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Monster Prefixes

09-20-2016 05:56 PM

JellySlayer JellySlayer is offline

Ancient Member

Number of reported issues by JellySlayer: 114

Monster Prefixes

ADOM has a lot of monsters, all essentially identical. What I think would be cool would be if random monsters could occasionally have random prefixes/suffixes that give them extra abilities that might make them more dangerous/interesting. So, occasionally instead of running into a Goblin Rockthrower, you might run into a Noble Goblin Rockthrower or a Deadly Goblin Rockthrower.

Here's some ideas:

Humanoid Prefixes
Noble: Forces alignment to lawful, alignment penalty if attacked
Murderous: Greatly increased critical hit rate
Armored: +20 PV
Spritely: +40 DV, +20 Speed, -50% HP
Lumbering: -50% speed, -10 DV, +10 PV
Corrupted: Corrupting attacks
Deadly: Attacks do double damage, one extra attack per turn
Regenerating: Regenerates health
Karmic: Karmic property
Wealthy: Drops extra loot
Sorcerous: Gains the ability to cast a random spell (except death ray)

Daemonic Prefixes:
Diabolical: Double HP, attacks inflict paralysis
Elemental: Immune to all elemental attacks
Enervating: Attacks drains a random stat
Maniacal: Summons random monsters
Petrifying: Petrify breath attack

Undead Prefixes:
Ethereal: Passes through walls, +20 DV
Spectral: Permanently invisible
Possessed: DV, PV set to 0, 3 extra attacks, never flees
Withered: -20 Speed, -50% HP, attacks inflict Slow

Construct Prefixes:
Inert: Immune to all elemental attacks
Gargantuan: 10x HP, attacks do double damage, -50% speed, -50% to hit
Reinforced: +30 extra PV
Enchanted: Paralyzing skin
Hexing: Drains PP
Gem-encrusted: Drops a huge pile of gems upon death

Beast Prefixes:
Ferocious: DV reduced by half, all attacks inflict bleeding
Diseased: -20 Speed, -10 DV, attacks inflict disease
Venomous: Attacks inflict poison (and already-poisonous enemies are stronger)
Primal: +10 Speed, +10 DV, higher critical hit rate

Dragons Prefixes:
Eternium-scaled: PV is tripled
Fearsome: Never flees in battle, penetrating attacks
Wizened: Gains a random spell
Toothless: Attacks do 50% less damage
Distorted: Doppleganger confusion

Issue Details

Issue Number 4466

Issue Type Feature

Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)

Category All

Status Suggested

Priority 10 - Lowest

Suggested Version ADOM r71 (v2.2.5)

Implemented Version (none)

Milestone (none)

Votes for this feature 11

Votes against this feature 5

Attachments 0

Assigned Users (none)

Tags (none)

09-20-2016 06:03 PM

SirTheta

Ancient Member

This is an interesting idea.

I think it would be quite hard to balance flat modifiers to stats (an armored kobold would pretty much be impossible to beat at low levels). I think it makes more sense to have all modifiers be more or less percentages.

I also think that prefixes should not be applied to monsters in greater vaults (they're already highly leveled and pretty tough), as well as potentially lesser vaults and tension/threat rooms (again, already more leveled than the DL. finding primal killer bugs in the lower COC would really suck, to say the least).

09-20-2016 07:13 PM

Blank4u47

Ancient Member

Wow, what a cool idea! Most of these need some toning down, but that would make life very interesting indeed.

09-20-2016 07:21 PM

Grond

Ancient Member

I really don't like this idea.

It incentivizes you to examine every single monster with either 'l'ook or 't'argeting. Of your list: deadly, karmic, diabolical, petrifying, enchanted, and distorted are extremely dangerous and well worth looking out for. In a game where you kill thousands of monsters, this is a chore. Any interesting prefix would be better implemented as a new monster, or as an added feature to an existing monster; as you allude to there are plenty of generic monsters which don't really have anything going for them besides their stats.

09-20-2016 08:34 PM

shockeroo

Senior Member

Originally Posted by Grond

It incentivizes you to examine every single monster with either 'l'ook or 't'argeting. Of your list: deadly, karmic, diabolical, petrifying, enchanted, and distorted are extremely dangerous and well worth looking out for. In a game where you kill thousands of monsters, this is a chore.

^ This is the key problem.

I like the idea, but in practice it creates micromanagement and a lot of horrible situations.

There is promise to the idea though. Maybe these could be applied to boss monsters or something?

09-20-2016 08:54 PM

auricbond

Ancient Member

if they spawn rarely you could alert the player with a message when it happens. "You sense an imminent and intense danger."

09-20-2016 09:14 PM

Blank4u47

Ancient Member

Originally Posted by auricbond

if they spawn rarely you could alert the player with a message when it happens. "You sense an imminent and intense danger."

I like this! Or perhaps when they enter your visual range, you could get a message based on the effects like; this swordsman seems much more noble than the rest of his/her ilk. Or this kobold seems heavily armored.

09-20-2016 09:22 PM

Couchfighter Couchfighter is offline

Member

I love this idea. I think it borrows heavily from the 'bonus property elite/champion mobs' of the popular action rpg's, and I don't mean that as a negative thing. These types of enemies are usually quite a bit more challenging to defeat, but they are also easily identifiable visually. Add unmissable visual hints that you're looking at a champion enemy (coloured aura around the mob, different looking health bar or such) and this would be a great addition (perhaps as an option to toggle on/off in the customizable rules?) to ADOM.

Edit: Not mentioned in the suggestion, so it should perhaps be added that these enemies should provide substantially more exp and chances for valuable loot than their regular variants.

09-21-2016 12:01 AM

JellySlayer JellySlayer is offline

Ancient Member

Originally Posted by Grond

This is a good point. Some sort of visual clue identifying these monsters would probably be a good idea. Personally, I'd prefer not a message as I was thinking this being something maybe a bit more common than would justify that. I'd probably have them scale by rarity--higher DL monsters are more likely to generate a prefix, and maybe also have the prefixes themselves scale by DL (so the nastier ones are less common at low DL).

I don't think adding a new monster or adding these effects to an existing monster really replicates the effect that I'm going for--this allows you to create a tens of thousands of possible monsters using existing monsters and a couple dozen prefixes.

09-21-2016 03:18 AM

Grond

Ancient Member

Originally Posted by JellySlayer

I don't think adding a new monster or adding these effects to an existing monster really replicates the effect that I'm going for--this allows you to create a tens of thousands of possible monsters using existing monsters and a couple dozen prefixes.

Tens of thousands of possibilities perhaps, but I don't think any one of those is likely to be interesting. If there is some set of abilities that make a monster interesting, I would rather put those on a particular monster than hope they come together randomly, and then further hope the resulting monster is of a reasonable power level for where it shows up. I think fixing the problem of monster variety is going to take a lot more work than stapling on some existing abilities or stat boosts haphazardly.

09-21-2016 05:06 AM

BenMathiesen BenMathiesen is offline

Senior Member

This is a very promising idea, and I have no doubt that after a little tweaking it can be balanced and entertaining. Upvoted!

09-21-2016 07:34 AM

Blasphemous Blasphemous is offline

Ancient Member

"The distorted great karmic wyrm suddenly looks like you! You are confused. The distorted great karmic wyrm breathes acid at you. You are horribly mutilated by the acidic stream! Your heap of 14 blessed scrolls of chaos resistance..."

I love it :D
Yes from me, although I have a few suggestions:
In order to avoid the occasionally hilarious and baffling connections, the kind of like Diablo was famous for, some prefixes would have to be changed or restricted to specific monsters.
Possessed ghost sounds strange, though not implausible probably.
Withered shadow? Less so.
Karmic karmic lizard? Some check would be required for the prefix to not appear on monsters that already have it naturally.
In some cases I would replace ferocious with feral, it fits the beast group of enemies without somewhat ridiculous stuff like ferocious cooshoos etc.

What about summoners like blink dogs? Imagine stumbling upon a venomous blink dog and having it summon 8 more venomous blink dogs. Insta-gib.
Some balancing would be required but the general idea behind this RFE is sound.

09-21-2016 09:28 AM

Couchfighter Couchfighter is offline

Member

What if meleeing a karmic karmic creature instead gives you lucky and fate smiles? :D

Extra properties on creatures dont necessarily have to be of the awful sort!

09-21-2016 10:35 AM

SinsI

Senior Member

ADOM already has this feature via the randomly generated named "random boss" monsters - http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Boss_monster.

And I'm absolutely against the listed prefixes - they are way, way too unbalanced!

09-21-2016 11:04 AM

ixi

Junior Member

This is damn good idea, one of the best I ever saw suggested. I feel concerned about the exact suggested affixes and their effects but I guess they're to be discussed yet and the final word will be said by the Creator who wouldn't implement something really bad.

I agree about seeing a warning message about such monsters as soon as they come in LOS first time.

09-21-2016 02:45 PM

JellySlayer JellySlayer is offline

Ancient Member

Originally Posted by Blasphemous

Yes, there's a few terms that wouldn't work. You wouldn't get karmic karmic lizard as karmic is a humanoid modifier in my current configuration.

09-24-2016 08:55 AM

Al-Khwarizmi Al-Khwarizmi is offline

Ancient Member

This is an awesome, awesome idea.

I do think it needs some balancing. As SirTheta said, some prefixes like "armored" should depend on danger level (+20 PV would be unbeatable at low levels). And I would remove "karmic", "enervating" and "petrifying" because we really don't want to have to look at every goblin before attacking all the time, and these effects are very radical causing effects like dooming and instadeath. But with some toning down, the idea itself is great, and I'd very much like to see it in the game.

By the way, One Way Heroics has this.

09-24-2016 09:33 PM

Couchfighter Couchfighter is offline

Member

I reckon if the karmic prefix is included, it should make the monster change colours like other karmic creatures, which sounds like a LOT of work (for those of us who play in tile mode, of course). Probably for the best to just slash it.

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