Roguelikes always have a significant randomness element, it's part of the fun. What's "too rare"? Maybe we could tone down the danger level range just a tad so players don't have to scum the Tomb of the High Kings, but I think it's fine it they're somewhat hard to find. What's an example you remember off the top of your head that was definitely too rare?

Vapor rat and cyclops.

I remember having both. Tomb of the High Kings coughed them up after I don't think too long a time. But then, it could be argued that the Tomb of the High Kings is a bit too hardcore a place for a character on the first Thrundarr quest.

An adjustment to the range of monsters and maybe an increase in the monster's generation rate while the quest is active - just a little one - would be sufficient, I think. Not that I feel this is an absolutely necessary change. I don't mind getting a harsh Thrundarr monster; hating the RNG is one of my favorite things to do when playing ADOM.

There's an alternate solution to the problem.

Make it so that, while the quest is active, the probability of finding the necessary monster is adjusted to have a minimum. So if you get a Vapor Rat, and the minimum is 0.1% chance per monster generated, and Vapor Rats are only one in ten thousand, then you will have a one in a thousand chance that any particular monster encountered will be a Vapor Rat. But if, say, a Dire Wolf has a chance of one in 300, then it remains at one in 300.

Since it's still a random thing in terms of monster generation, etc, the concern about it lacking randomness is removed.

I have noticed that the PC's experience level contributes to the monster he(RNG) chosses. The higher, the higher.
So if you want a rat or a goblin go ask him at level 6.

This is correct. If you talk to him at level 50, he may ask for a greater moloch.

There's also a rumor that the game takes the highest-DL area you've visited so far in consideration when assigning the monster. In games where I raided DFG prior to taking his quests, he has asked for things like cyclopes, troll berserkers and doppelganger lords. So it might be true.

That could be a bit unfair. As a fairly new player can stumble into DF running around the guard and then see more steel golem as he descends and get the .... out of there and then is asked to slay a higher DL monster.

I agree with the original post as it's quite frustrating getting something you know you'll likely never find.

But on the flip side I think there should be a minimum danger level (say 4 or 5 - not too high) to prevent the rather odd situation of "I want ye to slay a rat to prove yer valour!"

My recollection was that my testing showed this not to be the case, or at least, it's a very minor effect. I can't find the post where I researched this in detail, I'm afraid.

I think the most annoying monsters I've been asked to find were a giant rust monster and an ogre lord. In both cases, I'd gone straight from terinyo quests to DT, so there weren't any high DL places I'd visited before, and I was around lvl 13-15.

I think a more practical solution would be to just generate whatever monster he was asking for on a a relatively appropriate D level. So from D:1 to D:16 (or whatever Khellie's level is) Just the knowledge that that monster positively exists at the time of the generation of the quest would probably make the tedium for hunting him much more bearable. As to sometimes having to pass the animated forest early, I feel that missing out on the WoF is much less detrimental than forcing a player to scum TotHK or attempt the pyramid at level 13 just to get a chance of generating the monster (and subsequently dying if they are a newer player).

Things to consider:

The reward for the quest has become more valueable for PCs starting with low Literacy.

It grants access to his other quests, of which the next one in the list is pretty dangerous. So a weak PC should probably not go there. Maybe it is better if he must gain a bit more XP.

Players will probably skip DF, now that you have to actually fight. That is if visiting DF has an inpact on which monster is chosen.

I don't think this fix is necessary, although might be nice occasionally. Usually you can find the necessary monster sooner than later.

Interestingly the game internally required a minimum rarity rating of rare for quest monsters (which exactly is the rating for vapor rats and cyclopses, just to name an example). Monsters that are very common are excluded from selection as are some special monsters (like dwarves and vortices). I have tuned down slightly the maximum permissible monster level which might help to ease things a bit. But in turn the game takes more effort to create a rather high level monster (e.g. one close to that limit). Let's test how this works out...

Hmm, today I was told to slay a large bat, doesn't sound like that minimum rarity rating was working...

Large bats seem to be the right kind of rarity to me, even if not the right kind of level.

(Incidentally, I'm always disappointed when I open this particular issue thread because of the lack of a particular pony in it.)

I've found for a long time now that it felt like it was nearly totally random, large bats to Werewolf Lords. I'm interested in getting a feel for how it is now.

Oh you. :)

I can't say I've tested this myself yet but it would be kind of amusing if a "make my ADOM life easier" RFE like this one ended up making our ADOM lives a little harder.

Delightful. There are too few ponies around here.

Imo this is exactly what happened. See here. Basically you still get vapor rats but rarely get anything easy any more.