New Monster: Juggernaut

[tasonir]

  Code:

<+gammafunk> @??juggernaut
< Gretell> juggernaut (C) | Spd: 15 (atk: 450%) | HD: 20 | HP: 158-185 | AC/EV: 20/10 | Dam: 120 | doors, fighter, see invisible | Res: magic(120), drown | XP: 7224 | Sz: Giant | Int: human.

It was mentioned in the "check monster's exact stats" thread, but that's also got a lot of arguments about displaying exact values, so I figured a more focused thread on just this monster's impact on crawl would be appropriate.

It's clearly intended to punch through armor, although I think that the spikiness of it's damage is going to be a problem. Especially on low hp races or anyone who's not at 100% health, it has a chance to just outright kill you in one hit. The average damage isn't that bad because it's attack delay is extremely long with 450% delay, but the opportunities to go from "perfectly fine" to "bloody pulp" seem a bit high. I think it was designed this way because it's next to impossible to design a melee monster who gets through armor without designing something that one/two shots players; the only way I could see would be to have an outright ignores_ac flag on it (I believe that phantoms have this flag still). Makes flavor sense for ghosts, but not for a physical giant, I suppose. It could still be hand-waved away with something like how blunt forces (think maces/warhammers) are generally designed to go through armor, imho. So something like 40 damage, ignores ac, attack delay down to 200% instead of 450, would make the damage more predictable, and still punish high AC characters.

I haven't yet encountered this monster, but I do have a spriggan in trunk in the snake pit. Assuming I don't screw up, that means I'm fairly close to entering the depths with a -30% hp race (84 hp at level 16 now, will probably be right about 120 by depths). Spriggans can very slightly outrun speed 15 monsters, but centaur/felid can't. It'll be interesting. My spriggan is a melee/stab build, it doesn't have significant ranged attacks. (I've got a +9 elec quick blade, why go ranged?)

[byrel]

I think that characters best bet to deal with it is stack poison for a long time. Tedious, but doable. Alternatively, got some evo and a good attack wand and blow it up with that. You're carrying around evocables anyhow, and your aptitude is great. That fan of gales will let you reset once too.

Or memorize summon butterflies. Every time it attacks a butterfly, you get 30 auts to do what you want (and then leave them alive; there won't be many.) Or summon lightning spire, which I suspect can kill it in 2-3 casts, and will generally help with taking down shadow dragons, etc.

[Dharmy]

What if it had a limited turn radius like an OOD once it gets moving?

[Berder]

It ignores more than just AC - 20 HD and the fighter flag make it extremely hard to dodge as well.

[tasonir]

yeah, since I have curare which can slow it, that'd be the easiest way for me to personally kill it. And maybe that's fine for balance, although I do tend to agree with duvessa that monsters that are designed to be a bad idea to melee represent a problem. And while on average you're decently safe to melee this monster (assuming you're strong in melee), there's always going to be the chance that you get two really bad rolls and die. A low chance, but death is permanent...

[MainiacJoe]

Spd: 15 (atk: 450%)

forgive me, but does this mean that it moves quickly or slowly, and does it mean that it swings often or seldom?

[Sandman25]

Spd: 15 (atk: 450%)

forgive me, but does this mean that it moves quickly or slowly, and does it mean that it swings often or seldom?

Spd: very fast (atk: extremely slow)

[byrel]

Why add a turn rate? I don't get it; you could claim this is bad design based on some principle, but there are so many ways of dealing with it that adding another seems pointless. How often are you in depths without some method of handling this at your disposal? It's not more dangerous than a bone dragon to low-AC characters. Bone dragons put out 210 damage per attack a juggernaut can get in. Even allowing for some AC reduction, that's still a LOT of damage. They have the same AC, though juggernauts have slightly higher EV. Still not high enough to preclude bolt of inaccuracy though. They're faster; but by then you have haste. The only difference is that this is actually a danger to AC characters, is elementally vulnerable, and might force you to burn a haste charge. How do you deal with bone dragons in depths? do the same thing here, but hasted.

there's always going to be the chance that you get two really bad rolls and die. A low chance, but death is permanent...

But you have 30 auts to react to the first bad roll. Even if you're paralyzed there's a good chance you'll recover before it can hit you twice. You have options with this monster. That's the thing; it's not merely a monster you don't want to melee, it's a monster you don't want to melee that actually makes you work in some way to not melee it. That work is the good part. It's interesting.

Edit: And hey! It's a mage buff! It'll be way easier to handle with bolt of fire or sticky flame than as a FeBe.

[duvessa]

I'll repeat what I said in the other thread:

1. I don't think monsters that are summarized by "don't melee this" are good for the game. If it appeared earlier so that you couldn't just trivially avoid meleeing it, I'd be fine with it. I'm pretty sure I've voiced the exact same complaint about shrikes.

2. Differing movement/action speeds for monsters are really, really bad IMO. Like, a common strategy for getting away from this monster will be "Stand one square away from the stairs, let this speed 15 monster hit you, then step onto the stairs and go up, so that it can't follow you up the stairs, because its paralyses itself when it attacks for some reason". That is not good gameplay. This sort of thing happens with batty monsters and sixfirhies too, but it's really pronounced here.

Complaints that this monster is somehow too hard are ridiculous though, it appears in depths, it's totally trivial to get away from by that time. And everyone can kill it with summon/poison/[insert other ranged attack here] spam, yes.

[Sandman25]

How do you deal with bone dragons in depths?

With berserk/haste.

do the same thing here, but hasted.

?

You can haste and safely kill a bone dragon (just escape if you are unlucky, you are 50% faster than Bone Dragon so the longer you run the farther you are, when haste expires you can keep the distance because you have the same speed). It does not work with J*naut: it hits you, you get some 4-5 tiles distance during those 3 turns it took to hit you and then the distance does not change while you are hasted. If you cannot retreat upstairs while hasted and the haste expires, J*naut starts to get closer (1 tile closer every 3 turns).

[byrel]

You can haste and safely kill a bone dragon (just escape if you are unlucky, you are 50% faster than Bone Dragon so the longer you run the farther you are, when haste expires you can keep the distance because you have the same speed). It does not work with J*naut: it hits you, you get some 4-5 tiles distance during those 3 turns it took to hit you and then the distance does not change. If you cannot retreat upstairs while hasted, it starts to get closer (1 tile closer every 2 turns).

Sure... but it's in fricking depths. Just tp in those 3 turns. Or shaft yourself if you're a formicid. Or blink, or use a rod on it, or quaff 4 heal wounds, or summon an executioner or use shadow form or step from time or fire storm or lignification+berserk or summon some oklobs or sanctuary or summon a couple angels or brothers in arms or summon butterflies or command your 3 skeletons to keep it busy for 9 turns or recieve corpses and animate them or... really, whatever you've prepared for tough situations!

[byrel]

I'll repeat what I said in the other thread:

1. I don't think monsters that are summarized by "don't melee this" are good for the game. If it appeared earlier so that you couldn't just trivially avoid meleeing it, I'd be fine with it. I'm pretty sure I've voiced the exact same complaint about shrikes.

2. Differing movement/action speeds for monsters are really, really bad IMO. Like, a common strategy for getting away from this monster will be "Stand one square away from the stairs, let this speed 15 monster hit you, then step onto the stairs and go up, so that it can't follow you up the stairs, because its paralyses itself when it attacks for some reason". That is not good gameplay. This sort of thing happens with batty monsters and sixfirhies too, but it's really pronounced here.

Complaints that this monster is somehow too hard are ridiculous though, it appears in depths, it's totally trivial to get away from by that time. And everyone can kill it with summon/poison/[insert other ranged attack here] spam, yes.

I have some sympathy with this position, but I'll wait to see how it feels in more than one OP run to decide. It might as well have been a death yak for that character.

[Sandman25]

Sure... but it's in fricking depths. Just tp in those 3 turns. Or shaft yourself if you're a formicid. Or blink, or use a rod on it, or quaff 4 heal wounds, or summon an executioner or use shadow form or step from time or fire storm or lignification+berserk or summon some oklobs or sanctuary or summon a couple angels or brothers in arms or summon butterflies or command your 3 skeletons to keep it busy for 9 turns or recieve corpses and animate them or... really, whatever you've prepared for tough situations!

My point was that you can safely kill bone dragon. If you are unlucky, you reset the fight without any consumables/risk and try again. You cannot do it with Jnaut especially since if you got hit for 120 HP now you are in danger and can be killed by some Yaktaur or something.

[byrel]

you reset the fight without any consumables/risk and try again.

I think this is actually the point. Bone dragons are bad enemies for that stage of the game, because they don't cost anything to reset from.

[Sandman25]

I think this is actually the point. Bone dragons are bad enemies for that stage of the game, because they don't cost anything to reset from.

and this is why they are really different from bone dragon so advice "do the same what you do vs bone dragons" is not a very useful one. Do the opposite of what you do vs bone dragons: use curare, Bolt of Cold, ignore Dispel Undead and don't think rod of inaccuracy will hit it 6 times while it is coming closer

[MainiacJoe]

Spd: 15 (atk: 450%)

forgive me, but does this mean that it moves quickly or slowly, and does it mean that it swings often or seldom?

Spd: very fast (atk: extremely slow)

So you can't get away from it, but its damage/aut is doubly swingy because you have both infrequent EV rolls and a large max damage. If ever fsim needed to report standard deviations in addition to averages, this would be it.

[Sandman25]

fsim has max damage column and average attack time column, it is enough to see the danger

[Berder]

There's no comparison between a juggernaut and a bone dragon.

• A bone dragon's damage is far more resistible by AC, and also 40% more resistible by EV
• A bone dragon doesn't do huge damage spikes
• A bone dragon does not have fast walking speed
• A character with 30/30 defenses in FDA has a damage reduction factor of only 2.46 against a juggernaut. Against a bone dragon? 11.54. The juggernaut's average damage per 10 auts against such a character is 2.7 times greater than the bone dragon's

[tabstorm]

Don't ancient lichs hit up to 148 with crystal spear (which dosen't even check GDR)? I've never died to one that I can remember. I don't think this monster is that bad. I guess ancient lichs spend more time doing useless things rather than casting crystal spear.

[Hurkyl]

Don't ancient lichs hit up to 148 with crystal spear (which dosen't even check GDR)? I've never died to one that I can remember. I don't think this monster is that bad. I guess ancient lichs spend more time doing useless things rather than casting crystal spear.

Wiki says 3d48, so 144 max. Although one should note that 3d48 tends to roll much closer to average than 1d120.

[tabstorm]

Maybe this guy should roll like 2d60 or 3d40 then.

[duvessa]

I suppose there are already enormous slime creatures.

I think this is actually the point. Bone dragons are bad enemies for that stage of the game, because they don't cost anything to reset from.

It does seem likely that was the point, but I can't see this monster costing much of anything to reset from, either. Unless by "reset" you mean "escape after trying to melee it and failing", in which case yeah, probably, but if you're spoiled then you aren't going to try to melee it in that situation...again, it's like shrikes but substantially easier to avoid.

The way crawl is set up makes it so that, after a certain point in the game, it's really, really easy to avoid monsters in general, except for the monsters that are exceptionally good at approaching for their depth.* And nearly every character reaches that point by lair. There are exceptions, like if you decided to play a chei character/naga without spells for some reason, but not many realistic exceptions. People like to jerk off about how making monsters faster than speed 10 would fix everything, but while that would do wonders for early game, it does very little to address the characters that can get away from somewhat-faster-than-10 monsters almost as easily as speed 10 monsters. And every character in depths is one of those characters, pretty much.

The idea of trying to make the later dungeon dangerous by slowly eating away all your consumables seems like a very difficult and fragile solution with serious gameplay problems. If you're hoping to generate enough shrikes and juggernauts that the small fraction of cases where you need consumables to be safe adds up to remove all your consumables so that you finally become unsafe...why not just take the damn consumables out of the game in the first place, and skip the part where the player is safe? (In practice, removing these consumables from current crawl would still leave it with a serious lack of difficulty for most of the game, but it would give what you claim is the desired result, and much more easily.)

*To give the most extreme example, it's routine to go through Zot and much of extended and fight almost nothing.

[wizzzargh]

fr: make them invisible

[edgefigaro]

I meleed killed the only juggernaut I saw. I was on a ridiculous halfling that picked up a +11 randart CPA and was UC/chei. I did reset the fight once, as he first attacked me with a caustic shriek entourage, and hit me for 60 though my 50 AC.

I will say I am not sure the design space it is supposed to occupy. Depths teir anateus?

[tasonir]

It probably is most similar to enormous/titanic slime creatures, yeah. I'm not sure if I've ever died to an ancient lich's 100+ crystal spear, but I can specifically remember dying to Frederick's crystal spear (I thought it was CS at least; apparently he only does iron shot?), which is basically the same thing. I believe the hit was for 80 something damage. I'm sure you could make a query for players being killed by crystal spear and filter by damage if you wanted to get an idea of how often it happens, but I'd say it's uncommon but not all that rare. It happens less than you'd think because spells have to roll 3 dice, juggernaut only rolls once. The 3 turn delay before the next attack might make that okay, I'd just prefer a normal attack speed + ignore ac flag instead.

[Sprucery]

I can specifically remember dying to Frederick's crystal spear (I thought it was CS at least; apparently he only does iron shot?), which is basically the same thing. I believe the hit was for 80 something damage.

Yeah, and Frederick also has Spellforged Servitor which makes him really dangerous.

[Odds]

I haven't met a juggernaut yet. But I did recently meet a zombie juggernaut on C:1.

The worst thing about it *by far* was that it was visually identical to several monsters, all of which I know well and are completely harmless at my current level. I pressed tab twice, and was lucky not to die - it only hit one time out of two, for about half my HP.

Request for some kind soul: make more zombie tiles! You'd prevent a lot of stupid deaths.

[tasonir]

I believe this is a known issue with derived undead juggernauts: they don't copy the 450% attack speed penalty, so they hit for 116 damage at 15 speed. Gammafunk was the one who posted this if I recall, so it's possible he's fixed it by now, not sure.

[gammafunk]

It was fixed by wheals in 0.17-a0-1754-gcb87171, and servers have been updated.

[ydeve]

fr: make them invisible

fr: unique invisible Juggernaut named Chuck Norris.

[jejorda2]

A late dungeon unique: The Jigglenaut. A Juggernaut Slime who does acid damage, so it's resistable sometimes. And half the HP of a standard Juggernaut, kind of like Purgy or Prince Ribbit.

[MainiacJoe]

Might a juggernaut be a good phantom mirror target?

[tabstorm]

As long as you have some kind of summon/ally you can (probably?) cheese them in melee like this:

  Code:

........
...@C..
...Z......



hit...hit

then

  Code:

..........
....C...
..@Z..


Juggernaut hits zombie ally
Move back to picture 1

repeat

[Berder]

I doubt it. Enemies usually target the player. It could work if the juggernaut has no way to approach you such as in a corridor or if you have more allies.

[CanOfWorms]

A late dungeon unique: The Jigglenaut. A Juggernaut Slime who does acid damage, so it's resistable sometimes. And half the HP of a standard Juggernaut, kind of like Purgy or Prince Ribbit.

Finally, jiggle physics will be in crawl.