.

I think ZAngband was the first variant to introduce Great Wyrms of Power, able to breathe every element, of course resistant to every element too, and with massive health pools and some unpleasant melee damage. I think the ZAngband version also has all the elemental auras, which damage you slightly each time you hit them in melee.

PWMAngband has... Ancient Wyrms of Power. I think the only difference between that and ToME's GWoP is that they don't breathe disintegration

Note: the Sky Drake from ToME breathes sound/lightning/gravity and not sound/shards, which seems more thematic for a "sky" dragon.

[Pete Mack]

Nick- doesn't FA's sky dragon mostly breath electricity? That is the nastiest base element by far. (Only mage casters double resist, immunity is rare, and usually does 2x more damage than acid or poison.)

[Derakon]

But yeah, the law/chaos/balance names seem to directly come from D&D's lawful/chaotic/neutral alignments and I'd also like to find a good name for them.

Honestly I think they're pretty good. Even if they do look similar at a glance to D&D, they're pretty distinct; Chaos is chaotic because it, well, breathes chaos. Balance isn't D&D Neutral, but rather chaos and lawful combined.

About the worst you can say about them IMO is that "Law" isn't a great term for the antipode of Chaos. Maybe call them Great Wyrm of Order / Order Drake?

[Nick]

Nick- doesn't FA's sky dragon mostly breath electricity? That is the nastiest base element by far. (Only mage casters double resist, immunity is rare, and usually does 2x more damage than acid or poison.)

Also light, gravity, sound and force. I lifted them directly

Maybe the solution is to bring back great wyrms of law and chaos at DL75 (where they were), and push the 4 big ones and Ancalagon a bit deeper.

[Youssarian]

I have played this game for years and have enjoyed it in all its iterations. Thank you to everyone that has made and continues to make this a game worth playing time and again. Although making the game more core Tolkien is great, I don't think everything non-Tolkien should just be thrown out because it isn't "core".

The game's history should be considered and the fact that it has evolved so much, that fact benefits the game.

I would in fact like to see some monsters that aren't Tolkien, but take into account all the history of the game. In particular, I would love to see an official unique made for each maintainer of the game. Perhaps make them like farmer maggot so you randomly encounter them in the town.

I would also love to see monsters such as Fallen Numenorean (high level warrior). Just a thought.

[Philip]

About 20 monsters have been removed. It's not a very long list, it has maybe 2 or 3 uniques on it (the greek giants basically). Most of them are <adjective> <color> <animal>.

Adding back player ghosts would allow us to also include former maintainers.

I would love to see Numenoreans added. I dunno how much content there is to mine there, in the source material, but it's one of the most prominent evil armies of middle-earth. It forced the world to be remade.

Also please add the sons of feanor. Hell, they could actually kind of take the place of the former early ringwraiths, since they do appear to be variably powerful in the source material.

[Derakon]

Adding back player ghosts would allow us to also include former maintainers.

Ha! That's sneaky, I love it.

[Nick]

Ha! That's sneaky, I love it.

This was done previously in some variants (intially O or NPP, I think), where the default bones files were all former variant maintainers or other well-known people. See here for some examples from FA.

[Youssarian]

This has also probably been done in other variants, but it would be very cool if very rarely, you encountered a Hero also delving the level.

You could have a few and it could be random. Gandelf, Ecthelion, Galadriel, etc. Maybe have their presence on the level included somehow in the level feeling. But it should be something very rare like once or twice at most in a game if at all.

They could be like a borg that goes through the level until either they die or find a down stair and head down immediately (whether you found them or not). You could make that level have ONLY one down stairs so they don't go down too quickly.

Whether @ is a true monster and wants to attack Hurin is the only question! The Hero should not be aggressive towards @ though. This could be added to the end of quest history at what level the Hero was found. Perhaps you could even earn a Title by either helping the hero leave the level or killing it.

This might be too difficult to do, I don't really know.

[Thraalbee]

Adding Ghosts is a small thing and can be fun. However, if you like in NetHack also include the items carried it becomes a huge thing. In Nethack you can't expect to quickly id and uncurse the items but it only takes e.g. a unicorn horn and some fountains and...

I'd be happy to see ghosts as discussed but recommend that drops be based on the normal drop algorithms instead of what was carried at death.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

This was done previously in some variants (intially O or NPP, I think), where the default bones files were all former variant maintainers or other well-known people. See here for some examples from FA.

Hahaha, "bitter, twisted, and evil..."

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Old Man Willow now has an armor class

The old tree may have an armor class, but according to the description, he only has gnarled old fingers in the month of May. I'm sure you meant "many".