Bone Dragon/Skeletal Warrior confusion

[roctavian]

I never considered this a problem before, but I noticed while spectating on Webtiles the other day that players who understand the "mindless undead can't follow up/down stairs" rule don't necessarily notice that skeletal warriors and bone dragons are an entirely different kind of creature. Is this clearer in ascii, as opposed to tiles? And is the ambiguity intentional? I feel like the bone dragon certainly is, particularly because it tramples you off the stairs.

Maybe this is a non-issue, but I was curious what people thought.

[Danei]

It's less confusing in ASCII, because the bone dragon glyph is D instead of Z (or z), and while skeletal warriors are still z, they are a cyan color, rather than the grey (I think) which is used for "foo skeleton[s]".

I agree, though, that it still might be confusing for players who are encountering those monsters for the first time.

I don't think it's technically a problem in need of addressing, because a player can read the monster's description (as one ought to do with any new monster) and note that it doesn't say it's incapable of using stairs.

By the way, bone dragons used to be called "skeletal dragons", and the name was changed presumably to clear up confusion over whether they were skeleton template dragons or an individual monster. Would anyone be opposed to renaming skeletal warriors to "bone knight" or something?

[Eji1700]

That sounds headache inducing.

Honestly though i'm not a huge fan of the skeletal warrior to begin with. This might just be my personal encounter, but throughout the game i have been taught that skeletons = more fragile and different resist versions of normal monsters. Then suddenly on D17 it has a health bar like a wight and hits like a truck.

[Galefury]

I think they are a fun challenge. I especially like how the polearm changes have affected them. I find myself using dispel undead to take out the polearm wielders at range, then clearing up the rest of the band with melee.

The parallel to wights should also help clear up the stairs thing. Skeletal warriors are not the earliest stair-using undead, wights are, and those are common enough. It's pretty clear that neither bone dragons nor skeletal warriors are mindless due to fleeing and weapon use.

[Danei]

The parallel to wights should also help clear up the stairs thing. Skeletal warriors are not the earliest stair-using undead, wights are, and those are common enough. It's pretty clear that neither bone dragons nor skeletal warriors are mindless due to fleeing and weapon use.

I usually run into phantoms before wights. And just to be extra nitpicky, skeletons and zombies can use weapons, too.

[Galefury]

Oops.
I know they use weapons, I just keep forgetting it because they don't show up in tiles.

[pratamawirya]

AFAIK, neither bone dragons nor skeletal warriors flee when they're badly injured. (Bone dragons used to do that prior 0.9, AFAIK.)