Remove river rats

[Arrhythmia]

Or place them on an appropriate dungeon level where they aren't total chaff, rather than lair. They're the most do-nothing time filler enemy in the game.

[Sprucery]

Or maybe make them faster so that they can swarm you and block your escape from more dangerous foes.

[Leszczynek]

River rats in sewers are decently strong opponents, usually.

[Lacuenta]

Or place them on an appropriate dungeon level where they aren't total chaff, rather than lair. They're the most do-nothing time filler enemy in the game.

Same for flocks of sheep they're just behehad.

[le_nerd]

river rats+sheep do have a purpose: allowing weaker characters to level up a bit in lair, instead of having to deal with hydras, blink frogs and black mambas.

My octopodes are always delighted to find many river rats on L:1-3.

[Sprucery]

Well, you have to kill 35 river rats to get the same exp as from one black mamba. In my last 5 victories I've killed from 30 to 100 river rats per game, so I don't think you can really level up on them. Sheep are a bit better, as they give double the exp compared to river rats.

If river rats aren't going to be buffed, they could be removed and half that much additional sheep generated instead. If exp bags must exist, bigger ones are better :)

e: then also make sheep amphibious and rename them hippos

[Arrhythmia]

Or place them on an appropriate dungeon level where they aren't total chaff, rather than lair. They're the most do-nothing time filler enemy in the game.

Same for flocks of sheep they're just behehad.

Actually, sheep are an insanely cool and good monster, because you can sticky flame them, and they should stay.

[KoboldLord]

Rats should be able to merge into rat swarms, like slime creatures only more statistically linear. They're the size of rats; they should not be restricted to one per tile. Attract the attention of a rat swarm, and you're taking on the whole thing regardless of whatever choke point you thought you had.

River rats would probably still be too weak for most of Lair, but at least they could potentially have a home even earlier than that.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

green rat
large green rat
very large green rat
enormous green rat
titanic green rat
sounds like a good way to introduce a mechanic in the early game, where it's more a side effect than the main deal, so that you're less likely to be blindsided by slime creatures later, just like how plain jellies introduce players to corrosion.

[chequers]

Give green rats their poison bite back, except make it a special attack flavour where being bitten by lots of green rats in a turn gives even the strongest player significant poison DoT, but being bitten by one at a time is trivial.

[ydeve]

Give green rats their poison bite back, except make it a special attack flavour where being bitten by lots of green rats in a turn gives even the strongest player significant poison DoT, but being bitten by one at a time is trivial.

This would make them even more annoying while not being any more dangerous.

[genericpseudonym]

Well, you have to kill 35 river rats to get the same exp as from one black mamba. In my last 5 victories I've killed from 30 to 100 river rats per game, so I don't think you can really level up on them. Sheep are a bit better, as they give double the exp compared to river rats.

If river rats aren't going to be buffed, they could be removed and half that much additional sheep generated instead. If exp bags must exist, bigger ones are better

e: then also make sheep amphibious and rename them hippos

Hippos are huge and violent (when disturbed). If you're gonna add hippos they need to be like elephant-strength. Maybe harder-hitting but less durable.

[Psieye]

Actually, sheep are an insanely cool and good monster, because you can sticky flame them, and they should stay.

Can we have Hell Sheep that self-ignite?

[Arrhythmia]

Actually, sheep are an insanely cool and good monster, because you can sticky flame them, and they should stay.

Can we have Hell Sheep that self-ignite?

Absolutely.

[Siegurt]

Actually, sheep are an insanely cool and good monster, because you can sticky flame them, and they should stay.

Can we have Hell Sheep that self-ignite?

Absolutely.

They should self sticky flame and self inner fire, actually that'd make for a good goblin sapper mob, except too nasty for goblin levels

[Quazifuji]

green rat
large green rat
very large green rat
enormous green rat
titanic green rat
sounds like a good way to introduce a mechanic in the early game, where it's more a side effect than the main deal, so that you're less likely to be blindsided by slime creatures later, just like how plain jellies introduce players to corrosion.

I feel like the main thing that blindsides people about slime creates is that the scaling isn't linear, so a titanic slime is vastly more dangerous than the sum of the individual slimes that it is composed of. If you made green rat swarms scale linearly as suggested, then they might actually serve as a terrible introduction to the slime create mechanic, because they would mislead players into underestimating the larger slime creatures.

[duvessa]

...The scaling for slime creatures is linear.

[Shtopit]

River rats work well in sewers, but have nothing special in the Lair, and I also find them kinda boring. Maybe they could inflict sickness?
There could also be some "wailing rat" or somesuch that can hasten the others, and call in bigger, badder foes while the PC is swamped by little rats.

[ydeve]

River rats work well in sewers, but have nothing special in the Lair, and I also find them kinda boring. Maybe they could inflict sickness?
There could also be some "wailing rat" or somesuch that can hasten the others, and call in bigger, badder foes while the PC is swamped by little rats.

sickness - what is it with people wanting to take an annoying and trivial monster and make it even more annoying while keeping it just as trivial.
wailing rat - if you want to add howler monkey packs in Lair just add howler monkey packs!

[Arrhythmia]

god, jesus, don't add sickness to river rats, what the hell, that fixes none of the problems and only adds new ones

[duvessa]

welcome to crawl where meaningless status effects and melee attack flavours are the default ways to make things "interesting", and Drain is used like Red Green uses duct tape

[Shtopit]

Uh... add a bunch of ranged spitting cobras who cause blindness, as wearing 2 to 4 amulets of inaccuracy and a penalty to EV and SH, with antennae halving the penalty?

[Arrhythmia]

or remove river rats instead, please

[PleasingFungus]

welcome to crawl where meaningless status effects and melee attack flavours are the default ways to make things "interesting", and Drain is used like Red Green uses duct tape

hm, it seems i have found myself in the Salt Dimension, instead

[yesno]

River rats work well in sewers, but have nothing special in the Lair, and I also find them kinda boring. Maybe they could inflict sickness?
There could also be some "wailing rat" or somesuch that can hasten the others, and call in bigger, badder foes while the PC is swamped by little rats.

sickness - what is it with people wanting to take an annoying and trivial monster and make it even more annoying while keeping it just as trivial.
wailing rat - if you want to add howler monkey packs in Lair just add howler monkey packs!

yes, plus for enemies that are just as trivial as green rats, but more annoying, we already have porcupines

[Sar]

fr: porcupine swarms

[pubby]

This is a river rat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coypu

[duvessa]

This is a river rat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coypu

not australian, post reported

[ydeve]

This is a river rat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coypu

not australian, post reported

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakali

[infinitevox]

Rats should be able to merge into rat swarms, like slime creatures only more statistically linear. They're the size of rats; they should not be restricted to one per tile. Attract the attention of a rat swarm, and you're taking on the whole thing regardless of whatever choke point you thought you had.

River rats would probably still be too weak for most of Lair, but at least they could potentially have a home even earlier than that.

Dennis the Rat King.

[adozu]

...The scaling for slime creatures is linear.

in that each size is twice as powerful than the previous one, sure, but if you think about the individual components they actually scale as 2^(slimes-1).

[goodcoolguy]

Dude, it's not nonlinear. The damage only seems nonlinear because damage reduction from ac frequently zeros out hits with low damage rolls.

[Arrhythmia]

...The scaling for slime creatures is linear.

in that each size is twice as powerful than the previous one, sure, but if you think about the individual components they actually scale as 2^(slimes-1).

No, it's linear. Damage is 22 * (slimes), HP is (45 - 77) * slimes. What are you talking about?

[KoboldLord]

Whether it is a good idea or a bad one, the idea is that rat swarms would offensively scale like a hydra with N heads. Multiple attacks that all check defenses, not one really huge attack that deals enormous damage if you fail one defensive roll. The swarm would work like a combination of both hydra code and slime thing code, since they'd merge and split like slime things but would attack like a hydra and would have individual members of the swarm killed if enough damage is dealt.

Still not strong enough for Lair, but there are a couple Sewer portals where rat swarms might actually be interesting.

[duvessa]

Wouldn't giving the sewers more open terrain accomplish the same thing?

[Arrhythmia]

Whether it is a good idea or a bad one, the idea is that rat swarms would offensively scale like a hydra with N heads. Multiple attacks that all check defenses, not one really huge attack that deals enormous damage if you fail one defensive roll. The swarm would work like a combination of both hydra code and slime thing code, since they'd merge and split like slime things but would attack like a hydra and would have individual members of the swarm killed if enough damage is dealt.

Still not strong enough for Lair, but there are a couple Sewer portals where rat swarms might actually be interesting.

I think gammafunk and mumra were working on something like this for a while, but ended up scrapping the idea (because mumra died got a job).

[goodcoolguy]

If I understand the idea correctly, it sounds like the rats would act as if they can move through each other (if that's not exactly what people are saying, let's pretend it is). As it stands, river rats are heavily limited by space and turn considerations. Even in the open, they take a lot of turns moving to get around each other and surround the player. There is almost always a lot of them in a pack that spend most of the encounter not attacking. This swarming stuff would totally change that. Combined with the usual pack AI, they would get surrounds much more readily in the open as well. I think they'd be pretty dangerous to a lot of characters.

[Shtopit]

The ability of fitting in a single square could be added to all tiny monsters, as long as they are of the same kind. Or maybe not, since killer bees are terrifying enough as they are. But such an ability would be useful for weak pack monsters (bats, flying skulls, rats...)

[Dracunos]

If I understand the idea correctly, it sounds like the rats would act as if they can move through each other (if that's not exactly what people are saying, let's pretend it is). As it stands, river rats are heavily limited by space and turn considerations. Even in the open, they take a lot of turns moving to get around each other and surround the player. There is almost always a lot of them in a pack that spend most of the encounter not attacking. This swarming stuff would totally change that. Combined with the usual pack AI, they would get surrounds much more readily in the open as well. I think they'd be pretty dangerous to a lot of characters.

I dunno, the way slimes work (which is what most if this idea's mechanics are coming from), for some reason they don't really combine all that readily. For the most part when they are chasing the player they act like any other pack animal, stumbling past and over each other slowly trying to get to the player.. Occasionally, slimes will combine, and un-combine instead, but the vast majority of my personal experience is they take the time to surround you first, then usually while you're fighting them they'll combine once in a while. When you try to corridor them, or limit their space, however, then they will most certainly group together much more quickly. I'm not the most experienced with midgame enemies I'll admit, I'd like to hear if anyone else's experiences are different.

Personally, I don't really see a need for sprucing up the rats.. So what, there are occasional swarms of rats in the lair branch. They don't offer any challenge. That fact alone makes them different, adds some variability to the opponents you face in the branch, imo. I don't get why every single thing in the game needs to be extremely impactful to be meaningful and add to the game. Obviously it's the kinda thing that appeals to newer people more than the vet that has killed a million pointless rats.

I've killed enough rats, though, do with them what you will. :p

[Reptisaurus]

I've had squishy casters who at least need to seriously reposition when a swarm of river rats come. They can certainly increase the danger from other monsters just by blocking a lot of spaces.

And they are a potential boon to vampiric/Mahklebian axe wielders.

I liked 'em better when they were green rats, though.

[duvessa]

you people do realize that slime creatures were actually more dangerous back when they didn't merge, right?

[Shard1697]

I don't remember that, there's a good chance I didn't play back then or just didn't get far usually then. I'd imagine the same goes for other people.
When did they get the ability to merge?

[duvessa]

0.6

[Shard1697]

Yeah, I'd imagine the majority of people haven't been playing that long... I feel like I've been playing crawl for a huge amount of time and I only started at 0.13

[duvessa]

well, you can just look at current slime creatures and how they behave, and realize that they would be more dangerous without merging

[Shard1697]

I'll take your word for it but I don't find them dangerous whether they choose to merge or not

[genericpseudonym]

well, you can just look at current slime creatures and how they behave, and realize that they would be more dangerous without merging

Except that slime creatures mostly spawn in D/U and not Lair. And D/U have no shortage of single-tile chokepoints, which basically trivialize any pack of speed 10 melee-only enemies. Either you can fight them all one at a time in which case you do so, or you can't so you must run away -- but if you go through a corridor only one will be able to stay in melee range in order to follow you when you go up a staircase.

[Arrhythmia]

well, you can just look at current slime creatures and how they behave, and realize that they would be more dangerous without merging

Except that slime creatures mostly spawn in D/U and not Lair. And D/U have no shortage of single-tile chokepoints, which basically trivialize any pack of speed 10 melee-only enemies. Either you can fight them all one at a time in which case you do so, or you can't so you must run away -- but if you go through a corridor only one will be able to stay in melee range in order to follow you when you go up a staircase.

You can run away from slime creatures because they waste their turns merging instead of chasing you, is what this cryptic minmayism is supposed to be. I'm sorry you failed this koan, maybe one day you'll achieve enlightenment.

[TonberryJam]

if green rats spawn, make cheese spawn so they don't go hungry and die.

[genericpseudonym]

if green rats spawn, make cheese spawn so they don't go hungry and die.

FR: Bring back cheese and honeycomb as "fruit" tiles. Also do that with royal jelly. And turn beef jerky into a pizza topping.