Out-of-depth level monster scaring trivial ones

[vdweller]

I was thinking about a new feature. What if really tough monsters, like balors, caused weaker ones (compared to PC level?) to panic and flee (message "The -foo- suddenly seems to panic!") out of fear?

a) Summoned/tension room (with said uber-monster inside) monsters should probably be excluded
b) It would cause some interesting inter-monster relationships. Imagine your lv.15 character being swarmed by some frost giants in the Dwarven Halls. The character is cornered and at very low HP, when suddenly an Ancient Red Dragon appears round the corner! Suddenly the PC (lets suppose they can't see the Dragon yet from where they're standing) notices that some of the giants not immediately next to them are starting to back off! By the time players lay eyes upon the magnificent beast, all the giants will have turned on their heels and fled the room! So now that the path is clear from the giants, what happens? Will the character be toasted? Or will they manage to outrun/outsmart the Dragon?
c) Easily resolves mentioned issues like kobolds fighting you next to molochs. In the very depths of the Caverns of Chaos, even evil is afraid!
d) Players encountering fleeing monsters in a dungeon should get a clue that a very, very nasty monster is close. Could be useful for new/inexperienced players too!

Any thoughts?

[anon123]

I'm not sure. Chasing monsters all over the dungeon can get cumbersome. That's one of the reasons I don't like the unholy aura corruption. Having everything focus on killing only you (barring the occasional monster vs. monster fight) is more practical gameplay-wise.

[Sangrealman]

I have to say that those "scenes" that you made up sound really cool :)
Every time I see for example a bandit and, say, a corruptor in the same room I start to whonder how did those guys end up together and team up on me.

But anyway, monsters causing monsters to run away would definitely get annoying in the long run. mid-late game you just one hit basically everything that is weak enough to be scared.

[grobblewobble]

Master summoner summons goblin rockthrowers. Goblins see master summoner, flee the air temple in panic (along with vapor rats and chaos servants).

[vdweller]

Master summoner summons goblin rockthrowers. Goblins see master summoner, flee the air temple in panic (along with vapor rats and chaos servants).


a) Summoned/tension room (with said uber-monster inside) monsters should probably be excluded

Well, this shouldn't happen so often, especially now that monster/dungeon levels have been re-adjusted. In addition, A lv.32 PC will have no significant gain from killing a bunch of orcs, for example.

The main reason this suggestion came to mind is that it's probably easy to implement since the "scared" parameter is already there. There has to be some fiddling though (I mean in terms of code addition/alteration) regarding "sources" of monster fear other than the PC...