[Quick] Hot or not: helpful monsters?

[Antoine]

Hi

How do people feel about monsters that are actively helpful? I don't mean coaligned monsters that attack your enemies, I mean monsters that do something good to you when they hit you.

Like the Nethack nurse or is there a 'desperate adventurer' in some variants who can sell you stuff if you go up to him?

I envisage monsters like Ki-rin or Unicorn that can uncurse or repair your stuff, heal you, remove status effects from you, etc...

A.

[buzzkill]

DaJ does this to some degree. I know you can summon helpful creatures if you're of a nature class. I'm not certain if they appear randomly in the dungeon. In either case, the aid they grant is rather minimal, and I think that's probably for the best or else they become exploitable. I've never played quick.

[Shockbolt]

carebears!

[Therem Harth]

Helpful summons would be cool, but would need some way to prevent coaligned monsters from chain-summoning.

Hmm... Maybe the summons of coaligned monsters should be hostile. That would make the use of summoning spells a potentially interesting choice: Do you stick out a battle, and hope you won't have to bail? Or do you summon aid, and risk a much larger battle eventually overwhelming you?

As for coaligned monsters occurring randomly... ToME does it, but I think it would be more interesting to have separate hostile factions, so that monster infighting would occur.

Actually, IMHO the best possible system would be one where monsters of an outnumbered or outgunned faction would temporarily ally with the player. So you might encounter a bunch of Gnome Mages that would cooporate to help you kill some Ancient Dragons... And would then proceed to stab you in the back once the dragons were dead. That would make for interesting gameplay, I think.

[artes]

As for coaligned monsters occurring randomly... ToME does it, but I think it would be more interesting to have separate hostile factions, so that monster infighting would occur.

I have seen that in some variant, probably Chengband. There was a priest fighting some evil monsters.

[Nick]

The Desperate Adventurer is from O, and he buys stuff from you (light, food, recall). He can be handy for early game cash, but is really a bit peripheral.

I am planning (maybe) to have actual NPCs you can interact with in Beleriand, which I don't think is quite what you're talking about. Monsters that hit to recharge your items or similar might be amusing.

[Shockbolt]

In the current design document for "Legendary", I've mentioned tiny creatures that will both be a curse and a benefit to the player.

They're described as familiars/symbiotic magical creatures that either physically attach to the character or feed off of the players energies. These would add/subtract to all sort of player stats. Needless to say, the majority if them are much smaller in size than the player character.


And yes, that Carebear comment was just a joke...

[artes]

I envisage monsters like Ki-rin or Unicorn that can uncurse or repair your stuff, heal you, remove status effects from you, etc...

Sounds really cool. To to think about is that such creatures can get in the way and become annoying if they follow the player around doing their stuff over and over. Consider using some mechanics to make them less annoying, like make them not follow the player to begin with, or make them run away after doing their stuff.

[EpicMan]

Or have them teleport away after that, so if you need their services again you have to find them again.

Expanding on that idea, you could have powerful helping monsters (hits for *heal*, hits for globe of invulnerability, hits for temp speed) that disappear from the level after imparting their gift.

[artes]

Expanding on that idea, you could have powerful helping monsters (hits for *heal*, hits for globe of invulnerability, hits for temp speed) that disappear from the level after imparting their gift.

Yes, that sounds more useful.

[Narvius]

Invulnerable until you are aware of them (detected or seen at least once) and killable by normal monsters. Gives treasures or other effects, may even be a shop (with neat discounts and great items, or in case of an ironman game just a shop with necessities).

[LostTemplar]

I would like wandering shops in ironman.

[Master Programmer]

Hi

How do people feel about monsters that are actively helpful? I don't mean coaligned monsters that attack your enemies, I mean monsters that do something good to you when they hit you.

Like the Nethack nurse or is there a 'desperate adventurer' in some variants who can sell you stuff if you go up to him?

I envisage monsters like Ki-rin or Unicorn that can uncurse or repair your stuff, heal you, remove status effects from you, etc...

A.

Guess what i coded into oangband before i read your message?

[Antoine]

Guess what i coded into oangband before i read your message?

Funny. Details?

A.

[Nick]

Way OT:
Master Programmer, I assume you've seen this.