Expanding the Bestiary

[Davion Fuxa]

One thing I note about Crawl is that there is somewhat of a lack in variety of monsters. You generally end up fighting a lot of the same old stuff and while I'm mostly fine with that, I think it would be cool to have a few more enemies to face. So here's some off-the-head ideas, and I may try to think up or look around to discover more if forthcoming:

Raptors - A deadly and cunning predator, the Raptor is a bi-pedaled reptilian creature that features vicious claws on both hands and feet, sharp teeth, and heavy tail. Their keen senses allow it to lock in on pray, and unlike most beasts a Raptor is smart enough to know how to get around most obstacles that may be in the way.

Originally mentioned by me at least in the Felid Overhaul/Removal thread, I think Raptors would be well suited for a D:20 to D:27 monsters, or a Realm of Zot monster.

Basically, Raptors are dinosaurs that hunted in packs, and if you watched Jurassic Park or Lost World, you would know they are smart enough to know how to use a door handle or outflank a guy with a gun. They would probably move at Felid or Centaur speed, and they would feature the ability to attack you with Claws, Feet, and Teeth - (if you watch the Discovery Channel, their usually tactic of dealing with prey is to jump on them and tear at them both the claws in their hands and feet)

Animated Armour/Automaton - A full suit of armor that has been enchanted with magic to become a moving armoured warrior.

Perhaps another decent Endgame monster, or something you might find running around in the Vaults or one of its sub-branches.

I think someone suggested they would like to see this sort of enemy. Anyhow, Animated pieces of Armour are nothing new, but it would basically be akin to having a piece of Plate Armor and a Weapon that moves around; possible may include Helmets, Boots, Shoes, Capes, or Shields. Unlike Dancing Weapons it would be a very low EV enemy and act quite slow and have great defensive ability and hit points.

Potentially this could be expanded into a high level Hex spell that would allow you to animate yourself a powerful guardian - done by simply laying down components on a square and casting the spell with perhaps some additional cost (maybe some of your Max Mana or perhaps a special item)

Preying Mantis - A large insect predator, duly named for its Praying-like attitude.

A simple insect monster could be added to pester new characters before reaching the Lair. I imagine it would be like a Worker Ant except it doesn't Poison and it hitting you with slow but accurate scythe-like movements.

Bone Horror - A powerful undead abomination, pieced together from the bones of many creatures.

Think Bone Dragon except you encounter this far earlier; probably before or around you start encountering the Vaults. Basically it would be similar to Small or Large Abominations except for the fact that it is made entirely of Bone and probably nothing more then a really big roadblock that is going to yield little experience but a huge loss of your nutrition from hacking at it all day.

Brigand/Looter/Bandit/Grave Robber - Some Adventurer of a rather shady background who entered the Dungeon for one reason or another. Regardless of the reason, they wouldn't mind helping you lighten the weight of your pack.

I wouldn't mind seeing a few more Humans or some other Out-Of-Dungeon type monster running around. The unique are great to add spice but I'm sure not everything that enters the Dungeon necessarily has a name for itself. No idea where these would appears - maybe early dungeon a little after you start running into Ogres.

[nicolae]

Those are all just variations on hitting the player hard, though. The grave robber is at least different, although it just duplicates the special attack of Maurice.

[Xiphias]

Preying Mantis - A large insect predator, duly named for its Praying-like attitude.

A simple insect monster could be added to pester new characters before reaching the Lair. I imagine it would be like a Worker Ant except it doesn't Poison and it hitting you with slow but accurate scythe-like movements.

Keeping in neo-Crawl tradition of punny monsters (I looooooove orb spiders), what if this guy was sentient, had a random religion on spawn, and used that god's invocations in battle?
I wouldn't actually advocate the randomness of such an idea, especially since it eclipses the uniqueness of guys like Wiglaf, but I'm all for the proliferation of enemies who use recognizable, interesting, player-usable abilities against the player. The new death knight monsters who use Pain Mirror against you, and the berserkers in the same vault type with Brothers in Arms, and even Nergalle with her new(ish) Death's Door and Fannar with his Fridge are all memorable threats.

While I speak PURELY for myself, I think that monsters tend to be a success design-wise if they produce encounters that were uniquely memorable. Those death knights were one such enemy for me. In one game they were part of a horde that attacked me, alongside summoners who were spewing out hellions, casters who were pelting me with crap, and a melee-enemy salad. I had Shatter all lined up to flatten the crowd -- and then the death knight puts up his pain mirror. Standing there watching my HP drop turn by turn, too scared to pop the nuclear option... it was a real standout scenario for me.

(Epilogue: I Shattered anyway. It hurt -- a lot. They all died.)

[Davion Fuxa]

I don't necessarily see more variation on monsters as a bad thing; though I thought about these more so in other uses:

The Raptors I think would be a nice addition of a group enemy that could either provide a endgame snack, or provide a cunning enemy that you would have difficulty escaping from.

The Animated Armours are purely for variation where there is none existing.

The other ideas were more after-thought ideas that could be expanded on - but they basically cater to having more fluff for new players, incorporating more corporal Undead Types, and including unnamed Dungeon Raiders as opposed to only uniques.

[nicolae]

I don't necessarily see more variation on monsters as a bad thing;

Nor do I. The problem is that your proposed monsters don't really add any. They're just more things that use various unbranded melee attacks (except for Grave Robbers, which just duplicate an existing unique). They don't have any special abilities, or tactical effects, or even any spells. Look at recently-added monsters: wretched stars give you temporary mutations if you get close, moths of suppression cancel out your magical equipment, Fannar uses newly-implemented-for-monsters ice-themed spells.

[yogaFLAME]

When designing new things, come up with an interesting mechanic and then wrap some flavor around it. Rather than the other way around.

[nordetsa]

Look at recently-added monsters: wretched stars give you temporary mutations if you get close, moths of suppression cancel out your magical equipment, Fannar uses newly-implemented-for-monsters ice-themed spells.

Wait, wretched stars and moths of suppression? Where are they? I came across Fannar several times but never met the other two. Are they rare monsters that spawns mostly in ziggurat?

[nicolae]

Look at recently-added monsters: wretched stars give you temporary mutations if you get close, moths of suppression cancel out your magical equipment, Fannar uses newly-implemented-for-monsters ice-themed spells.

Wait, wretched stars and moths of suppression? Where are they? I came across Fannar several times but never met the other two. Are they rare monsters that spawns mostly in ziggurat?

They're in trunk. Wretched stars just went in, they're in the Abyss. Moths of suppression are rare, I think at the moment they only generate in Spider.

[twelwe]

Raptors - animals with a basic attack

Animated Armour/Automaton - armour with a basic attack

Preying Mantis - a simple insect monster with a basic attack but............... slower?

Bone Horror - undead with a basic attack

Brigand/Looter/Bandit/Grave Robber - human with a basic attack + stolen maurice ability

the devs have already added lots of stuff in .11 + trunk with real variety instead of just renaming basic monsters and giving them worthless flavor based on movies you watched as a kid. crawl does not lack variety - I don't know how you came to that conclusion while simultaneously thinking these deflated suggestions would `fix` the non-existent problem

[nordetsa]

How does 'canceling out magical equipments' work?

And to me it seems crawldevs really want to make spider harder. Orb spiders and ghost moth already give me nightmares

[KoboldLord]

How does 'canceling out magical equipments' work?

And to me it seems crawldevs really want to make spider harder. Orb spiders and ghost moth already give me nightmares

You still get the +10AC from the plus of your plate armour of fire resistance in addition to the base +10AC for it being plate, but the fire resistance goes away as long as you're standing inside the suppression field. The resistance comes back once you've killed the moth or escaped its area of influence.

This turns out to be not nearly as significant as it sounds. Your poison resistance goes away for a while, but you can generally lure most of the spiders inside the field away from the moth to deal with them, and you have potions of curing to deal with the last few. Theoretically suppression would be very dangerous if the moth decided to tag-team with Margery or something, but this doesn't actually happen all that often.

[roctavian]

I agree that suppression's probably not as dangerous as it sounds, but you don't have to scale up as far as Margery to imagine a nasty combo -- throw a tarantella or two into the mix, and you have a combo that players will complain about for years to come.

(By the way, I'm not suggesting that this is an unfair or even a necessarily difficult combination to deal with, but it'll look scary enough to make players panic, play badly, and die)

[crate]

Suppression is a pretty big deal. Lack of rpois is very important vs wasps, and a lot of characters use evocables to kill orb spiders or moths of wrath, which you can't do under suppression.

Also it means spider zigs went from "scary" to "terrifying". If you don't have super good melee you are in big trouble in spider zigs in 0.12, since ghost moths will drain your mp and you can't even use wands/evocables to kill things (or heal yourself, or teleport, or haste yourself) since you can't do that in suppression. My disc-of-storms drpr nearly died to a spider zig (and then later died to mummies, but we all know those are hard).

[Davion Fuxa]

First, I think I'll shortform these a bit because I think people are missing the point of what I'm suggesting; and because I didn't really expand on the concept or purpose of the enemies.

Second, part of the reasoning for why I say there is a lack of variety, is because they are spread really thin over 27 Dungeon Levels and because the Vaults feature the same enemies as the Main Dungeon, which means you get 7-8 Levels of even more of the same thing. The Bone Horror though I suggested because there is a lack of variety in corporeal undead.

Raptors - Melee Attacking Beast - Has like 3-4 Basic Attacks (Bite:Plain, Claw:Plain, Claw: Plain Talon:Plain) with perhaps Claws combined if it is felt that's too many attacks - potentially all of them or with Claws from Hands combined into one attack, or within tail), move faster then Speed 10, capable of opening doors and pushing themselves past you if space allows. Other things I was thinking was maybe making them like Duvessa and Down in terms of following you downstairs or not, either the other Raptors come with it or none of them do.

The idea behind the implementation of the Raptor would be akin to having a 'Death Yak' type of attack that won't be outleveled when your running around in the lowest depths of the Dungeon.

Animated Armour/Automaton - Enchanted Equipment - Attack Depended on Weaponry - Properties vary based on Equipment Makeup (could include branded weapons or armor). TwilightPhoenix seemed to expand on this concept to an extreme but if it was just centered around just one monster - This could make a really annoying foe that might shoot you with a Flaming Bow or it could be a really dangerous foe that could hit you with a Distortion Branded weapon - or it could be allowed to do both! The only good things about it would be that it is slow so you could try running away from it, and you get all the equipment that it is made up of.

I don't mind if it is made a Vault-only monster like what Twilight is thinking, but one of the reasons I suggested was due to the lack of Vault-themed monsters, and this seems like a nice fit as one monster that could run around in the Vault all day guarding the loot.

Preying Mantis - Giant Insect - 2 or 3 Basic Attacks (Forearms:Plain, Bite:Plain) again, Forearms could be combined or separate - Highly Accurate Attacks. Basically when fighting it, your character is going to constantly take hits regardless of its Dodge. The idea behind it is that when it gets into melee, your going to take an attack that is likely going to hit, coupled with the delay of an attack speed featured by Ogres. The idea behind this is that it would be a monster that is almost guaranteed to take off heath when it hits you, unless you can reduce the damage with Armor or a Shield.

Most of the point for this monster is providing a bit for variety with insects - ie, not every one has to be an Ant, Beetle, Wasp, or Bee.

Bone Horror - The whole point of this as stated above is to get more corporeal undead type monsters where they all seem to either be skeletons/zombies of something else or mostly incorporeal. I suppose if I was to suggest an interesting mechanic for it, it might have an automatic retaliatory function for when it gets attacked - either in the form like that of a Minotaur or Pain Mirror.

Dungeon Outsiders - I'll actually note I wasn't necessarily trying to suggest a Thief type character - though I don't think that would necessarily be a bad addition. I was thinking more along the lines of enemies you could encounter with weapon types not commonly seen early in the game - like Heavily Armored Crossbow/Longsword wielding Brigands, Light Armored Bow/Quarterstaff wielding Robin Hood Bandits.

[twelwe]

So again, your vision of `variety` is, in order, multiple attacks (unarmed aux, plentiful, already exists); branded attacks (branded attacks, plentiful, already exists); a monster that takes off health when it hits you (all attacks, already exists everywhere at every level and in every branch by every creature); retaliatory attacks like minotaurs or pain mirror (minotaurs, death knights, already exists). Your crown jewel of variety is a monster that has a staff and a bow instead of a club and sling, oh but it wears a hood. Okay I never thought of giving monsters staves. That would be very different. Crawl would be nearly unrecognizable. You could give a mantis a staff with a branded attack AND headbutt.

Did you seriously think these were new, compelling ideas jam-packed with `variety?`

[varsovie]

Nha, let staves to those Crazy Foo.

Davion, the problem with your suggestion is that for each of them I can think of at least two monster that do the same job (with more of less HP and DMG).
Hell, you even quote some of them in your suggestion (eg: give retaliate, like Minotaur... porcupine... death Knight... spiked frog...).

We do NOT want more variety just for the sack of variety. Just look how we try to diversify our existing monster by giving the tactically relevant abilities : https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5822.

That said, for your next suggestion, if you want to give a plain basic attack, then the monster need at least on ability to make him interesting and DIFFERENT from other monsters.

[JeffQyzt]

We do NOT want more variety just for the sack of variety

This is the problem. The OP does.

[some12fat2move]

We do NOT want more variety just for the sack of variety

This is the problem. The OP does.

Well I think the OP is calling for more visual/thematic variety, not mechanical variety.

[twelwe]

We do NOT want more variety just for the sack of variety

This is the problem. The OP does.

Well I think the OP is calling for more visual/thematic variety, not mechanical variety.

Yep, he is. No thanks.

[rebthor]

I think that preying mantises could be a decent low level monster that could teach new players about held status without being too deadly. It would be similar to feature mimics but much more common.

"The preying mantis grabs you with its arm. The preying mantis bites you."




Edit: s/it's/its/

[Lasty]

aka ball python?

[palin]

aka ball python?

Ball pythons constrict, which is like holding but they also inflict damage, plus they almost never do it to larger characters than small ones since otherwise they'll be too deadly, so most characters never see a python constricting them. A Mantis could hold a character regardless of size without inflicting constriction damage and show to a beginner what holding means without being overpowered.

[Davion Fuxa]

Sounds like a decent change - Held is probably more worth learning about then multiple attacks.

Though it could of course as well be made somewhat dangerous in order to perhaps teach other things. The Ball Python has a bad habit of dying quite quickly (though its constriction hurts quite a bit if left alone); something that might be different about the Mantis is that maybe by making it so that it is capable of surviving a few turns, it might hold you long enough to mean something in a dangerous outcome (like an approaching Ogre).

****

I'll note as well that I'm not just calling just for visual/thematic variety on monsters either. I'm personally looking for more variety on underused game mechanics in certain parts of the game or to allow for expansion into other areas. Originally I had through of the Preying Mantis an early monster to show off Multiple attacks, the Raptors would be a replacement for when Death Yaks got too weak, and the Dungeon Outsiders would be more about hitting you with weapons outside of the norm or rarely used when they would appear. The Animated Armour and Bone Horrors would probably moreso be around potentially being another minion you could use, which would mean they would have to be introduced (Animated Armour being something that High Level Hex Skill users could use, Bone Horrors being a strong Undead defensive shield as opposed to the offensively minded Abomination).

I don't mind new mechanics being added or even suggested, but I don't think that is a weakness in this game; the weakness is that current game mechanics aren't being used enough. We don't see Minotaurs outside of Labyrinths to show off 'retaliatory attacks', outside of the Lair the worst you can experience in 'pack fighting monsters' tends to die out once you reach the deeper levels of the dungeon. I'm the type of guy who likes to see old mechanics reused somewhat - I like the stuff that appears in the Spider's Nest, but I like the Ghost Moth's appearing their the most. Fannar's new Ice Themed spells are mostly 'meh' to me, but Fannar using 'Ice Magic' is cool and I wouldn't mind seeing more of it.

[varsovie]

Throwing net trap/Gnoll.

While I agree that some mechanism are underused, we already have a lot of "boring" content, why add more potentially boring content instead of fixing it?

Minotaur isn't the only retaliatory monster, we have the porcupine, the spiny frog, and later the hell sentinel. The porcupine can definitively be improved because actually it's never a threat, so much that his ability that differentiate it from a rat doesn't really matter.

Thematic variety won't be achieved only by adding new type of monsters. (unless you over do it with depressive future robots and falling whale) What makes a monster relevant is what it does so the player remembers it. The orc priest for its deadly smith, the hydra for the surprise first time you chop one head, death yak because how a death yak can be more deadly than a normal yak? I just don't see what would differentiate your suggestions from already existing monsters (except the automaton, but a random monster/loot seems like a bad idea...).

The raptors can be fun, dig more in the idea of a duo monster (we only have Down/Duvessa right now). Two fast hard hitting monsters, not that a threat but if you must manage his *RAGE* companion after a kill, strategies to separate them, damage or kill both will have to be used.

[palin]

Throwing net trap/Gnoll.

Yes but those comes in packs and are way more dangerous.

[nicolae]

I don't mind new mechanics being added or even suggested, but I don't think that is a weakness in this game; the weakness is that current game mechanics aren't being used enough.

Reusing game mechanics reduces variety, because instead of making the encounter unique and distinct, it just becomes Just Another God Damn Thing.

I feel like your definition of "variety" is completely orthogonal to the devs and other players' definition. If you want to introduce a monster at this point in Crawl's development, it should do something new. Using rare weapons is not actual variety. Using multiple attacks is not actual variety.

The raptors can be fun, dig more in the idea of a duo monster (we only have Down/Duvessa right now).

Did shedu get removed?

[crate]

Shedu aren't removed but the majority of players won't ever see them, so....

[nicolae]

Shedu aren't removed but the majority of players won't ever see them, so....

heaven portal vault

[varsovie]

I thought they only appeared in holy pan and zig and I'd forgot they were paired.