Monsters`s remains and actions in death


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Halls Hopper

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Post Thursday, 17th January 2013, 18:41

Monsters`s remains and actions in death

I have the concept of increasing number of remains of various monsters.
For example:

1. Every good clown should give you a present. Killer Klowns might remain "presents" items (a box wrapped by the ribbon) after death. It generally works as a deck of card - you may or may not open it (evoke). Here`s the exemplary actions of opening the "gift":

=> Bad action:
- it explodes (= scroll of immolation),
- it enfulgs poison/miasma (= gas trap),
- it makes a loud noise (= scroll of noise)
- it contains a monster inside (preferably another clown).

=> Good actions:
- contains some loot (10-30 gold),
- contains some food (preferably a piece of ambrosia or a honeycomb, instead of the cake that typical present should contain),
- contains a potion (preferably a porridge one).

=> Neutral/nearly neutral actions:
- it`s empty,
- it contains rotting chunk,
- it contains useless/nearly useless potion (water, poison, decay, etc).

2. Golden dragons - should leave some small amount of gold.

3. Brain Worm and Giant Orange Brain - there is a slight chance (like 0.5-1% of times), that it leaves potion of gain intelligence.

4. There`s a slight chance (0.5-1%), that Titan will leave Potion of Gain Strength.

5. All rotting monsters - there`s a chance, that, when dies, they will release a cloud of miasma.

6. Moth of Wrath - there is some chance, that it leaves potion of berserk.

7. Hell Hog, Hell Hound - these animals can explode when getting killed.

8. Angels - there is a slight chance (0.5-1%), that they will leave Scroll of Holy Word.

9. Some demonic creature (Hell Knights?) - there`s a slight chance, that they will leave Scroll of Torment.

10. Monsters, that leaves weaker or stronger monsters after death (or that there is a chance they will). For example killing Profane Servitor might "release" a regular angel; killing Kraken might release some Octopedes on its place, etc.
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Barkeep

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Post Thursday, 17th January 2013, 18:50

Re: Monsters`s remains and actions in death

Generally, meh. Monsters shouldn't, IMO, transmute into objects they wouldn't use upon death. This ain't no Final Fantasy ;)

Especially regarding Killer Klowns: when I'm taking them on, there is approximately zero chance I care about anything that is going to drop in the game anymore except the Orb. Maybe a honeycomb or maybe miasma? No question: leave that box alone.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 17th January 2013, 18:53

Re: Monsters`s remains and actions in death

I'm afraid that farmable consumables is mighty close to 'permanent bonuses from eating corpses', which is explicitly on the Will Not Do list. If you can get permanent intelligence bonuses from killing orange brains, for instance, this presents an unreasonable incentive to farm additional orange brains in order to max out this bonus. Since farming up additional orange brains is a most horribly tedious procedure, probably involving extended stays in the Abyss, it is undesirable to offer a moderate permanent bonus in exchange for extended horrible grinding.

Similarly, scrolls of holy word or torment are pretty valuable loot for Ziggurat raiding, and anybody who wants to go Ziggurat raiding would have very strong incentive to farm the Holy Pan level for a good long while to get a large supply of scrolls. This would be bad. Torment scrolls would be easier to get, because you could just farm Hell Effects for those, but that would still be unreasonably tedious.
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Slime Squisher

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Post Thursday, 17th January 2013, 19:21

Re: Monsters`s remains and actions in death

adamo901 wrote:7. Hell Hog, Hell Hound - these animals can explode when getting killed.


To see how this would work out during gameplay, cast inner flame on a war dog you find and desperately try to kill it before it gets within melee range. (not very fun).
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Thursday, 17th January 2013, 19:46

Re: Monsters`s remains and actions in death

This could be a good idea if it was on-death effects rather than on-death bonus items.

Say...

1. Chaos clouds on death

2. No

3. Leaves a corpse that, when the chunks are eaten, gives temporary, possibly weaker, brilliance. Or randomly hits you with brilliance on death. Or leaves "clouds of brilliance"

4. See 3, except replace brilliance with might

5. Sounds fine

6. Could randomly hit something in LOS with berserk or leave "clouds of rage"

7. Sounds fine. Sure, Inner Flamed War Dogs are annoying, but these are usually late game threats, with Hellhounds occasionally showing up in very small numbers as a Lair:8 "boss"

8. Doesn't TSO already fling his wrath around at stuff that kills Angels?

9. Casting Torment on death is more of a mummy's shtick really. "Clouds of pain" or something could be interesting though, but probably redundant

10. A neat idea, but I'm not sure which monsters in-game would have good flavor for this at the moment.
The best strategy most frequently overlooked by new players for surviving: not starting a fight to begin with.
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Halls Hopper

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Post Friday, 18th January 2013, 01:31

Re: Monsters`s remains and actions in death

Ok, at least points 1, 5 and 7 are worth to discuss (reasuming: there`s a chance, that dying monster of certain type will either explode or leave a cloud of chaos or miasma; or will leave other "surprises" like these mentioned). It doesn`t have to happen every time. It doesn`t even have to happen 10% of times (because it would disturb the balance of difficulty proportions between ranged casters and melee fighters). The only thing that counts, is the constant threat sensed by the player. In reality, it doesn`t have to be an actual threat, but it has to be sensed by a player as a big threat (just like exploring shoals with non-swimming character, where you always feel constant threat of drowning because of a sudden mesmerising by a mermaid).

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 18th January 2013, 01:37

Re: Monsters`s remains and actions in death

adamo901 wrote:(just like exploring shoals with non-swimming character, where you always feel constant threat of drowning because of a sudden mesmerising by a mermaid).

This is actually impossible unless you are flying.
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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Friday, 18th January 2013, 05:41

Re: Monsters`s remains and actions in death

Wasn't it one of the reason fulsome distillation was removed (the others being OP and tedious)?

And if you want to Russian roulette the cadavers, there is mutagenic corps and all the hide/armor system already in place. Not counting Gods and Necromancy.

For the part about effect upon death it's more interesting, one of my favorite foo in Crawl is the giant spore, sometime it can "instakill" you, or be the only thing that saves you.

Of course those bad effect should remain different from mummies death curses, and not too common.

Sar

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 18th January 2013, 06:20

Re: Monsters`s remains and actions in death

adamo901 wrote:killing Kraken might release some Octopedes on its place

why

Spider Stomper

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Post Friday, 18th January 2013, 06:33

Re: Monsters`s remains and actions in death

To this day I'm still a little sour that they made weapon orbs drop at an absurdly low rate on the mana fortress.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Friday, 18th January 2013, 12:48

Re: Monsters`s remains and actions in death

I thought of a few ideas along these lines (more varied monster actions on death), and though it seems interesting and like it could add depth, it also carries significant risk of encouraging degenerate behavior. For example, if an enemy spawns another enemy upon death, you would always want to kill that enemy last, in order to control the number of opponents you face at a time. If a monster explodes on death, you might want to kite it into the middle of a group before you kill it (cf ballistomycetes). The item stuff is obvious of course.

On the other hand, if you construct this feature so that it's a choice for players, then it's interesting. I'd like to see a monster that does something horrible that you want to shut down fast (e.g. smite targets or torments or something) but spawns something undesirable and dangerous for different reasons on death (e.g. executioners or something).

I think there's plenty of room for interesting effects-on-death -- but I think it's best to consider them as part of a set of several consequences (kill it now, kill it later, kill it in different circumstances) so as to prevent degenerate play.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 18th January 2013, 17:00

Re: Monsters`s remains and actions in death

There are already monsters that leave damaging clouds behind on death (simulacru) and there are ways to turn corpses into damaging clouds (corpse rot, ignite poison). In the Inception merge we got lurking horrors, which "explode" on death with LOS torment. If we're not going to update a few monsters to leave clouds on death because it might encourage degenerate behavior, we need to look at the monsters that already do that and remove those effects.

Edit: draining effect removed
Last edited by BlackSheep on Saturday, 19th January 2013, 02:36, edited 1 time in total.
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Saturday, 19th January 2013, 02:28

Re: Monsters`s remains and actions in death

I don't think that's a problem. I've not heard about about people luring spores into large groups of monsters. It sounds pretty dangerous, to be honest, especially since spores are faster than most players. Much safer just to throw a rock at it and save yourself the risk.

Same can be said for cloud generating monsters, such as simulacrums and efreets. Or even fire crabs.
The best strategy most frequently overlooked by new players for surviving: not starting a fight to begin with.

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Wednesday, 23rd January 2013, 18:14

Re: Monsters`s remains and actions in death

I have had monsters blindly follow an efreet that I was leading into a corridor to fight one-on-one. But I wouldn't leave an efreet alive just to create flame clouds for other monsters to walk through.
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