RePosBand: play as a monster in Angbad 3.2

[Arjen]

No bless/heroism when i killed him, i meleed him in a gcv (i think). One of those 1 space a monster vaults. I just meleed him as Greater Balrog. I got no notice what so ever of killing my 'king'.

Atm im lvl 49 at dlvl 98 going for the kill.

[pampl]

No bless/heroism when i killed him, i meleed him in a gcv (i think). One of those 1 space a monster vaults. I just meleed him as Greater Balrog. I got no notice what so ever of killing my 'king'.

Atm im lvl 49 at dlvl 98 going for the kill.

OK, crap, I made it so first it checks if they have an artifact THEN it checks if they're the race's standard bearer, and because he doesn't have an artifact... standard bearers for red dragons, chaos dragons, liches, spiders, trolls, and hydras should still work, but ghosts, angels, and Xs will have the same problem.

0.6.1 will be up on github momentarily. It's savefile compatible. It'll only help people who have yet to slay their standard bearer, though. I could try to make a version that searches back through your kill history to see if you've already done the deed, but it would take a while and it sounds like you're about to win...

How did you like playing a balrog? Too easy, too hard, just right? Did you run into any of the new monsters or uniques or artifacts?
Edit:
Forgot the link to 0.6.1

[Arjen]

Balrog is easy, but that could also because of Feanor at clvl 32... But they are insanely strong, loads of hp and the aggr isnt that bad. I'm now going to get the P. Just killed Sauron without the need of potions/scrolls/rods.

O and why do they have mana? They don't have spells. Not even fire breathe.

I'll post my char after morgoth or after my death.

*edit*
Well he is dead, fight was over in 5 minutes. Could have been tricky because i saw i was out of teleports (he drains charges... how would i know?)

Ow and about the new monster/arts/uniques... I didn't find special arts and i did kill some classbosses. But i think i went too fast through the game to find everything.

[pampl]

Balrog is easy, but that could also because of Feanor at clvl 32... But they are insanely strong, loads of hp and the aggr isnt that bad. I'm now going to get the P. Just killed Sauron without the need of potions/scrolls/rods.

O and why do they have mana? They don't have spells. Not even fire breathe.

I'll post my char after morgoth or after my death.

*edit*
Well he is dead, fight was over in 5 minutes. Could have been tricky because i saw i was out of teleports (he drains charges... how would i know?)

Ow and about the new monster/arts/uniques... I didn't find special arts and i did kill some classbosses. But i think i went too fast through the game to find everything.

Fire breath (and later plasma breath) is a cool idea. I'll have to make it pretty expensive to keep them from being better breath spammers than dragons or hounds though.

They have mana for two reasons: one is that it's the default behavior for monsters and I didn't bother changing it, and the other is that they'll eventually have powers anyway. In Pos they had the ability to summon demons and, later, high demons. That might be too strong - and I don't know how much it would contribute to the flavor of playing a renegade Balrog - but my attitude is generally implement first and ask questions later.

Two things I can do to make them harder: one is the brute force solution, reducing their stats and max HP. I'll probably give them 1 point less to stats across the board and a 5 point smaller hp die size (so 125 less max hp at 50) and see what that's like.. I want to have a pretty light touch when it comes to nerfing. The other is more interesting: implementing the FIRE_TOUCH flag from Pos, that makes it so any flammable objects carried by the balrog burst into flames after a few turns. That would make playing a balrog more distinct and flavorful, and hopefully more challenging, but would also reduce their tactical options somewhat... I'm not sure people are interested in tactical variety when they choose to play a raging demon of fire and darkness, though.

Different topic: has anyone had trouble killing monsters inside walls in 0.6 or 0.6.1? I think I'm experiencing a bug and I'm not sure if it's just in my newest code or was introduced earlier.

[Sirridan]

I haven't updated to .6* yet, so I can't say anything on that.

However, here's my thoughts on Balrogs and what could be done to tone them down:

1. Balrogs have a lot of hp. I beat out a level 50 warrior by the mid 30s.
2. Balrogs do a lot of damage. Insane physical stats are great, I love the starting gear, it's a lot of fun and fits thematically just carving your way through the dungeon. Honestly I wasn't in any danger until around the 70's, with one or two close calls due to my over confidence.
3. In their current form, Balrogs are too strong. Even with aggravate, you're still just a wood chipper, and aggravate just acts like the hands piling the wood in.
4. Balrogs heal too much. Massive amounts of hp mean !C*W heal *A LOT*. !CCW can outheal !Heal I think towards the end.

My suggestions to make this more of a challenge instead of just easy-mode warrior.

1. Implement FIRE_TOUCH: Either burn all scrolls and staves immediately, or give them a few rounds. This would probably entail starting a balrog off with a rod of recall.

2. Make balrogs vulnerable to cold: One big weakness in an otherwise near-invincible shell.

I wouldn't nerf the physical stats, playing an overpowered monster is what playing a Balrog should be.

[Arjen]

I haven't updated to .6* yet, so I can't say anything on that.

However, here's my thoughts on Balrogs and what could be done to tone them down:

1. Balrogs have a lot of hp. I beat out a level 50 warrior by the mid 30s.
2. Balrogs do a lot of damage. Insane physical stats are great, I love the starting gear, it's a lot of fun and fits thematically just carving your way through the dungeon. Honestly I wasn't in any danger until around the 70's, with one or two close calls due to my over confidence.
3. In their current form, Balrogs are too strong. Even with aggravate, you're still just a wood chipper, and aggravate just acts like the hands piling the wood in.
4. Balrogs heal too much. Massive amounts of hp mean !C*W heal *A LOT*. !CCW can outheal !Heal I think towards the end.

I wouldn't nerf the physical stats, playing an overpowered monster is what playing a Balrog should be.

1. I think you were lucky with finding con pots. I had like 600 hp at lvl 30 (Still a lot, i know)

2. Yeah, balrog need to be strong, they are demons. And i even found a MoD early on, I switched it for my executioners sword. But i wouldn't change this.

3. Yeah, Aggr helps you more than making the game harder. With the aggr I just wielded Calris, Hammerhand, Gorlim for a while.

4. True, i used CCWs a lot, healing me like 150-200 hp. To avoid this, cap CCW at 100? No idea, i'm not good at balancing games, only playing.

Ow and i hated the burning part, you can't carry WoRs with you so you need to find a rod to travel or buy a lot of scrolls if you have the money. First rod i found was around dlvl 50. And every source of teleporting is also vulnerable to fire, so you also loose your way out. I needed teleporting several times because of chainsummoning.

I would go for the second idea of making them vulnerable for cold. And maybe light (as being a 'good' attack.)

To make them harder you can also increase the xp they need to level. Balrogs are old right? And they have seen the world. Just make them 300%- 400%. This way you won't level as fast when you are way out of your detph killing monsters.

Or maybe just flag them as munchkin monsterrace?

[Adley]

Morgoth Curses renegades.
Curse has different effects, the probability of one happening, it's frequency and the type of curses that can happen depending on your level :
Some random curses idea :
Summon Q's
Summon breeders (they appear, awake, on random tiles in the level)
Summon minor demons
Summon greater Demons
Summon minor undeads
Summon greater Undeads
Summon minor dragons
Summon greater Dragons
Random teleport
Reduce a random stat
Remove (for a small time) an innate positive flag
Ect

[Arjen]

Hmm, that would be fun too (except for the breeders and stat loss). Can be a nice add. Just don't make it happen too often that you are killing the previous curse monsters when the next spawn.

Ow and i noticed something annoying with Hydra's. When they become 5-headed, your attacks are venomous which is nice except that you can't kill anything with resist poison. This will also happen later with the fire based attack. Can't you make it that when a monster resists the attack, you will do normal damage without the poison/fire brand?

I just found Lugdusk and i ran through 300 hp without even removing 1 star from him... He is unkillable now.

*edit*

You can 'fix' this problem with wielding branded rings. This way you can have multiple brands and will be able to hit more monsters. Just avoid res base monsters?

[pampl]

Alright, I went with making balrogs vulnerable to cold and increasing the XP multiplier significantly - I figured that would make it clear they're a more powerful (i.e. munchkin) race. I'll add FIRE_TOUCH when they have the ability to summon, so they can have at least one way to deal with summon spam. On the flip side, now they can breathe fire balls at 20 and plasma balls at 45.. 5 levels later than red dragons, and at about ~3x the mana cost.

I like the idea of a Morgothian curse but it would take some time to implement and so will have to wait until after top priority features, i.e. summoning and questing.

Ow and i noticed something annoying with Hydra's. When they become 5-headed, your attacks are venomous which is nice except that you can't kill anything with resist poison. This will also happen later with the fire based attack. Can't you make it that when a monster resists the attack, you will do normal damage without the poison/fire brand?

I just made it so non-physical attacks do half their damage as physical attacks. So resist poison guys will still take less damage, but only 45% less damage rather than 90% less damage. Will upload later today when I get back from work and solve this problem with innate attacks against creatures inside walls.

[Arjen]

Nice, because i was really wondering how i was going to kill res base type of monsters.

Ow and i noticed it too that i could attack monsters in the walls but it wouldn't do any damage.

[ekolis]

Picked up Reposband for the first time just now, and for some reason when playing as a baby red dragon, the inventory and equipment lists don't work - I did close the extra term windows, but surely they should show up on the main window as in normal Angband and other variants!

Also, it seems as if instead of my "d" being red (and highlighted with the cursor - I THOUGHT I turned on highlight player!), it's white! Could that have something to do with the color player by HP option, perhaps?

Finally, are permawalls SUPPOSED to be red? I thought they were supposed to be brown or gray or something...

[pampl]

Also, it seems as if instead of my "d" being red (and highlighted with the cursor - I THOUGHT I turned on highlight player!), it's white! Could that have something to do with the color player by HP option, perhaps?

Finally, are permawalls SUPPOSED to be red? I thought they were supposed to be brown or gray or something...

These are intended. Color player by HP overrides normal coloration, in case someone depends on that option or just prefers it. Permawalls became red in Angband 3.2

Picked up Reposband for the first time just now, and for some reason when playing as a baby red dragon, the inventory and equipment lists don't work - I did close the extra term windows, but surely they should show up on the main window as in normal Angband and other variants!

This isn't intended, however. What do you mean by them not working? Does the main window go blank when you try to bring them up, or does it just do nothing, or what? And did they display on the term windows before you closed them?

[ekolis]

This isn't intended, however. What do you mean by them not working? Does the main window go blank when you try to bring them up, or does it just do nothing, or what? And did they display on the term windows before you closed them?

No, the window doesn't go blank, and I even get a message saying something like "Inventory: 3/26 slots, 5/180 lb" or whatever... but the actual list never appears! I closed the term windows before I even started the game (well, after I ran the exe and before I created a character)... is there perhaps an malfunctioning option that prevents the list from showing up on both the main and sub windows? Or maybe I have to turn off the sub windows in the menu, instead of just closing them? I'll play around with it a bit more...

By the way, is it just me or are nested quote tags not working on this forum anymore? I used to get nested quotes when I quoted a message containing quotes... now I don't!

[ekolis]

Well, that's bizarre... Now it works perfectly! Maybe the game didn't detect my resizing/maximizing the window right the first time...

[pampl]

Version 0.6.2 is up. Now monsters in walls can be damaged by innate melee. A side effect of how this works is that they can be damaged by spells if they're directly hit. They're still immune to AoE. I kind of like how this works so I'm considering it a feature.

Monsters' innate melee will now do half physical damage when it would normally do entirely elemental damage. I don't want hydras and eventually green and white dragons to have to spend ALL their time running away from undead etc.

Balrogs have VULN_COLD and 25 max HP/level (used to be 30) and in exchange they get fire breath and later plasma breath.

Gothmog, Quaker, and Tselakus now all carry special artifacts they'll drop for members of their race or lucky people. Thanks go to djabanete for providing the descriptions. Gabriel still doesn't have one, and MHD and law drakes don't even have a champion yet let alone a special artifact. Hounds now have both though, in the form of the Zephyr King and his ethereal cloak. The artifacts are probably a little OP (they were made to be similarly balanced as existing race artifacts, which are also a little ridiculous) and the Zephyr King might be too easy considering he's the leader of the most annoying enemies in the game. We shall see! Oh, also, once you kill Glaurung he's liable to come back as a POed ghost. Be sure to tell me if you somehow see his ghost before you've killed him.

Unless there are more big bugs, I expect this to be the last release for a while, until summoning is usable. Next release will also include gold, white, and blue dragons, and maybe something oddball like quadrapeds (comedy mumak option)

Well, that's bizarre... Now it works perfectly! Maybe the game didn't detect my resizing/maximizing the window right the first time...

Strange.. hopefully it stays working, that code is somewhere I fear to tread.