Please bring back Lamia

[claws]

Side note about another case of this issue: Sonja is speed 14 and Psyche is speed 13, but I've seen few complaints about Sonja being innately faster than earlier kobolds or Psyche being innately faster than the many other early human uniques representing slower forms, much less requests to explicitly list their speed in their descriptions. (Perhaps them being both lethal uniques for an early depth makes this already accepted, or perhaps changing anything instead of removing anything for Polyphemus's case will elicit complaints.) I am not entirely sure about a case of default forms not showing speed and these uniques showing "She is fast." being much better than cyclops showing "It is slow." and Polyphemus not showing speed due to normal speed, plus agree with the notion of uniques being dangerous warning enough for Polyphemus.

[Siegurt]

Perhaps simply describe him as a "Very well muscled and incredibly though-looking Cyclops" (Put enough descriptors in there that one can infer that he's much much tougher than a typical cyclops)

[A spy]

Just give him a backstory about how he was raised by Stone Giants farmers. It explains his strenght, and also his death yaks (they're like sheep to a stone giant)

[ontoclasm]

By the time Grinder shows up it's unlikely the kind of player who can have problems with this spoilery stuff even knows what a shadow imp is, not to mention xv shows his spells. By the time poly shows up he's likely killed a lot of cyclopes.
I can understand keeping him in the game and I can understand keeping him a cyclops for theme and whatnot, but I think new players should have a warning of some kind that this guy can hit them much more accurately and hard than a normal cyclops.

Why is "he's a unique cyclops" not enough warning of this?

[dck]

Well as an unspoiled played I'd expect him to hit maybe as hard as a stone giant, two stone giants seems excessive.

[Leafsnail]

He could be a one-eyed stone giant

[Sar]

Raised by cyclopes.

[Sprucery]

By the time an unspoiled player sees a unique cyclops, he or she should be well aware that uniques in general can be really dangerous. But go ahead and change the description if you think it helps.

[and into]

His father was a stone giant who was slightly smaller than normal SGs, and was picked on because of it; he decided to live amongst the lesser giants. Most of his sons were grotesque mutants who did not survive infancy, but Polyphemus, one-eyed, but as fast, strong, and resilient as a stone giant, rose to become king of the cyclopes. So fearsome is his demeanor that he commands the respect even of the death yaks, which have never before been domesticated. Wayward adventurers are his favorite snack.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

Why is "he's a unique cyclops" not enough warning of this?

Because he's not. He's a unique stone giant.

It's important to remember that while e.g. Xtahua is significantly stronger than a normal dragon, he still IS a dragon in all important aspects. But speed 9 and lower melee damage are the only things that make a cyclops meaningfully distinct from a stone giant. Changing them while still calling him a cyclops is just lying to the player. Prince Ribbit isn't a "unique giant frog that happens to have blink", he is a unique blink frog.

Polyphemus in general is a highly deceptive unique that really needs reflavouring. Because this is what we really have: a unique catoblepas that comes with a guaranteed stone giant to beat you up while you are petrified.

Side note about another case of this issue: Sonja is speed 14 and Psyche is speed 13, but I've seen few complaints about Sonja being innately faster than earlier kobolds or Psyche being innately faster than the many other early human uniques

Only because speed is utterly irrelevant compared to things that actually matter (disto, curare, the fact these uniques die in one hit). Speed 10 Sonja would be just as scary and for the same reasons, because anyone who wishes to survive the fight should assume that one melee hit from Sonja/Psyche will be instantly fatal.

[Sar]

Minor, but cyclopes are speed 7.
Also I admit, I didn't even realize Sonja and Psyche are fast until this thread.

[WalkerBoh]

Uniques being spoilery can be an issue, but Polyphemus is really the wrong example for it. With Polyphemus, you try to fight him, then he does 80dam to you in one turn, then you realize maybe you shouldn't fight him after all, and you blink away and move on with your game. Uniques like Jorgrun or Erolcha are much worse in this respect, since they can literally kill you upon entering LoS if you don't realize that one of your specific resists isn't high enough to fight them.

But in the end, uniques being spoilery is only REALLY an issue if they become fully uninteresting after you know their gimmick. Jorgrun almost falls into this category in my opinion (he is trivially harmless if he can't Petrify you), but Erolcha does not (because Ogre Mages are damn scary in their own right). To bring the discussion back to the OP, Lamia fell into this "uninteresting" category, because once you realized you should under no circumstances fight her, you just walk away from her in every subsequent encounter. This is why Lamia deserved to be removed. (I suppose you could say the same about Polyphemus, but at least he isn't slow and comes with a semi-interesting pack so it's marginally better).

But in general, uniques having attributes or abilities that you wouldn't expect the first time you see them is not a problem, in my opinion.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

Uniques being spoilery can be an issue, but taking 80dam in one turn for no reason other than the fact that you didn't read spoilers is fine

uh

What does it take for something to be a problem? Does it have to kill players in real life, like some kind of bad horror movie?

you should under no circumstances fight her

This is true of every good unique (Mennas, for example). And has nothing to do with why Lamia was removed.

Uniques like Jorgrun or Erolcha are much worse in this respect, since they can literally kill you upon entering LoS if you don't realize that one of your specific resists isn't high enough to fight them.

Jorgrun cannot kill the player "upon entering LOS". And Banishment being a terrible awful mechanic is not Erolcha's fault. AND it doesn't matter whether you realize that you need MR because by its very nature even MR doesn't protect against these things, so a player who enjoys being alive should make his decisions on the assumption that one turn in Erolcha's LOS will be instantly fatal, regardless of whether that possibility has a 10% chance or a 90% chance.

he is trivially harmless if he can't Petrify you

He is trivially harmless if you are carrying a scroll of teleportation.

note: for the love of god don't mess with Jorgrun he is practically perfect

[Zammy]

Uniques being spoilery can be an issue, but taking 80dam in one turn for no reason other than the fact that you didn't read spoilers is fine

uh
What does it take for something to be a problem? Does it have to kill players in real life, like some kind of bad horror movie?

It surely is not a problem if you die to a unique. If you have brains, it will only happen once.
What it would take for something to be a problem would be that the unique would allways be randomized and you had no way of learning how do deal with it.

I hardly ever read any spoilers when new monsters or uniques are added. Believe it or not, but some of us want to be suprpised every now and then.
If you really want to take all elements of surprise from crawl I just ask what will you have left?

[WalkerBoh]

Not even going to bother responding to good ol' thedefinitearticle. Changed my quote, took words out of my mouth, and completely missed the point of my arguments. Good job, 10/10, would read again.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

It surely is not a problem if you die to a unique. If you have brains, it will only happen once.

By this logic all spoilers are good and Crawl should make no effort to remove them.

[duvessa]

If you really want to take all elements of surprise from crawl I just ask what will you have left?

A test of actual player skill.

[Zammy]

If you really want to take all elements of surprise from crawl I just ask what will you have left?

A test of actual player skill.

In a game much less fun. Don't know about you, but I play for fun.
Dude, this is not chess.

[Arrhythmia]

If you really want to take all elements of surprise from crawl I just ask what will you have left?

A test of actual player skill.

In a game much less fun. Don't know about you, but I play for fun.
Dude, this is not chess.

"Crawl is designed to be a challenging game, and is also renowned for its randomness. However, this does not mean that wins are an arbitrary matter of luck: the skill of players will have the largest impact."

[Kate]

This thread probably isn't going anywhere productive at this point. Lamia is currently unlikely to return, although there have been some discussions in IRC of ideas for other Snake uniques which may or may not surface in the future.