More monster attributes.
Andrew Richard Doull
monster intelligence levels better rather than a numeric monster intelligence
figure. This list of attributes includes some that should reflect better the
way a creature interacts with their environment. There are also some other
game suggestions.
CLAIRVOYANCE: Monsters with clairvoyance are disturbed by the player regardless
of their relative positions on the level and always know the player's position.
Monsters with clairvoyance include mindflayers, some uniques, liches, ring-
wraiths and others as appropriate.
GENIUS: Monsters with genius always know what attacks you are resistant, immune
and vulnerible to and base their actions on this information.
SPEECH [The biggie]: Monsters which speak and are in LOS of each other share
information about the player. This information would include best guess
position from the tracking code, the most accurate list of resistances and
immunities possessed by the player, and disturbing sleeping monsters if the
player is known to be near. When combined with the genius and/or clairvoyance
flags, a monster will increase the ability to make decisions of all speaking
monsters nearby. Monsters with speech include all h's, p's, P's, o's, T's, D's
and mature d's, many undead and more. Not animals, golems, fungi, eyes etc.
Because of the above flags there will be an increasing number of monsters which
operate out of line of sight of the player. The intelligence routine for these
out of line of sight actions should include the ability to heal themself,
teleport around, summon monsters and create traps in positions in LOS of the
monster where they will harrass the player, darkness lit rooms and so forth.
Vault monsters should be generated as awake, so they will immediately begin
to move about and reinforce their positions. Monsters which summon should be
generated with some summoned creatures already present.
CRAWLS (also FLIES): The monster does not activate traps when they move across
them and are not blocked by pits. Monsters without this attribute will
activate traps unles they are insubstantial (eg ghosts), and will fall down
pits. As a consequence, all except mindless monsters are unlikely to move
through pits or traps, except that monsters which can open doors can also
disarm traps, and monsters which bash doors or objects will destroy traps that
they move through.
This attribute opens up the way for a big modification to room generation code.
Basically, I would like to see a bigger variety of rooms and corridors espec-
ially at deeper levels, including:
* big pits, rooms which are filled with a big pit, bridges over pits etc.
* huge rooms, natural caverns, corridors which are 2 or 3 wide, long hallways,
pillars scattered about big rooms, big doors (if possible)
* statues, fountains, thrones, pedestals, gates, and other dungeon furnishings
* trapped doors, trapped furnishings, traps which activate for a wider variety
of effects (create traps anyone), hidden compartments which are handled as
traps but when disarmed create a GOOD or EXCELLENT drop
* more varieties of rooms within rooms, pits within rooms, rooms within pits,
to the point where some rooms will start to resemble the town level with LOTS
of monsters swarming around
* floor coverings, water, fog, mud, lava, creatures which are invisible in water
(ie SWIM)
* when monsters are generated on pits, they come from deeper levels ("It crawls
out of the pit.") and are not restricted to 25+ distance away. This restriction
shoud also be lifted for teleporting monsters.
Basically, I want the thrill of exploring to be heightened.
Sorry for getting off topic there...
A.D.Venturer
Billy Tanksley
Andrew Richard Doull <ado...@cs.auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>I suggest that some of the following monster attributes be added to reflect
>monster intelligence levels better rather than a numeric monster intelligence
>figure. This list of attributes includes some that should reflect better the
>way a creature interacts with their environment. There are also some other
>game suggestions.
>CLAIRVOYANCE: Monsters with clairvoyance are disturbed by the player regardless
>of their relative positions on the level and always know the player's position.
>Monsters with clairvoyance include mindflayers, some uniques, liches, ring-
>wraiths and others as appropriate.
Note that this would actually be detrimental unless those monsters could
also find a path to the player. This is quite possible, though.
>GENIUS: Monsters with genius always know what attacks you are resistant, immune
>and vulnerible to and base their actions on this information.
Actually, that makes sense. After all, by the time you get to their
depth, it seems that some information about you could be gathered by
Morgoth's forces.
>SPEECH [The biggie]: Monsters which speak and are in LOS of each other share
>information about the player. This information would include best guess
>position from the tracking code, the most accurate list of resistances and
>immunities possessed by the player, and disturbing sleeping monsters if the
>player is known to be near. When combined with the genius and/or clairvoyance
>flags, a monster will increase the ability to make decisions of all speaking
>monsters nearby. Monsters with speech include all h's, p's, P's, o's, T's, D's
>and mature d's, many undead and more. Not animals, golems, fungi, eyes etc.
Here's a simpler one: any monster that can talk and has LOS can take a
turn (a spell) to redirect all monsters within a certain number of spaces
so that their targets point at it (in other words, the other monsters
will head towards where the speaking monster was, unless they had direct
LOS on the player themselves).
>Because of the above flags there will be an increasing number of monsters which
>operate out of line of sight of the player. The intelligence routine for these
>out of line of sight actions should include the ability to heal themself,
>teleport around, summon monsters and create traps in positions in LOS of the
>monster where they will harrass the player, darkness lit rooms and so forth.
>Vault monsters should be generated as awake, so they will immediately begin
>to move about and reinforce their positions. Monsters which summon should be
>generated with some summoned creatures already present.
I have already done some of this for tracking and targetting.
Also, I'd like to suggest again that all generated (non-summoned)
monsters appear at or directly adjecent to a doorway rather than randomly
placed, and that furthermore NO monsters be generated asleep.
>CRAWLS (also FLIES): The monster does not activate traps when they move across
>them and are not blocked by pits. Monsters without this attribute will
>activate traps unles they are insubstantial (eg ghosts), and will fall down
>pits. As a consequence, all except mindless monsters are unlikely to move
>through pits or traps, except that monsters which can open doors can also
>disarm traps, and monsters which bash doors or objects will destroy traps that
>they move through.
Right now we do not have monsters activate traps at all on the basis that
they know the area well enough to avoid the trigger mechanism.
>This attribute opens up the way for a big modification to room generation code.
>Basically, I would like to see a bigger variety of rooms and corridors espec-
>ially at deeper levels, including:
>* big pits, rooms which are filled with a big pit, bridges over pits etc.
Sounds good!
>* more varieties of rooms within rooms, pits within rooms, rooms within pits,
>to the point where some rooms will start to resemble the town level with LOTS
>of monsters swarming around
Facinating.
>* floor coverings, water, fog, mud, lava, creatures which are invisible in water
>(ie SWIM)
Ugh. Okay, sounds kinda fun to play-- unless, of course, it's possible
to get blocked from a part of the level by one of those.
>A.D.Venturer
-Billy
David Sward
Billy Tanksley <tank...@owl.csusm.edu> wrote:
>In article <3sd6i2$p...@net.auckland.ac.nz>,
>Andrew Richard Doull <ado...@cs.auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>>CRAWLS (also FLIES): The monster does not activate traps when they move across
>>them and are not blocked by pits. Monsters without this attribute will
>>activate traps unles they are insubstantial (eg ghosts), and will fall down
>>pits. As a consequence, all except mindless monsters are unlikely to move
>>through pits or traps, except that monsters which can open doors can also
>>disarm traps, and monsters which bash doors or objects will destroy traps that
>>they move through.
>
>Right now we do not have monsters activate traps at all on the basis that
>they know the area well enough to avoid the trigger mechanism.
Monsters also, unfortunately, avoid magically created traps on the
level (can you say "Wormtongue"?). If monsters avoided pre-generated
traps, but not later traps, rogues could be given the ability to
create traps to set "ambushes" and such for the monsters. Create
Traps scrolls might actually have a purpose other than item
destruction.
--
David Sward sw...@clark.net
Randy Hutson
>If monsters avoided pre-generated
>traps, but not later traps, rogues could be given the ability to
>create traps to set "ambushes" and such for the monsters. Create
>Traps scrolls might actually have a purpose other than item
>destruction.
Scrolls of Trap Creation can be also be somewhat useful for getting
objects. You can read them and hope for a "loose rock" trap (';') which
will generate an object when you step on it. Also, the "patch of loose
rocks" traps (normal '^') turn into rubble when you step on them (as
well as doing 2d6 damage), so you can dig out the rubble and this will
give you a 1 in 10 (?) chance of finding an object as well. A chance
at a free object or two isn't much, but I usually bother assuming I
have some way of disarming the "bad" traps.
-----
Randy Hutson - ra...@picard.tamu.edu
Tabor J. Wells
I also use them to create trap doors as a quick descent method when I don't
feel like looking for stairs. :)
Tabor
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Tabor J. Wells twe...@netcom.com|"All those moments will be lost in time|
| #include <disclaimer.h> | like tears in rain. Time to die." |
----------------------------------------------*from the movie Blade Runner----
Dennis Monbourquette
: Randy Hutson (ra...@picard.tamu.edu) wrote:
: : David Sward <sw...@clark.net> wrote:
: :>If monsters avoided pre-generated
: :>traps, but not later traps, rogues could be given the ability to
: :>create traps to set "ambushes" and such for the monsters. Create
: :>Traps scrolls might actually have a purpose other than item
: :>destruction.
: :Scrolls of Trap Creation can be also be somewhat useful for getting
: :objects. You can read them and hope for a "loose rock" trap (';') which
: :will generate an object when you step on it. Also, the "patch of loose
: :rocks" traps (normal '^') turn into rubble when you step on them (as
: :well as doing 2d6 damage), so you can dig out the rubble and this will
: :give you a 1 in 10 (?) chance of finding an object as well. A chance
: :at a free object or two isn't much, but I usually bother assuming I
: :have some way of disarming the "bad" traps.
: I also use them to create trap doors as a quick descent method when I don't
: feel like looking for stairs. :)
: Tabor
Also if you get a summoning rune, a lot of monsters carry treasure
and/or stuff...
-Den
--
|~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/|\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~|
| a09...@giant.rsoft.bc.ca | Tell me your story one night if you are |
| Fe...@mindlink.bc.ca | not eaten by something bigger -Zelazny |
|_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\|/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_/~\_|
Mike McCarty
Randy Hutson <ra...@picard.tamu.edu> wrote:
)In article <3sgu1o$j...@clark.net>, David Sward <sw...@clark.net> wrote:
)>If monsters avoided pre-generated
)>traps, but not later traps, rogues could be given the ability to
)>create traps to set "ambushes" and such for the monsters. Create
)>Traps scrolls might actually have a purpose other than item
)>destruction.
)
)Scrolls of Trap Creation can be also be somewhat useful for getting
)objects. You can read them and hope for a "loose rock" trap (';') which
)will generate an object when you step on it. Also, the "patch of loose
)rocks" traps (normal '^') turn into rubble when you step on them (as
)well as doing 2d6 damage), so you can dig out the rubble and this will
)give you a 1 in 10 (?) chance of finding an object as well. A chance
)at a free object or two isn't much, but I usually bother assuming I
)have some way of disarming the "bad" traps.
)
)
)-----
)
)Randy Hutson - ra...@picard.tamu.edu
)
They are also good for creating traps of summoning. I love these
traps.
Mike
----
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