New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain


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Lair Larrikin

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Post Thursday, 4th July 2013, 23:57

New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

Vanessa, the Yaktaur Captain Who Would be Queen.

wiki link- https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... ew#vanessa

"A yaktaur captain with dreams of ruling all of her kind. Not content with
merely leading her pack, Vanessa has sought out magics normally outside the
ken of her people. She leads her yaktaur pack through the dungeon, looking for
victims to test out her new found translocational powers. you'll do."

Vanessa is a unique Yaktaur Captain who uses translocation spells to better leverage the strengths of a yaktaur pack. By using spells and items to blink the player away and force them to keep distance, she and her yaktaur charges are more likely to stick with what they are good at: ranged attacking. In theory the appearance of the tile would be a female armored yaktaur captain wearing the horned helmet of a would-be warlord.

With Disjunction and Blink Other Away she will bounce the player away from her (and the pack by extension) allowing them to continue to fire their bolts. Using dispersal bolts (possibly via portal projectile to always ensure clear LOS) will also keep the player off balance, potentially blinking them away (or toward) from escape routes. Disjunction should in theory mean that any blinks closer to Vanessa might end up with the player getting a shove backwards anyway. Repel Missiles on Vanessa is a possibility, but might be a bit much with a tenaciously ranged threat.

"A pack needs a good captain, and I'm the best!"

You might be thinking, "Oh god another yaktaur. I will get you" but hear me out. It adds a bit of color to what are otherwise rote Yaktaur pack encounters, provides plenty of opportunities for tactical planning as you try to deal with an ever shifting battlefield (or wear stasis). In theory she would spawn anywhere a Yaktaur pack could, with perhaps with two(+?) more depth so her pack isn't likely to be the first you find.

"I just need my personal space."

HP 120~ (A fair bit more than a normal captain)
HD 16 ?? (a bit more.)
XP ??
Speed 10
AC 5
EV 5
MR 64 (a bit more)
Attack1 30 (hit: plain) (a bit more)
Max Chunks 8
Type of Meat Clean
Resistances None
Vulnerabilities None
Habitat Land
Intelligence Normal
Uses Weapons & armour
starting equipment
Open doors
Holiness Natural
Size Big
Type yaktaur, yaktaur
Flags Fighter
Speaks
Spellcaster
Warm-blooded

"How about a long-distance relationship?"

Spell set
Slot1 Disjunction
Slot2 Blink Other Away
Slot3 Blink (ideally only when the enemy is in melee)
Slot4 (Portal Projectile? Would this work with a mob?)
Slot5 (Repel Missiles? Might be too much, and out of theme with translocations.)
Slot6

Always comes equipped with a sometimes-branded crossbow, dispersal branded ammo (even though bolts normally cannot be dispersal branded) and a spiked or winged helmet that has a decent chance to be magical. Vanessa is always accompanied by a pack of normal yaktaurs armed like a normal yaktaur pack.

"Personal Space! Personal Space!"

(For the name itself, I picked a V-name because there were no uniques I noticed starting with a V. I went with female because the only male V names I thought of didn't feel like a fit.)
Last edited by Ramc on Sunday, 7th July 2013, 16:09, edited 1 time in total.

Vestibule Violator

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Post Friday, 5th July 2013, 11:29

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

So she's kind of like Nessos?

Lair Larrikin

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Post Friday, 5th July 2013, 11:49

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

Nessos is to a Centaur Warrior as Vanessa is to a Yaktaur Captain. It's a fair comparison. The means are a little different of course. Nessos gets his damage output through poisoned flame arrows whereas the proposed unique gets it from a posse and trying to keep you out of melee with it. It would be a deeper D version, although it might be easier to get into melee with Vanessa than with Nessos, as some of the spells used to keep you at a distance target you, not herself, giving you a shot at resisting/ignoring them depending on your eq setup.

Tomb Titivator

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Post Friday, 5th July 2013, 19:00

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

I think that a high HD high damage ranged combatant endgame unique with disjunction and, say, yaktaur captain band, could actually defend it's place (of course the disjunction had be the kind that only affects the player and not the pact of yaktaur captains). There are not a whole lot of monsters nor uniques with that kind of threat to melee characters. High level high AC melee characters pretty much tank even stone giant's large rocks (at least if fighting monsters one on one which you should do).

Nessos has the blink range which affects the caster, disjunction would affect the one being casted at. Of course, in practise these effects would not probably be that much different. However, I think that comparing the two on the basis of both being ranged combatants is pretty stupid: there more than one melee combatant unique that cast confuse and paralyse, there more than one early game unique that cast throw flame etc. If Nessos is early game-early midgame unique, then this could be endgame unique with a band of murderous fellows and a new monster version of the spell disjunction.

Then again, if with all that blinking going on, this could also be a really annoying encounter for melee characters. The spellist needs work. What if she had sentinels mark and discjunction? That way if you try to escape, they wil find you anyways (or at least increase their chances) :mrgreen:.

Edit. boatload of horrible typos.
Last edited by Mankeli on Friday, 5th July 2013, 21:43, edited 1 time in total.

Halls Hopper

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Post Friday, 5th July 2013, 19:46

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

Ramc wrote:Vanessa, the Yaktaur Captain Who Would be Queen.

Galefury wrote:So she's kind of like Nessos?


Oh, and can we have a flock of little yaktaur uniques?...
They could even be a mix of the two...

Well, this tavern really is a nice place to leave some ideas,
I need a drink....
Even with TabO alone Tiles player get a feeling of Console.
There is no mouse in crawl;
Hit ?? ingame!

Lair Larrikin

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Post Friday, 5th July 2013, 21:29

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

Mankeli wrote:I think that a high HD high damage ranged combatant endgame unique with disjunction and, say, yaktaur captain band, could actually defend it's place


I felt that a pack of yaktaur captains might be overkill. They really hit like a truck. Also it would be kind of weird to have an entire team of captains (unless this is Dungeon X-Com).

Nessos has the blink range which affects the caster, disjunction would affect the one being casted at. Of course, in practise these effects would not probably be thatmuch different.


Effects hitting the player are subject to MR and/or Stasis. Ideally the yaktaur pack is not getting blinked away by disjunction in this case, else what is the point?

Then again, if with all that blinking going on, this could also be a really annoying encounter for melee characters. The spellist needs work. What if she had sentinels mark and discjunction? That way if you try to escape, they wil find you anyways (or at least increase their chances) :mrgreen:.


Sentinel's Mark is probably overkill as well. Widening the spell list to include spells like slow or Leda's could make mundane escape a little harder, though not a fan of Leda's.
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Zot Zealot

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Post Friday, 5th July 2013, 21:34

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

Ramc wrote:Dungeon X-Com



Please let this, somewhere, be a thing.
I am sure I played flawflessly. This was an utmost unfair death. -- gorbeh

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prozacelf

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Post Friday, 5th July 2013, 21:54

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

Ramc wrote:Effects hitting the player are subject to MR and/or Stasis. Ideally the yaktaur pack is not getting blinked away by disjunction in this case, else what is the point?

This is excatly what I meant but as I re-read my post it had two pretty critical typos on it (wrote that on a train). I now edited it to (distantly) resemble the English language.

Overkill or not, I feel that this would had to be an endgame unique so you could add some stuff to further differentiate it from Nessos. I also don't think that a pack of captains is any weirder than a yaktaur queen or yaktaurs themselves :D.

Lair Larrikin

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Post Friday, 5th July 2013, 22:10

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

Well Polythemus hangs around with Death Yaks and Lamia has greater nagas, so if devs decide to implement this and want yaktaur captains they can go hog wild. Incidentally a vault that has several posse-having uniques in it would be a fantastic mess.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Saturday, 6th July 2013, 01:14

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

I'd be very hesitant to add Disjunction to a monster, particularly a ranged one. It would make her mostly immune to melee.
Giving her teleport other in the escape slot might be a more reasonable choice.

Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Saturday, 6th July 2013, 01:49

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

brendan wrote:I'd be very hesitant to add Disjunction to a monster, particularly a ranged one. It would make her mostly immune to melee.
Giving her teleport other in the escape slot might be a more reasonable choice.


moth of disjunction

Lair Larrikin

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Post Saturday, 6th July 2013, 02:04

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

brendan wrote:I'd be very hesitant to add Disjunction to a monster, particularly a ranged one. It would make her mostly immune to melee.
Giving her teleport other in the escape slot might be a more reasonable choice.


I wouldn't want the monster to be mostly immune to melee, I just want getting into melee to be very tricky to the point where just charging forward is a bad idea. If Disjunction on a monster would make it nigh-impossible to close without stasis, I am totally fine with blink-other-away, dispersal ammo and teleport other in a pinch. (A first draft of the idea was to have the entire posse equipped with dispersal ammo. While potentially hilarious, it seemed like just too much blinking)\

nicolae wrote:moth of disjunction


I'm waiting for the moth lair branch.

Lair Larrikin

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Post Saturday, 6th July 2013, 02:48

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

Well yes. I don't need to tell you the best way to take a bite out of the lethality of a yaktaur pack is to get into melee range somehow. In this case the idea is that getting (and staying) there is harder.

Swamp Slogger

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Post Saturday, 6th July 2013, 12:17

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

Ramc wrote:...
Slot4 (Portal Projectile? Would this work with a mob?)
...


Alas this is not a monster spell (yet), I wanted to use it for a Chei floor of a zig. So currently it won't work at all. would be good if it could though.

Lair Larrikin

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Post Saturday, 6th July 2013, 14:08

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

Grandiloquent Gentleman wrote:Alas this is not a monster spell (yet), I wanted to use it for a Chei floor of a zig. So currently it won't work at all. would be good if it could though.


Too bad. I was concerned the yaktaur pack would end up screening the player from the leader's line of fire.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Saturday, 6th July 2013, 14:21

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

Grandiloquent Gentleman wrote:Alas [Portal Projectile] is not a monster spell (yet)

I did write an implementation for monster Portal Projectile a long time ago; essentially, it's not around because we don't have a use for it at present.

Lair Larrikin

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Post Saturday, 6th July 2013, 15:50

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

sgrunt wrote:I did write an implementation for monster Portal Projectile a long time ago; essentially, it's not around because we don't have a use for it at present.


Well good. I like the idea of smite-targetting dispersal bolts to pop the PC away from their meat shields (be the meat shields yaktaurs or a wall of summons).

Bim

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Post Sunday, 7th July 2013, 20:11

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

I'm sick of how easy and nannying crawl has become. The devs have become too soft.

Irresistible Paralysis, blink away, red poison arrows and summon greater demons. And hellfire.
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Halls Hopper

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Post Tuesday, 9th July 2013, 16:27

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

Ramc wrote:
Mankeli wrote:I think that a high HD high damage ranged combatant endgame unique with disjunction and, say, yaktaur captain band, could actually defend it's place


I felt that a pack of yaktaur captains might be overkill. They really hit like a truck. Also it would be kind of weird to have an entire team of captains (unless this is Dungeon X-Com).


I love this idea. Give the vaults a team of unique yaktaur, each with a randomly generated name, all set up to flee through one another and heal safely as soon as they take any damage, call it team yaktics.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Tuesday, 9th July 2013, 20:33

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

A pack of dispersal arrow monsters does not blink the player around randomly; that many hits and you'll be banished to the abyss. Without an MR check. Not a fan of this concept, although the unique is otherwise good.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Tuesday, 9th July 2013, 20:37

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

I really like this idea. It's brutal and cruel but I like it.

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Post Tuesday, 9th July 2013, 20:39

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

tasonir wrote:A pack of dispersal arrow monsters does not blink the player around randomly; that many hits and you'll be banished to the abyss. Without an MR check. Not a fan of this concept, although the unique is otherwise good.

Dispersal is not distortion

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Lair Larrikin

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Post Tuesday, 9th July 2013, 22:53

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

rosstin wrote:I really like this idea. It's brutal and cruel but I like it.


Crawl is nothing if not cruel. Worse still it convinces you anything bad it does to you is your fault somehow. (it is.) And as the above post says, dispersal is the ammo brand that blinks you (no-save I am fairly sure) if you are hit by the projectile. Normally it appears to only be on arrows. Being on bolts for this mob would be a unique case.

I also added a link to the discussion wiki in the original post where I more or less put the important parts of the proposal.

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Post Thursday, 11th July 2013, 22:57

Re: New Unique Idea: Vanessa, Tloc Yaktaur Captain

some12fat2move wrote:
tasonir wrote:A pack of dispersal arrow monsters does not blink the player around randomly; that many hits and you'll be banished to the abyss. Without an MR check. Not a fan of this concept, although the unique is otherwise good.

Dispersal is not distortion

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