The boss for Spider's Nest. The name is a nod to Linley Henzell's shoot-em up Transdimensional Hellspider.
You need to “kill” it five times, each for every level of Spider's Nest.
Staircases down are lightgray until you do so, trying to descend says it is “blocked with webs”. No shafts are generated as well, and neither chaos weapons can shaft you. Killing the TDHS causes a minor earthquake, opening stairs and, just for flavour, creates a few shafts as well.
The first four times you defeat it, instead of “You kill the TDHS.”, you get a message that mortally wounded, it phases away into the Abyss. It'll get better the next time… You can also banish or pacify it with the same result, but obviously, it will gain a resistance to that. You see, if you can heal mortal physical wounds, you can also come to senses about that blabbing about “peace” you heard :p
(
dpeg: The HS being affiliated with the Abyss, we might take a page from blink frogs and say that she heals from distortion attacks.)
Each incarnation of the Hellspider is stronger than the one before (i.e. the HS gets four improvements). The upgrades can be done in a number of ways. At least some of them should depend on what the player attacks the Hellspider with, so that you won't roast is five times in a row – it will be properly fire resistant at some point.
There are a number of ways to get there. We should pick one that's simple (to code and to understand as a player). Some global choices we can make:
Player behaviour affects HS defense (AC, EV, resistances) or attack (e.g. attack brands) and defense.
Damage of various types (fire, summons etc.) is tracked in an array. Should the counters be halved as you descend, so recent damage is weighted more?
How many and what upgrades per level? For example, it could get two defensive upgrades (e.g. two resistances) and one random offensive one (e.g. berserk when wounded).
Should Polymorph do something?
Every time you kill it, it gain resistances to the method you used the most. All damage is assigned to one of damage types, they are weighted so a weapon of flaming will not be 8/9 biased towards physical 1/9 fire it really does — we want more flavour less accuracy.
There are two arrays: damage done in a specific type, already selected upgrades. The TDHS can gain them but never lose – even if you used 60% type A 40% B on one level, 70% C 30% B on another, it wont lose A retroactively.
Every level grants extra HD and damage, and an/some upgrade(s), chosen according to which counter is the highest.
physical fast: damage done with acc>dam (≥?). Upgrade: +AC. Unlimited levels.
physical hard: damage done with dam>acc. Upgrade: +EV. Unlimited levels.
missile: ranged combat. Upgrade: +EV? RMsl? +walking speed?
pacify: Upgrade: immunity to Elyvilon. Gained for free on Spider:5.
banish: Upgrade: immunity to banishment. Distortion attacks? First level (if distortion attacks are second) granted for free on Spider:5.
conj: pure conjurations (Magic Dart, IOOD, disint, …), Earth, perhaps non-elec air too. Upgrade: HP?
fire: Upgrades: rF++, rF+ AF_FIRE (if one upgrade per level), rF+, rF+, rF+, AF_FIRE (if two upgrades). Capped in level.
cold: Ditto, s/fire/cold/.
elec: Upgrades: rElec (costing two upgrade points?)
poison: Upgrades: rPois. Once or twice? Does the TDHS start with rPois- like other arthropods do?
summon: Upgrades: warding, own summons (“hellspider spawn”)? Should damage count both for phys and this?
necro: draining, torment, etc. Upgrade: rN++?
drowning: digging a wall it was clinging to. Upgrades: jump (i.e. blink) to prevent drowning.
stabbing: Generated awake? Furter upgrade: cannot be distracted?
hexes: (damage suffered while under a bad enchantment): Upgrades: +MR
It can get an attack brand just once.
Some ideas for offensive upgrades, if we want them (some of them make sense as a reaction to player behaviour):
summons
spawn web trap
constrict
berserk when almost down
jump
evilmike: Anti-rPois aura (need a better name for this): Should start off small or non-existent and grow in size each time the spider is “killed”. If you are inside the aura, any rPois you have is cancelled. I don't think it needs to do anything extra though, (just canceling rPois is enough, no need for negative rPois). This effect would give the hellspider a tactical role by making other spiders more dangerous to you, and would make rPois less of a way to resist everything in the spider branch. An aura effect would also make the hellspider a lot easier to track, which might be a nuisance if you are required to kill it. This idea might be more suitable for a moth enemy, though.
Spawning: It might be placed normally, but I ponder having him always appear on a staircase down as you near it. ANY staircase — it's a “transdimensional” spider, remember. It will do so unless you already had it in view while noticing the staircase.
Rune disguise: The Hellspider could “disguise” as the spider rune everytime you meet it. This has a slight gameplay effect: if using this, the Hellspider is the rune and hence you cannot ninja the rune on Spider:5 as in this version, killing the final Hellspider turns it into a rune which you can pick up.
As presented, the Hellspider could be at the same time the main branch end opposition. I would be fine with that. We could also say that a Spider is of Hellspider type only with some chance; in the other case, the unique does not generate and we would need to come up with a more standard branch end monster set. (Of course, even with the Hellspider we want the remaining Spider:5 population to be a large step more dangerous than the Spider:4 one.)
We don't propose the Hellspider unique just because it's cool and a bow to the original creator. The real reason is that it should encourage the player to spread out the attacks. For example, if he is an axe fighter, then he might try to kill the first few Hellspiders with fire and cold wands, respectively. This should make for an interesting experience, and a unique one for Crawl.
First attempt: the Hellspider starts with 100 HP, EV 10, AC 10, MR 20, is large and fast. It has no resistances or weaknesses except that distortion will heal it (like blink frogs). It does 25 melee damage. It can cling like all spiders (should not be relevant except for Fedhas or Nemelex trickery.) No xp until the final fight is won. Upon level up it gains
two defensive powers (each level)
one additional power (levels 2 and 4)
+5 EV, +5 AC, +15 MR, +20 HP (each level — there might be additional EV or AC from the defensive powerup)
an additional attack at each level with the following pattern: level 1: 25; level 2: 30,5; level 3: 35,10,5; level 4: 40,15,10,5; level 5: 40,20,15,10,5).
attack brand (level 5)
List of additional powers for level 2:
List of additional powers for level 4:
Attack brands:
Simplified list of defensive powers (don't distinguish between fast/slow weapon or spell type anymore, for simplicity):
track elemental damage (the kind of damage a resistance would have help against): track individual elements (including draining) and total
track damage done by player vs others (allies)
track pacification
track damage under hexes (slow, confuse etc.)
track successful stabbing
Pacification automatically leads to immunity as power up. Stabbing leads to see invisible and generate awake. Otherwise, do a weighted roll over the types of damage tracked:
elemental damage rolled: do weighted roll over elements and give one pip of resistance (if rElec is chosen, only give dud power up for the next level: +10 HP)
allies rolled: give one of (this can be done several times, random choice each time):
passive retribution
hydra attacking (separate attacks can hit different enemies on the same turn if previous target died) —
evktalo 2011-11-13 12:45 warding
hexes rolled: +30 MR
else: increase either AC or EV by +10
Reasons: the player can affect how the HS will build up resistances. However, there is no control about how the HS's attack will turn out. Note how the level 2 powers help a bit against summoning.
I still don't like the “forced fights” aspect of this design, but I think it can be addressed without the radical change I suggested below. I also have a few more general comments about this design;
Allow escaping. The TDHS guards the stairs, but it is still possible to take them without defeating it (confuse it or just be faster for example).
When defeated, it gets a defensive buff depending on how you “killed” it. When skipped, it gets an offensive buff and/or a feat to make it harder to escape from. For example at each escape, it gets either +3 speed or constriction, and either trample, spit web or curare bite. I don't think those buffs are more desirable than the defensive buffs it gets when defeated, especially the speed bonus.
Translocations should be quite ineffective right from the start. It probably should have an aura of -cTele, or even -Tele. Or maybe it could mess with your translocations in more creative ways. Aim at the stairs and you end up next to the TDHS, in a web trap or in the Abyss.
I don't like much “generic” buffs, like each fight it gets +AC, +EV, +MR, +HP. I think it should get only specific offensive/defensive buffs dependent on how you defeated it. But instead of starting at 100HP, getting +20HP per fight and fleeing at 0, it starts at 200, flee the first fight at HP/2, the second at HP/3, etc… Or some other formulas. The fights get tougher only from the specific buffs it gets and from the fact it will take more damage each time.
The design shouldn't rely too much on the fact that there are 5 fights. Branch length are not set in stone, and shortening lair branches is being considered. The TDHS needs to be able to adapt to a shorter branch.
— galehar 2012-03-18 12:57
Elliptic pointed out that having forced fights is quite uncrawly. Evilmike noted that the proposal is quite elaborated and ambitious, both from a coding and from a balancing point of view. This new proposal keep the repeated fights and adaptability ideas, but with a more flexible approach.
The TDHS harass you while you're in the branch. And any moment when tension is > 0 (or if you're caught in a web trap), she has a chance to phase in and attack you. The chance depends on the tension and on depth. So the deeper you go, the more often she comes, and more likely during tough fights. There's also a timer to prevent her for spawning too frequently.
During an attack, she will phase out after taking a certain amount of damage. The limit gets higher as you go deeper. In theory it's possible to kill her during one of these attacks, but in practice it should be almost impossible. In the last level before the branch end, she'll flee at half health. You don't have to attack her, if you ignore her and go on, she'll stop her attack and go after a while. Attacking her is just a way of making her go away faster and attacking you less which is important (see below).
She has 4 claws, 2 heads and a strong tail. Each head has a spit and a breath attacks (beam and cloud). All of these attacks have a random brand (randomized at game start, not at each spawning). For example, in one game, she'll have cold branded claws, a draining bite, an anti-magic bite, a electrical tail, a poisonous cloud breath, a freezing cloud breath, a fire spit and an acid spit. Maybe holy should be excluded since she's from hell.
Each attack has a weight (not necessarily equal at start). When you resist one of her attack, the weight decrease. When you don't, it increases (maybe faster if vulnerable). When you evade, the claw weight increase. When your AC/GDR significantly reduce damage, the tail weight increases. So instead of adapting to your attacks, she adapts to your defences. And you have to adapt too. Evasive casters would really want rC+ in the previous example. Weights have minimums and maximums, so it always stays quite random.
The deeper you go, the faster she adapts. That way, if you wear rF- to trick her into using fire attacks and then switch to rF+++ in the branch end, she'll adapt after a couple of hits.
I think the adapting just shouldn't carry over between fights - that way, wearing rF- and switching to rF+++ in the branch end really would be pointless. —
minmay 2012-03-15 20:44
You might want to explore and clear the first couple of levels, but you'll usually want to dive to get rid of her as fast as possible, and clear the branch after (or not at all). If you ninja the rune, she'll harass you a lot on the way up, even at 0 tension (no resting). I think the “adapt to your defences” is harder to abuse and easier to balance than “adapt to your attacks”.
