evilmike wrote:Thanks for the vaults, this always helps with making a branch more interesting. One thing that there could be more of is minivaults - there are currently a lot of "normal" vaults (ones with ORIENT line) but not a lot of minivaults.
I'll give it a shot.
The new moth enemy should change things up a bit, although it won't be super common. I also think there is room for another ranged/"caster" enemy, but I currently have no ideas. Maybe some kind of summoner, but that gives me nightmares of ADOM...
I had a couple ranged ideas.
1) A "lasso spider", similar to the spitting/bola spider ideas. It throws a wad of sticky web on the end of a long string at you, and if it hits, instead of doing damage, you're "lassoed", which is a combination of mesmerized and (damageless) constriction. The spider reels you in while you struggle to get free, and until you break the hold, using the same mechanics as breaking strong constriction, you can't move away from the spider. Then when you're right next to it, it bites you with big pointy fangs and venom happens, etc. Getting lassoed could be combined with other ideas, like web ensnarement or slowing.
2) Harvestmen spiders aren't technically even spiders, and are pretty harmless; they don't even have venom. But Crawl can take the name and crank it up a bit; harvester spiders aren't venomous but they have massive scythe-shaped fangs, and much like other scythes in Crawl, the scythe fangs of harvester spiders have reaching, though reaching isn't quite the same as ranged.
3) Bombardier beetles spray hot chemicals at attackers; a Crawl version could spray at you, doing fire damage and possibly a small chance of corrosion damage. When killed, the volatile chemicals go "boom" and the beetle explodes as if Inner Flamed. (It's not a spider, though.)
A few non-casting/ranged ideas, but I wanted to get them out of my head. I tried to make these more tactical.
1) In a branch where most things are susceptible to poison, I wanted to think up some ideas to make venom/poison attacks less of a super obvious choice. But just giving things poison immunity is boring. So I tried to think of ideas where a monster isn't immune to poison, but becomes worse for the player while poisoned.
One idea: a spider which has evolved an ingenious way to deal with foreign toxins, by using those toxins in its bite. When non-poisoned, its bite delivers a mild poison, which can be resisted with rPois, similar to every other poison attack. However, when poisoned, its bite becomes worse: it delivers irresistible strong poison, and on a successful strong-poison bite it has a 50/50 chance of curing itself of poison. The more the spider is poisoned, the more deadly its bite becomes, perhaps eventually even causing rotting or stat drain. There isn't a real world analogue to it, exactly.
Another idea was to have something bad happen when a poisoned monster dies, but the only thing I could think of was making poison clouds, which would probably turn out to backfire in the player's favor in the Spider's Nest.
2) Ants sometimes farm aphids, which are little insects which eat sap and produce a nectar which the ants drink. Some colonies of ants have specialized ants called repletes, which drink up nectar until their abdomens are distended and transparent, and cling to the walls of the nest serving as living bottles. Either way, the idea of having a monster in the nest devoted entirely to feeding other members of the nest was interesting to me. Aphids (or replete ant, or even a replete spider, or whatever) use the keep-distance AI, and have pathetic attacks. However, any arthropod next to an aphid can "drink" from it on their turn, healing damage, so you'd want to kill the aphids as soon as possible.
Oh god, IVAN...