Monster quirks

[Therem Harth]

i.e. innate powers, etc. that could liven up some of Angband's monsters. Especially, but not necessarily, uniques. Should be unusual, not necessarily consistent, and at least a little thematic.

For instance:

"Gabriel the Messenger unleashes a barrage of magical energy." (Six bolts consisting randomly of light, confusion, sound, or pure mana.)

"The beholder looks you straight in the eye. You suddenly wonder what you're doing here." (Attempts to entrance the character into removing a random item of equipment. Saving throw applies.)

"The fire giant bellows a prayer to his gods." (Do nothing for 2-3 turns, then summon a bunch of fire elementals.)

"The deathmold hooks a tendril around your ankle and drags you closer." (When within 2 spaces of the mold; pulls you directly adjacent to it. Be afraid, be very afraid.)

"The Archlich gestures angrily at you." (Character must pass a saving throw, or be lifted up and thrown some distance; possibly into a wall.)

"The Ettin lifts you up and throws you." (Same, except no saving throw this time.)

And for a grand finale:

"Sauron smiles at you. You feel weak in the knees..." (Character must pass a saving throw, or be unable to attack or work magic for 2-3 turns.)

"Morgoth slams his hammer into the floor!" (Remove rock for 4-5 spaces around him, deal some shards damage, and immediately summon monsters.)

What think ye?

[Malak Darkhunter]

Cool effects man

[Therem Harth]

I may try to implement some of this stuff in Neoband (when/if I have the time, mind).

Most would be pretty easy, I think, except for the deathmold one and any involving teleportation/throwing. Sauron's quirk would require a new status detriment. I'll probably think up a bunch more too, just give me time.

[Malak Darkhunter]

Therem- I think this is a really great idea....this makes monsters more interesting, and possibly more dangerous, adds some new excitement to the game.

[Nick]

These are essentially new monster spells - and they sound excellent. I think adding them to Neoband is a great idea.

PosChengband has monster throwing, but the idea of the player being thrown is great - see also how force pushes you back in O/FA.

[Therem Harth]

Yeah, I figured on implementing them as spells.

Maybe I'll be able to get some of this stuff done next weekend. Work has been really intense lately, so for now I'm strictly brainstorming... Having written scripts all week, I've not much stomach for writing C at the moment.

[HugoVirtuoso]

These are essentially new monster spells - and they sound excellent. I think adding them to Neoband is a great idea.

PosChengband has monster throwing, but the idea of the player being thrown is great - see also how force pushes you back in O/FA.

There's also a monster breath (used by Elder storm giants and Great storm wyrms) that pushes the player a distance away with *HUGE* damage = storm winds that does ~800 (??) unresisted damage in PosChengband.

[debo]

I think it would probably be easier to talk about things that poschengband doesn't have, rather than the things that it does -- the cardinality of the first set is much smaller

[ekolis]

I think it would probably be easier to talk about things that poschengband doesn't have, rather than the things that it does -- the cardinality of the first set is much smaller

Hmm, let's see...

ASCII-art hentai tentacle monsters, a complete playable recreation of Super Mario Bros. 3, first-person perspective mode, pop-up ads, "the cake is a lie" jokes, photon torpedoes, Sephiroth/Duke Nukem yaoi, infinitely respawning clones of Morgoth, random strafing runs from the Millennium Falcon, a day-night cycle that repeats 1000 times per player turn, orc breeding pits where the orcs are replaced with black people, exploding galaxies...

You sure about that?

(Though I did have to be careful though - who knows, it might have non-ASCII-art hentai tentacle monsters, or "arrow to the knee" jokes!)

[Therem Harth]

Nice laundry list of pretty much everything I wouldn't want in a game...

orc breeding pits where the orcs are replaced with black people

I'll admit I laughed at that. But I'm not sure if I interpreted it right, or how well other people will take it. And to be honest, I'm not sure I should have laughed; I'm a white male, and parts of my country's history have been just that horrible for blacks. It's easy to laugh from a position of invulnerable privilege.

If you were doing what I think you were doing there, well, I'll commend you for posting a joke that made me think. Not sure it belongs in this thread though.

Edit: FWIW I'm not asking you to censor yourself (this time). I'll let the moderators decide on that.

Edit 2: given the context of the thread, I don't think social criticism was your intent, no? Might be a good idea to think a little more before posting.

[debo]

]
I'll admit I laughed at that. But I'm not sure if I interpreted it right, or how well other people will take it.

I think that was in reference to some awful thread somewhere about TOME4 or something

[Therem Harth]

It was. Which was why I laughed. From the sound of it, it was painfully accurate.

[ekolis]

It was a reference to ToME4, yes. If it's too despicable to be in a game, even with orcs...

[NotMorgoth]

I do quite like the idea of 'delayed effect' monster spells - ie the monster casts a spell and you know that in a few turns something really bad will happen, so you have to decide whether to run/teleport away, hope to kill the monster first, or find a way to survive the effect.

[buzzkill]

"Morgoth slams his hammer into the floor!" (Remove rock for 4-5 spaces around him, deal some shards damage, and immediately summon monsters.)

Don't know about the rest, but this seems like a keeper. One of @'s main advantages over Morgy is @'s ability to manipulate terrain. This would level the field a bit, moreso if used wisely, like when doing so would create (previously unavailable) LoS to the player (and not otherwise).