Monsters & Items Pledge Drive Suggestions

[PseudoFenton]

With the second pledge drive now up, the obvious response for us on this forum (other than grabbing every friend you have and telling them to throw money in this direction) is to all cry out for what sort of new monsters and items we want. So here's a thread to do it on!

What new beasties from myth and lore would you want to see and slay? What trinkets and treasures should you loot from their corpses? Now is you chance to post suggestions, but remember, if we don't get funded we wont get any more shiny - so please do spread the word and help this thing get funded! <Obligatory link to funding page>

[PseudoFenton]

Okay, here are some of my suggestions.

I would love to see some displacer beast armour, as one of my players character has a full set of some in the game we play and its awesome. In ADOM terms I guess it'd be easier to just build its blur effect as a boost to DV (rather than adding a flat miss chance). So something like this: [+2, +1], 160 stones, material is obviously leather.

The way the player cherishes her armour you'd swear it was an artifact though. Of cause the breastplate part of hers is technically made of a "greater displacer beasts" hide - which in my game basically is similar to the Nemean lion of myth in that its hide cannot be cut or pierced, so you have to bludgeon it to death (even with sharp things) so her armour is quite a high grade piece of equipment and likely would be an artifact in ADOM (as it was made by one of the worlds best armour smiths). I'd be happy with just the basic "lesser"/ordinary displacer beast armour in the game though, and I know she'd be chuffed to bits to see it too.


Whilst I'm taking about displacer beasts, it would be logical to request the Greater Displacer Beast as one of the added monsters too. A very tough foe, with an "impregnable" hide, who can slash heavy armour into ribbons with their vicious claws (has an armour divisor in my game, would probably be similar to claw bugs in ADOM) - plus naturally displacing their image, making them very hard to hit to boot!

I do hope you're carrying blunt weapons or you'll be at it for a while - or not as the case may be as it rends you to pieces. Not sure how to stat it out in ADOM though, and the selective damage reduction and converting cutting etc damage to a lesser injury of the 'blunt' damage might be hard to add in overall...

Either way that what I'd love to see! I'll think of other things I'd add later, and let other people post some suggestions/requests.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I don't know if weapons are included in items or if they will be subject to a future pledge drive. But if they are included, I would like to see some underused weapon types getting more interesting weapons son that they are competitive to use. For example:

- We need scurgari of *foo* slaying and boomerangs of *foo* slaying.
- We need more whips.
- Some good staves could be great too.

[Soirana]

- We need more whips.

More like - higher metal based ones. If staves can be made with mithril I am sure whips can too.

[grobblewobble]

Somehow the image of soirana with whips forged from metal scares the shit out of me.

[Zeno]

I suggest a new monster: chaos butterfly.

Nothing new mechanically (lightning and water breath, maybe?), but I think it would fill two gaps in ADOM: (1) Chaos would turn insects into chaos butterflies instead of "writhing masses of primal chaos" (for the same reason there should be chaos cats, chaos giants etc.), (2) explain how exactly Chaos corrupts the weather (a reference to the butterfly effect from the chaos theory).

[Grey]

Displacer Beast armour (perhaps more like [+5,+1]) and a Greater Displacer Beast with super DV and armour-piercing are cool ideas. I think it's important to have sensible ideas like these - extensions of the current game using existing mechanics. Really specialised items would take too long to code and are less likely to be implemented in a reasonable frame of time. With that in mind:

potion of explosions - Produces a fiery explosion when consumed or thrown. Burns items dipped in it.
potion of acid - Acid damage when consumed or thrown. Melts items dipped in it.
potion of blessing - Gives blessed status when drunk or thrown. Causes damage to undead. Blesses items dipped in it.
potion of teleporting - Teleports when drunk or thrown. Dipping teleports the item.
potion of rumours - +1 Le, -1 Wi, gives a random fortune cookie message when drunk
chain whip - (-5, 1d7), made of iron
mithril/adamantium/eternium versions of chain whips.
blackjack - (+2, 1d6), leather club with a chance to stun on hit
ring of the ox {St+2, To+3}
ring of the hawk {Dx+3, Pe+2}
ring of the sage {Le+2, Ma+2}
ring of ghosts {Wi+3, Ma+1}
ring of terror {Wi+2, Ch-3}, causes creatures nearby to flee (like unholy aura), autocurses
ring of holy terror {Ap+5}, causes undead to flee
ring of teleporting - teleportisis whilst worn
boots of glacial steps - 1400 move energy, cold resistance
boots of the quick step - 900 move energy
boots of cowardice - 800 move energy, [+6,+0], force use of coward tactics
amulet of poison resistance
gauntlets of gripping - disarm resistance
diamond gauntlets - resist acid, fire, shock
gloves of accuracy (+4,+2)
girdle of health - {To+2}, increases HP regen rate
girdle of regeneration - +1 HP/turn
girdle of satiation - decreases hunger rate, -4 speed
girdle of corruption - autocurses, corrupts when worn, {+2 To, +4 Ma, -2 Wi}, +8 speed
girdle of gills - water breathing
bracers of strength {St+4}
bracers of the dragon [+2,+2] {St+3, Wi+3} fire resistance
bracers of the arcane {Ma+4}
bracers of pity [-2,-2] {Ch-3}, autocurses
bracers of fate - +fate smiles, increase crit rate
shield of living wood - [+5,+2] regeneration
dweomer shield [+4,+0] {Ma+2} decreases spell costs by 10&#37;
quickling-skin shield [+9,+0] +12 speed
red dragon-hide shield (-2) [+9, +6] fire resistance
black dragon-hide shield (-2) [+8, +6] acid resistance
white dragon-hide shield (-2) [+7, +7] cold resistance
blue dragon-hide shield (-2) [+9, +5] shock resistance
mage's robes [+2,+0] {Le+2}
karmic robes [+4,+0] +luck
necromancer's robes [+3,+0] {Wi+3, Ch-3}
robes of the archmage [+6,+0] {Wi+3, Ma+3}

[Grey]

Some high level monsters (I love the chaos butterfly idea btw):

Karmic vortex - resists all elements, explodes for a random element, curses if hit, much higher level than other vortexes
Dracozombie - undead dragon, causes sickness and slow on hit
Lich dragon - undead dragon, uses both lich spells (confuse, magic missile, stat drain, darkness) and cold breath
ratling commando - ratling, disarms, bypasses PV, 130 speed, much higher level than duellist
chaos plaguemaster - higher level version of chaos plaguebearer, confuse+stun+sickness+corrupt on hit
shadow hound - casts darkness, sees in dark, teleports, summons self, corpse gives TCtrl
chaos assassin - casts teleport and invisibility, ignores PV, 120 speed
chaos priest - summons chaos creatures, casts heal, casts magic missile

[PseudoFenton]

...{Lots of items}...

I'll just leave the quote snipped and comment on some of them:

Displacer Beast armour (perhaps more like [+5,+1]): Yeah I had considered putting the DV up (actually originally thought +5), but I was looking for a low-medium level armour which would boost DV instead of PV - which you just don't get. Having the DV boost too high will cause it to end up being a medium-high level item which prevents you from gaining access to it early on or at all (before a better alternative)

Really specialised items would take too long to code and are less likely to be implemented in a reasonable frame of time. -Exactly what I had in mind too!

potion of explosions & acid & teleporting: the dip function might not really be needed, and might require a fair bit of code edits... so perhaps just dropping that part.

rings, girdles, bracers and robes suggestions: all seem quite interesting an easy to add in, although a bit... plain? - might cause sour faces if the items that get added are so... mundane? I dunno, it would be easy and quick, which is what we want - but also is a little boring in terms of shiny new toys. Perhaps we just pick the best ones out of the list for the ones which have the most interesting theme and mechanics.

ring of teleporting: I like this... but then equally don't, mostly just because of how hard it is to get hold of these traits normally. Perhaps something like Ring of Blinking which is teleportisis, but auto-curses and stuns you/confuses you after each jump when cursed. It helps balance it up a little and makes it akin to the ring of the fish in terms of annoying at first but has its uses.

boots of glacial steps, quick step & cowardice : I like the cold resistance boost on glacial, but these seem perhaps better off as suffix enchantments on boots - not sure how hard that'd be to code in mind. Equally I'd have the cowardice only provide the bonus when in cowardice instead of locking your tactics - of cause either would require a fair code change afaik.

dragon-hide shields: Yes! I've wanted these for ages actually, I remember more than one fighter kitted out in full dragon-hide gear but with a metal shield, it seemed wrong.

Some high level monsters (I love the chaos butterfly idea btw):

I'm also loving the idea of the chaos butterfly - and some of those other chaos additions you just suggested. I'm also really liking the idea of a Karmic Vortex! The Lich Dragon might also keep non-karmic dragons scary for a lot longer... the logical step also being a Lich Wyrm! Although that sounds more like a boss than a common foe (hopefully).

[Grey]

"Lair of the Lich Wyrm" sounds like a location begging to be made :P There are already shadow wyrm monsters, mind, but they're not very tough.

[+2,+1] wouldn't be very appealing for displacer beast armour - for many people that's worse than what they start off with (especially since PV is rated higher than DV in the early game). It would have to be a fair bit more to really justify using over other early game alternatives.

Yeah, a fair few of my items are mundane, but if TB gets a lot of money in the next few days he'll need some fillers. Plus early game items have to be a bit mundane.