CPTANT wrote:Good nothing else will meaningfully hurt you.
This is the explanation IMHO. If player didn't die in Depths, Vaults:5 and Zot, we clearly see that monsters just cannot kill PC in a conventional way.
Why aren't there actually powerful monsters in sufficient quantity that attack the player in another way?
You are welcome to suggest those. If they are interesting, they might be added to non-optional branches like Depths or Zot.
Why aren't there powerful monsters that cast spells like firestorm and glaciate to attack the player?
Do you think this is interesting? Such spells make positioning almost irrelevant. By the way do you like fighting Lom Lobon with its Glaciate, Tornado, CBL, Blink Range, Major Healing and immunity to Silence? When you can do nothing except hope it will not cast the spells in the most efficient way it can and you reset the fight by teleporting away until you are lucky with Lom Lobom's spell sequence (if you insist on killing it which is a mistake for many characters).
Why aren't there powerful monsters with debuffs like screen wide slows or silence?
It will lead to even more luring and pack-splitting which is arguably bad.
Why aren't there monsters that are actually a threat in melee to a xp27 melee character?
Because DCSS does not have explicit difficulty levels, heavy armour is OP and GDR should not exist. Or just try FeBe of Trog, especially in extended
Something radical is simply needed or the extended portion of the game will never see improvement.
I am not sure. I am terribly scared by extended with most characters (I don't play TSO/Zin/Ely). There are ziggurats if you need a challenge. It's weird to see people using the most powerful combos and at the same time complaining about game being too easy. You can always limit your options like don't use heavy armour, ranged weapons or spells.