Favorite monster in variants

[ghengiz]

This thread has born following the suggestion of Mikko in this other thread:

(I'd love someone to start a thread on their favorite monsters in variants...)

so here you are!

I like The Evil Iggy for its historical meaning Yeah, I know it's a vanilla monster, but it's present in a lot of variants too: Un, npp and quick to name a few.
Second, the good variety of hounds...although roleplaying-wise I have a few difficulties to imagine the exotic breaths (time, gravity, nexus...).

On the other hand, the breeders are in my top five of the most-hated

What about yours?

[PowerWyrm]

Great Wyrm of Power. Or even better... Ancient Wyrm of Power

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I always like meeting Wormy. In Ey and Fay, I think my favorite monsters are harpy uniques. I think Wormy and the harpies are similar in that they can be very dangerous even though they don't have loads of hitpoints. I guess I like fast, intense fights, with deadly spells flinging.

I like the new spells of Un spellcasters, like priests casting Bless.

Un plants (like jellies and molds) are much more interesting than Vanilla versions.

[LostTemplar]

Storm of Unmagic from FAangband.

[HallucinationMushroom]

The Complainer, from FA.

N:14:The Complainer
D:He has lots of problems, and seems to think you can fix them.

He approaches you on the town level and just starts to whine you to death. The complainer questions the existence of vorpal bunnies in Beleriand, the complainer asks you the way to nowhere town, the complainer theorizes that time is standing still, the complainer is annoyed by a group of paladins he just met, the complainer needs help with map reading, the complainer complains that he just got embedded by rock, the complainer complains that he has just drank a wooden potion, etc... the list just goes on and on, and he gets more things to say with each FA release. It's funny because it's true. He's probably as much a cathartic release for Nick as anything else.

[buzzkill]

The most annoying thing about the complainer is that he only has about half a dozen things to complain about, thus he repeats himself endlessly. He's amusing for about 30 seconds.

Z+Angband has wonderful random names for things seen while hallucinating. Maybe it can be adapted to generate random complaints.

[Derakon]

I always kinda liked the animate Blades of Chaos in ZAngband. Fast-moving melee monsters with a decent chance to stun you but no magic or ranged attacks. Though they should probably be nerfed a bit if moved to a less powerful variant.

[HallucinationMushroom]

The last time I fought the complainer he didn't repeat himself at all! The complainer complains that he is too repetitive.

[ghengiz]

The most annoying thing about the complainer is that he only has about half a dozen things to complain about, thus he repeats himself endlessly. He's amusing for about 30 seconds.

After all, can you really blame that guy? He's been banned from stores (you can't pay your bills with just words, you know)... he's learned that the mercenaries are, well, mean...the street urchins are more interested in his money than they are in his complaints...Farmer Maggot just babbles about his mushrooms and dogs, and the complainer doesn't really like to listen to OTHER people complaints...and guess who is the only sentient being who remains at town level?

As for the few different types of complaint he knows, I'd like to point out a simple fact: Angband is trapped between permanent walls...it's difficult to have visitors with new stories, and there aren't too many excitant events either.

edit:
The poor soul is just bored, and he's extremely good at it

[nppangband]

This thread has born following the suggestion of Mikko in this other thread:

so here you are!

I like The Evil Iggy for its historical meaning Yeah, I know it's a vanilla monster, but it's present in a lot of variants too: Un, npp and quick to name a few.

What about yours?

Did Iggy make it into Vanilla? I checked monster.txt at github and couldn't find him. AFAIK, he was actually a moria monster that I brought into NPP for my own nostalgic reasons. Quick has him because it is based on NPP. Not sure how or when he got into UN.

I don't know what my favorite is, but I am distorted because I am a maintainer, so the TBM part of me is rooting for the monsters. My favorite might be azathoth (also NPP), because you always have to be on your gaurd for it, and when you finally kill it, it means you are probably ready to win the game.

[Derakon]

Iggy isn't in Vanilla. Vanilla's least serious monsters are probably the Grape Jelly, the quylthulgs, and Farmer Maggot -- and I'm not certain I'd call the latter two "silly", more just "what the heck".

[ghengiz]

Iggy isn't in Vanilla.

oops, you're right...my bad, sorry

[Therem Harth]

Great Wyrms. Almost any kind will do; but especially Great Wyrm of Many Colours, which are not as dangerous once you start encountering them (IMO). Their tendency to explode into huge piles of treasure, and their ability to summon more Great Wyrms, is rather exploitable (with a little caution)

Dragon uniques. In T2 at least. Smaug especially is kind of a wimp, and almost always drops a randart. Ancalagon I like for the opposite reason - his combination of Disintegration breath and Summon Ancient Dragons gives even very powerful characters some pause for thought.

Draconic Quylthulgs. 'nough said.

I'll also note that, in T2, you can wear a Quylthulg and use it to summon stuff.

[Nick]

He's probably as much a cathartic release for Nick as anything else.

It all started because one of the very early FA players sent me lots of bug reports, and signed one or two of them The Complainer. I threatened to name a unique after him, and it went from there... Note that all his complaints are based on things that were bugs in FA at some point.

I'm with Jeff in always partly cheering for the monsters (and note that Azatoth killed my best ever NPP character). My favourite from FA is Wiruin, the Maelstrom - a non-moving vortex, how hard can it be?

[HugoVirtuoso]

My favorite monster would be Nan, the Giant from Sil. *SPOILER* I always love that weapon he drops... Another honorable mention would be the Water Trolls in Chengband because they be can easy to kill for easy EXP.

Edit: I originally thought the thread was about favorite artifacts from variants. >

My two cents,
HugoTheGreat2011