Angband 2.7.9 Minor changes to Monster List
Ben Harrison
list, in preparation for Angband 2.8.0, and to clean up some minor
annoyances. Note that many of the changes listed below can be "undone"
(visually) by the use of "pref" files, just like "skeletons" can still
be made to "look" like "animate skeletons" if so desired.
The "ticks" (t) were combined with the "spiders" (S)
The "umber hulk" (U) was turned into a beetle (K)
The "jabberwock" (J) was turned into a "chaos beetle" (K)
The "major demons" (&) changed symbol (U)
The "minor demons" (I) changed symbol (u)
The "giant flea"/"hummerhorn"/"fruit fly" became "insects" (I)
The "louse" is still a "louse" (l) and "resembles" an insect (I)
The "townspeople" (p) were changed into a new "race" (t)
The "F" symbol (giant fly) is now defined as "Dragon Fly"
The "gem" items now use the "$" symbol like all treasure
All treasure is now a different color from all other treasure
The "*" symbol is used for "magma/quartz seam containing treasure"
Some of the old "red" monsters became "pink" if they drain strength
Some of the old "fire" monsters became "red" in name when possible
The old "giant red ant" is now a "giant pink ant"
The old "giant red ant lion" is now a "giant red ant"
The old "giant grey ant lion" is now a "giant grey ant"
The old *low-level* "Ethereal hound" is now a "clear hound"
The "clear hound" is "ATTR_CLEAR" and is described as "translucent"
The *deep* "Ethereal hound" is no longer described as "clear"
All monsters which are "DROP_GOOD" are now also "ONLY_ITEM"
Some new monsters will probably be added in Angband 2.8.0, such as
Ogre captains, Greater Balrogs, Black Trolls, Vampire Queens, and
Giant Werewolfs, to name a few. Also, the "unique" monsters will
probably be extracted from the "normal" monster list, and defined
as "unique instances" of various "base classes", much as "artifacts"
are currently handled. Since this will probably result in the use
of the same attr/char for the "unique" and "base" monsters, and for
"consistency", some new "base" monsters will probably be created,
such as the ones mentioned above, and also Skeletal Lord, Greater
Balrog, Young Hobbit, Master Mage, and some others.
Suggestions on the "base" class for the various uniques, as well as
suggestions for new uniques, are welcome, but note that I will *NOT*
be removing any monsters (normal or unique) at this time.
Note that Angband 2.7.9 is probably going to be an EXTREMELY *beta*
version, as it is really just there to assist in the conversion to
Angband 2.8.0 which is going to be rather extreme, and thus, perhaps,
Angband 2.8.0 itself will turn out to be an *extremely* beta version.
I *really* need to come up with a "clean" formalism for "player ghosts"
which does not reek of stupidity...
Suggestions, as always, are welcome.
--- Ben ---
Daniel Quaroni
> ghosts" which does not reek of stupidity...
Ok... I want to make sure I understand this correctly. Are you talking about
using ghosts of dead chracters as uniques? If so, this sounds like a great
idea! I don't really see how it could "reek of stupidity", however.
-=-Daniel Quaroni
-=-go...@pelican.cit.cornell.edu
Daniel Quaroni
> machine the chances of running into a Ghost are practically none.
Alright, alright. That's why I didn't know they existed.
-=-Daniel Quaroni
-=-go...@pelican.cit.cornell.edu
Julian Bean
In article <benh-21119...@philly30.voicenet.com> be...@omni.voicenet.com
(Ben Harrison) writes:
>For Angband 2.7.9, I am making some *minor* changes to the monster
>list, in preparation for Angband 2.8.0, and to clean up some minor
>annoyances. Note that many of the changes listed below can be "undone"
>(visually) by the use of "pref" files, just like "skeletons" can still
>be made to "look" like "animate skeletons" if so desired.
>
All pretty cool...
>The "major demons" (&) changed symbol (U)
Except that one. I know it's inconsistent to use a symbol for a monster, but I
liked that joke.
Mainly because it took me several years even to realise the significance of
it...
>Some new monsters will probably be added in Angband 2.8.0, such as
>Ogre captains, Greater Balrogs, Black Trolls, Vampire Queens, and
>Giant Werewolfs, to name a few. Also, the "unique" monsters will
>probably be extracted from the "normal" monster list, and defined
>as "unique instances" of various "base classes", much as "artifacts"
>are currently handled. Since this will probably result in the use
>of the same attr/char for the "unique" and "base" monsters, and for
>"consistency", some new "base" monsters will probably be created,
>such as the ones mentioned above, and also Skeletal Lord, Greater
>Balrog, Young Hobbit, Master Mage, and some others.
Both sensible and cool - It will be find to explore the new monsters...
Jules
Larry Craighead
Bean) writes:
>>The "major demons" (&) changed symbol (U)
>Except that one. I know it's inconsistent to use a symbol for a
monster, but I
>liked that joke.
>
>Mainly because it took me several years even to realise the
significance of
>it...
Enlighten me, please...
Matt Craighead
Julian Bean
In article <493bop$l...@ixnews4.ix.netcom.com> plug...@ix.netcom.com (Larry
Sorry ;-)
When you run a process on a unix machine, you can run several at once by
issuing
command1 & command2 & command3
This means that command1 and command2 are running 'in the background'
To simply run command1 'in the background' you can write
command1 &
Now, on unix a background process is also known for obscure historical reasons
as a 'daemon' process. Like the mailer daemon that looks after mail delivery.
So the symbol for a 'demon' is obviously '&'.
Nethack took this one step further - if you receive mail on a multi-user
machine whilst playin nethack, a 'mail daemon' appears and drops a scroll of
mail ;)
Jules
>
>Matt Craighead
>
j...@map.com
>For Angband 2.7.9, I am making some *minor* changes to the monster
>list, in preparation for Angband 2.8.0, and to clean up some minor
>annoyances. Note that many of the changes listed below can be "undone"
>(visually) by the use of "pref" files, just like "skeletons" can still
>be made to "look" like "animate skeletons" if so desired.
>
>The "giant flea"/"hummerhorn"/"fruit fly" became "insects" (I)
>The "louse" is still a "louse" (l) and "resembles" an insect (I)
>The "townspeople" (p) were changed into a new "race" (t)
They're not people anymore? Since they are still human creatures,
I don't think they should be split off from the regular p's.
>The old "giant red ant lion" is now a "giant red ant"
>The old "giant grey ant lion" is now a "giant grey ant"
But an ant lion is not an ant! Ant Lions eat ants (and characters.)
>Suggestions, as always, are welcome.
I've got a couple other nits about some of the above changes, but since
they are changeable in the pref files, perhaps you ought to include a base
'item and monster character definition' pref file with all of the monsters and
items so people can see what they are and change them back. :-)
// Roland Jay Roberts - Team OS/2 -
// Internet: j...@map.com
// FidoNet: Roland Roberts @ 1:321/305.5
Dennis Andrew Blazewicz
: I *really* need to come up with a "clean" formalism for "player ghosts"
: which does not reek of stupidity...
: Suggestions, as always, are welcome.
Some thing i was thinking about last night - When a player dies, what we get
is essentially a unique monster.. perhaps (and i'm sure this has been
suggested before, but maybe it was impractical to implement back then) when
a player dies a minor item should be "created" that appears on the level
that he/she died on. Perhaps the very same player ghost would drop this
item.. it would add a bit more of that random fun that we've come to expect
and love from Angband. And BigCrunch the 2nd would love finding a "Mace
named 'BigCrunch'" :) it would amuse him :)
Astinus
Afraid of Amused Trolls
Sebastian Hanlon
wondering...
Is it possible to compile a version for VMS?
I have access to a C compiler on my VMS system, so I thought I'd ask.
-=:|Sebastian|:=-
Shawn McHorse
>>The "umber hulk" (U) was turned into a beetle (K)
Yes, that does seem a bit odd. Suggestions?
"Tunneling Beetle"?
>>The "jabberwock" (J) was turned into a "chaos beetle" (K)
>We can't lose the jabberwock! At least keep the name if you're gonna
>change the letter. I agree that a whole letter for a single monster was
>a little annoying.
You're not losing Jabberwocks, you're gaining Chaos Beetles...:-> Only the name
and letter were changed, it's still the same nasty monster it always was. And I
really don't see the problem with losing a bit of Lewis Carroll "mythology".
Every time I see one I feel like looking for momeraths outgrabing.
Shawn McHorse
smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu
An Austin NorthCross-Dresser
Mike Marcelais
| For Angband 2.7.9, I am making some *minor* changes to the monster
| The "umber hulk" (U) was turned into a beetle (K)
ROFL!
Ok...everyone, just picture this for a minute:
Big 7' dirt devouring, gaze confuing, monstrosity.
Small, tiny, bettle slithering across the ground.
These are supposed to be the same...and every is okay about this?
[Now if only my AD&D characters could do this...]
--
+------------------------+----------------------------+
| Mike Marcelais | mrma...@eos.ncsu.edu |
| Moonstone Dragon | Magic: The Gathering Judge |
| -==(UDIC)==- | Author of ChrHack 2.3 |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
Mike Marcelais
Possible: Probably.
Has it been done before: I don't think so.
If you are a good C programmer, I'm sure you could do it (the main limitation
is that there isn't a `main-vms.c' file -- you'd have to make your own
probably adapting the unix version).
Shawn McHorse
>Bleh... Umber Hulks date from ancient Moria times... I would hate to
>lose them; I've some kind of image how they would look like... big,
>strong, build like a fridge. That's far off from how I image a beetle...
Doesn't D&D pre-date Moria? That was the first place I ever heard the term
"Umber Hulk". And is there a problem with having a beetle that is big, strong,
and built like a fridge? Your imagination seems to be failing you.
>Same reasons apply here.... I don't know exactly how a Jabberwock looks
>like, but it certainly isn't a beetle! Beetles are things you crush under
>your boots, Jabberwocks are hard to fight monsters.
*sigh* Your imagination just plain sucks. Think _BIG_. Imagine a 50-foot
behemoth in the shape of a beetle. There you have a Chaos Beetle. Just try
crushing THAT with your boots...:-)
>Djee, I'd say Angband would lose a lot of its heroics if Morgoth summes
>beetles....
Lose? Morgoth has the S_MONSTERS spell, so he can certainly summon beetles
right now if he likes. Deal with it.
Abigail
>
> In article <4967ij$s...@dsinc.myxa.com> r...@banjo.dsi.com (Randy Brown) writes:
>
> Yes, that does seem a bit odd. Suggestions?
>
> "Tunneling Beetle"?
Bleh... Umber Hulks date from ancient Moria times... I would hate to
lose them; I've some kind of image how they would look like... big,
strong, build like a fridge. That's far off from how I image a beetle...
I strongly urge Ben to keep the Umber Hulks (not that it matters, Ben
never listens to me). If the 'U' is needed for some reason, why not
merge the Umber Hulk with the 'X'? But please keep the Umber Hulk as a name.
>
> >>The "jabberwock" (J) was turned into a "chaos beetle" (K)
> >We can't lose the jabberwock! At least keep the name if you're gonna
> >change the letter. I agree that a whole letter for a single monster was
> >a little annoying.
>
> You're not losing Jabberwocks, you're gaining Chaos Beetles...:-> Only the name
> and letter were changed, it's still the same nasty monster it always was. And I
> really don't see the problem with losing a bit of Lewis Carroll "mythology".
> Every time I see one I feel like looking for momeraths outgrabing.
Same reasons apply here.... I don't know exactly how a Jabberwock looks
like, but it certainly isn't a beetle! Beetles are things you crush under
your boots, Jabberwocks are hard to fight monsters.
Djee, I'd say Angband would lose a lot of its heroics if Morgoth summes
beetles....
Keep the Jabberwocks and certainly keep the Umber Hulks.
Abigail
Aaron Mandelbaum
>In article <30B92778...@mars.ic.iaf.nl> Abigail writes:
>>Bleh... Umber Hulks date from ancient Moria times... I would hate to
>>lose them; I've some kind of image how they would look like... big,
>>strong, build like a fridge. That's far off from how I image a beetle...
>"Umber Hulk". And is there a problem with having a beetle that is big,
>strong,
>and built like a fridge? Your imagination seems to be failing you.
Umber hulks are one-eyed, brown HUMANOIDS built like fridges. Very few
beetles are bipedal. You need more of an ant- or matis-like insect to pull
it off.
YOUR imagination seems to be rather badly stuck in a rut if every damn thing
has to be a beetle!
>*sigh* Your imagination just plain sucks. Think _BIG_. Imagine a 50-foot
>behemoth in the shape of a beetle. There you have a Chaos Beetle. Just try
>crushing THAT with your boots...:-)
[yawn] Boooooring. Two headed burbling jabberwocks are a lot better. [stomp!]
You're missing the point completely, Shawn. Imagination really has nothing
to do with it. It's the fact that these changes erode the game's atmosphere,
which is one of its strong points. I mean, I know I'm still reeling from
switching to 2.7.x from PC 1.4 just because of some silly color changes, and
this kind of thing is pretty similar.
>>Djee, I'd say Angband would lose a lot of its heroics if Morgoth summes
>>beetles....
>Lose? Morgoth has the S_MONSTERS spell, so he can certainly summon beetles
>right now if he likes. Deal with it.
No. Don't. Just edit your R_LIST.txt and pref files. :)
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Shawn McHorse
>Umber hulks are one-eyed, brown HUMANOIDS built like fridges. Very few
>beetles are bipedal. You need more of an ant- or matis-like insect to pull
>it off.
*shrug* I never had any idea at all what an Umber Hulk was "supposed" to look
like. Let's see what the Umber Hulk description from 2.7.8 has to say on the
subject: "It is a huge beetle with glaring eyes and large mandibles capable of
slicing through rock." Ok. I'm now enlightened. Now why can't Umber Hulks
be beetles?
>YOUR imagination seems to be rather badly stuck in a rut if every damn thing
>has to be a beetle!
*giggle* Just defending Ben's changes to the death...:-)
>You're missing the point completely, Shawn. Imagination really has nothing
>to do with it. It's the fact that these changes erode the game's atmosphere,
>which is one of its strong points. I mean, I know I'm still reeling from
>switching to 2.7.x from PC 1.4 just because of some silly color changes, and
>this kind of thing is pretty similar.
I just don't see how having one single monster from Lewis Carrol in the game
adds so much to its atmosphere. Why not throw in Alice as a unique while we're
at it?
>>Lose? Morgoth has the S_MONSTERS spell, so he can certainly summon beetles
>>right now if he likes. Deal with it.
>
>No. Don't. Just edit your R_LIST.txt and pref files. :)
Muhahahaha!!! Death to beetles!!!
Ben Harrison
> be...@omni.voicenet.com (Ben Harrison) writes:
> >The "ticks" (t) were combined with the "spiders" (S)
> Reasonable
>
> >The "umber hulk" (U) was turned into a beetle (K)
> But keeps it's name?
Well, yes. Note that the description has always implied that the
Umber Hulk was "sort of" a beetle anyway.
> >The "jabberwock" (J) was turned into a "chaos beetle" (K)
> We can't lose the jabberwock! At least keep the name if you're gonna
> change the letter. I agree that a whole letter for a single monster was
> a little annoying.
Why can't we lose the Jabberwock? Last I checked, people were annoyed
at the appearance of such an *obviously* non-tolkein, non-role-playing
monster in Angband, and the "summon jabberwock" code was removed long ago.
> >The "major demons" (&) changed symbol (U)
> U for unhhh...
> >The "minor demons" (I) changed symbol (u)
>
> >The "giant flea"/"hummerhorn"/"fruit fly" became "insects" (I)
> fine.
>
> >The "louse" is still a "louse" (l) and "resembles" an insect (I)
> why not combine them... leave 'l' free for something else...
I am reserving that change for when I actually need a new letter.
Since the "l" character is so similar to the "I" character, especially
on the Macintosh, they are already "identical" to me anyway. :-)
> >The "townspeople" (p) were changed into a new "race" (t)
> err, why?
First, there were more than 30 "p" monsters. Second, the "townspeople"
were using a *completely* different "color scheme" than the dungeon
monsters (for obvious reasons), and they make up an easily definable
class, and the change will, among other things, make the result of
summoning "p" monsters in town much more "obvious".
> >The "F" symbol (giant fly) is now defined as "Dragon Fly"
> excellent.
>
> >The "gem" items now use the "$" symbol like all treasure
> >All treasure is now a different color from all other treasure
>
> >The "*" symbol is used for "magma/quartz seam containing treasure"
>
> >Some of the old "red" monsters became "pink" if they drain strength
> >Some of the old "fire" monsters became "red" in name when possible
> I always thought that was confusing.
Me too. :-)
> >Some new monsters will probably be added in Angband 2.8.0, such as
> >Ogre captains, Greater Balrogs, Black Trolls, Vampire Queens, and
> >Giant Werewolfs, to name a few. Also, the "unique" monsters will
> >probably be extracted from the "normal" monster list, and defined
> >as "unique instances" of various "base classes", much as "artifacts"
> >are currently handled. Since this will probably result in the use
> >of the same attr/char for the "unique" and "base" monsters, and for
> >"consistency", some new "base" monsters will probably be created,
> >such as the ones mentioned above, and also Skeletal Lord, Greater
> >Balrog, Young Hobbit, Master Mage, and some others.
>
> Fine.
>
> I guess my major problem is losing the jabberwocks... :-)
Think of it as a "face lift" and not a "loss", the monster info is the
same, except for the description, which has been "modified", and the
symbol, and the name. Oh, and maybe the attacks were tweaked a little.
>
> -Randy
--- Ben ---
Ben Harrison
> I am an avid AngBander (correct term?), and I have 2.7.8 for Windows, but I was
> wondering...
>
> Is it possible to compile a version for VMS?
>
> I have access to a C compiler on my VMS system, so I thought I'd ask.
If it works, let me know.
If it does not, make it work, and send me patches. :-)
You will probably have to mess with (1) PATH_SEP and (2) "main-gcu.c"
>
> -=:|Sebastian|:=-
--- Ben ---
William Tanksley
>>But keeps it's name?
>Yes, that does seem a bit odd. Suggestions?
>"Tunneling Beetle"?
How about "Umber Hulk"? I think that's still a good name.
> Shawn McHorse
-Billy
Thomas Stockheim
>For Angband 2.7.9, I am making some *minor* changes to the monster
>list, in preparation for Angband 2.8.0, and to clean up some minor
>annoyances. Note that many of the changes listed below can be "undone"
>(visually) by the use of "pref" files, just like "skeletons" can still
>be made to "look" like "animate skeletons" if so desired.
One question: Is the number of monsters limited ? If no, then perhaps
it's time to add those that are obviously missing ...
>Some new monsters will probably be added in Angband 2.8.0, such as
>Ogre captains, Greater Balrogs, Black Trolls, Vampire Queens, and
>Giant Werewolfs, to name a few. Also, the "unique" monsters will
...
>such as the ones mentioned above, and also Skeletal Lord, Greater
>Balrog, Young Hobbit, Master Mage, and some others.
I like those additions !
But how about that:
There are novice mages,priests,rogues,rangers,archers,paladins and warriors.
And then mages, priests, bandits? and hardened warriors?
But where are the stronger rangers, archers and paladins ?
I think having nocice ranger, ranger, experienced ranger, ranger lord, or
so would be fun ... The same for paladins, archers i never really liked.
As well ,there are some dragons that seem to be missing ...
Why are there no baby gold and bronze dragons ?
And where is the great wyrm of acid and the great wyrm of poison ?
I know, stupid names, but I would like to have them ...
Thomas
Jonathan Dean
>>In article <30B92778...@mars.ic.iaf.nl> Abigail writes:
>>>Bleh... Umber Hulks date from ancient Moria times... I would hate to
>>>lose them; I've some kind of image how they would look like... big,
>>>strong, build like a fridge. That's far off from how I image a beetle...
>>Doesn't D&D pre-date Moria? That was the first place I ever heard the term
>>"Umber Hulk". And is there a problem with having a beetle that is big,
>>strong,
>>and built like a fridge? Your imagination seems to be failing you.
>
>beetles are bipedal. You need more of an ant- or matis-like insect to pull
>it off.
ONE-EYED? I always thought it had two insects-like eyes myself... ;-)
I agree with Ben that the Umber Hulk needed to be moved. Maybe a
strict move to the humanoid ('h') or hybrid ('H') section and keep the
name and description the same is possible. My vote would be to the
hybrids as they aren't all that many of them and the Umber Hulk is a
strange looking monster (especially since everybody's descriptions
differ).
>YOUR imagination seems to be rather badly stuck in a rut if every damn thing
>has to be a beetle!
Doesn't half to be. We could always go with a big strange looking
Hound as far as that is concerned, or heck, change it to a black 'P'
just for the fun of it. I think the goal that Ben was trying for was
to include one or two beetles that a person has to worry about.
>>>*sigh* Your imagination just plain sucks. Think _BIG_. Imagine a 50-foot
>>behemoth in the shape of a beetle. There you have a Chaos Beetle. Just try
>>crushing THAT with your boots...:-)
>
>[yawn] Boooooring. Two headed burbling jabberwocks are a lot better. [stomp!]
Sigh. Lets see, we can always move the Jabberwock to a different
group instead of renaming it. Lets see, Greater Demon is possible
('U') as it is really big and nasty, and again there is the hybrid
group ('H'). Humanoid is possible, but a really big streatch.
Moving or renaming is pretty simple and will probably have little overall
effect.
>No. Don't. Just edit your R_LIST.txt and pref files. :)
If you want you can move your Umber Hulk and Jabberwock to new groups by
simply editing your R_INFO.TXT file.
--
Jonathan Dean | "I say we take off; nuke the site from orbit.
jd...@psl.nmsu.edu | It's the only way to be sure."
| -- Corporal Hicks, in "Aliens"
Ben Harrison
> In <benh-21119...@philly30.voicenet.com>, be...@omni.voicenet.com (Ben Harrison) writes:
> >For Angband 2.7.9, I am making some *minor* changes to the monster
> >list, in preparation for Angband 2.8.0, and to clean up some minor
> >annoyances. Note that many of the changes listed below can be "undone"
> >(visually) by the use of "pref" files, just like "skeletons" can still
> >be made to "look" like "animate skeletons" if so desired.
> >
> >The "jabberwock" (J) was turned into a "chaos beetle" (K)
> >The "major demons" (&) changed symbol (U)
> >The "minor demons" (I) changed symbol (u)
> >The "giant flea"/"hummerhorn"/"fruit fly" became "insects" (I)
> >The "louse" is still a "louse" (l) and "resembles" an insect (I)
> >The "townspeople" (p) were changed into a new "race" (t)
>
> They're not people anymore? Since they are still human creatures,
> I don't think they should be split off from the regular p's.
They were split because, at least where "color" is concerned, they
are *completely* different from normal "p" monsters. For example,
the mean looking mercenary is red like a mage. Etc. It may take
a little getting used to, but I think people will adapt quickly...
> >The old "giant red ant lion" is now a "giant red ant"
> >The old "giant grey ant lion" is now a "giant grey ant"
>
> But an ant lion is not an ant! Ant Lions eat ants (and characters.)
Exactly. So now all "a" monsters are "ants". Really big ants. With
huge teeth.
>
> >Suggestions, as always, are welcome.
>
> I've got a couple other nits about some of the above changes, but since
> they are changeable in the pref files, perhaps you ought to include a base
> 'item and monster character definition' pref file with all of the monsters and
> items so people can see what they are and change them back. :-)
Well, Angband 2.8.0 is changing a *lot* of things, so I do not want to
spend time making a list that will be invalid soon.
>
> // Roland Jay Roberts - Team OS/2 -
> // Internet: j...@map.com
> // FidoNet: Roland Roberts @ 1:321/305.5
=== Nem ===
I mean,,,
--- Ben ---
Patrick Tracy
>For Angband 2.7.9, I am making some *minor* changes to the monster
>list, in preparation for Angband 2.8.0, and to clean up some minor
>annoyances. Note that many of the changes listed below can be "undone"
>(visually) by the use of "pref" files, just like "skeletons" can still
>be made to "look" like "animate skeletons" if so desired.
>
Spiders and scorpions go together (they're both arachnids) but ticks
are bloodsucking parasitic *insects* - like lice. They'd probably be
better under (l).
>The "umber hulk" (U) was turned into a beetle (K)
>The "jabberwock" (J) was turned into a "chaos beetle" (K)
It's about time, actually. The umber hulks should have always been
beetles, and not that I dislike Lewis Carroll, but if there are
jabberwocks, there should also be bandersnatchi and vorpal swords and
boojums. The only problem is their colors (brown and shimmering) are
already shared with brown and iridescent beetles. Could re- name and
color the brown beetle to black, and allow the chaos beetles to be
mistaken for iridescents... <grin>
[Hmm... my newsfeed went down for a while so I'm a bit tardy posting
this, and in the meantime an arguement seems to have broken out over
whether umber hulks are beetles or not. Now, I have a copy of the
original monster manual from ADnD, so I'm aware it was originally
based on a humanoid hulk with a beetle-like head, but the *Angband*
destcription: 'It is like a huge beetle with glaring eyes and large
mandibles capable of slicing through rock.' seems to indicate a
*beetle*.]
>The "major demons" (&) changed symbol (U)
>The "minor demons" (I) changed symbol (u)
>The "giant flea"/"hummerhorn"/"fruit fly" became "insects" (I)
>The "louse" is still a "louse" (l) and "resembles" an insect (I)
>The "townspeople" (p) were changed into a new "race" (t)
>
>The "F" symbol (giant fly) is now defined as "Dragon Fly"
>
Making townspeople a new race - why? so they can be summoned? <grin>
If you just want to break apart the 'p' crowd, it might be more
reasonable to separate them into armored and unarmored humans, perhaps
even breaking armored into heavily and lightly (hard and soft /
warriors and rogues) armored humans, which would not be an artificial
distinction. I don't know which letters you'd use, though.
>Some of the old "red" monsters became "pink" if they drain strength
>Some of the old "fire" monsters became "red" in name when possible
>
>The old "giant red ant" is now a "giant pink ant"
>The old "giant red ant lion" is now a "giant red ant"
>The old "giant grey ant lion" is now a "giant grey ant"
>
That'd be nice - but pink? Yetch. I assume you're changing them to
that odd color used by nexus hounds and qulythugs, which you could
also call orange (at least on ibms).
>The old *low-level* "Ethereal hound" is now a "clear hound"
>The "clear hound" is "ATTR_CLEAR" and is described as "translucent"
>The *deep* "Ethereal hound" is no longer described as "clear"
>
A clear pack animal. Cool, even though I rather liked having two breeds
of ethereal hounds.
>Some new monsters will probably be added in Angband 2.8.0, such as
>Ogre captains, Greater Balrogs, Black Trolls, Vampire Queens, and
>Giant Werewolfs, to name a few. Also, the "unique" monsters will
>probably be extracted from the "normal" monster list, and defined
>as "unique instances" of various "base classes", much as "artifacts"
>are currently handled. Since this will probably result in the use
>of the same attr/char for the "unique" and "base" monsters, and for
>"consistency", some new "base" monsters will probably be created,
>such as the ones mentioned above, and also Skeletal Lord, Greater
>Balrog, Young Hobbit, Master Mage, and some others.
>
>Suggestions on the "base" class for the various uniques, as well as
>suggestions for new uniques, are welcome, but note that I will *NOT*
>be removing any monsters (normal or unique) at this time.
>
Not bad. I'm looking forward to meeting Skeletal Lords. But how
about changing a few of the other names - Giant/Greater/etc just don't
have much style. How about a Werewolf Sire, (plain) Balrogs and Balrog
Lords, and Ancient Sorcerors (instead of master mages - 'as old as the
hills, and as powerful').
And don't forget the dwarven king (Fundin Bluecloak). Or should that
be ** KING **? :)
Also, I think you were looking for names for the mimics (suggesting
lesser/greater/master) - how about Bottle Mimics, Ring Mimics, and
Scroll Mimics (it *is* what they're mimicking, after all).
>Note that Angband 2.7.9 is probably going to be an EXTREMELY *beta*
>version, as it is really just there to assist in the conversion to
>Angband 2.8.0 which is going to be rather extreme, and thus, perhaps,
>Angband 2.8.0 itself will turn out to be an *extremely* beta version.
>
Another argument to re-release 2.78 (stable, but still beta) as 2.79,
with the *enchant* and object overflow bugs fixed, and perhaps the
artifact rarity adjusted (not really a bug, but it has a sizeable
effect on gameplay).
>
>Suggestions, as always, are welcome.
>
>--- Ben ---
>
That's quite a game you've got,
-Pat
flanagan john thomas
: As well ,there are some dragons that seem to be missing ...
: Why are there no baby gold and bronze dragons ?
: And where is the great wyrm of acid and the great wyrm of poison ?
: I know, stupid names, but I would like to have them ...
Perhaps call them Great Vitriol Wyrm and Great Bane Wyrm, respectively.
The great bane wyrm would be REALLY nasty without poison resistance...
A Great Chromatic Wyrm would be way too nasty... besides, we already have
Tiamat.
--
John Flanagan
Student at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
flan...@uiuc.edu
"Just because it's impossible doesn't mean it can't be done."
Paul Andrew King
smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Shawn McHorse) wrote:
>
>*shrug* I never had any idea at all what an Umber Hulk was "supposed" to look
>like. Let's see what the Umber Hulk description from 2.7.8 has to say on the
>subject: "It is a huge beetle with glaring eyes and large mandibles capable of
>slicing through rock." Ok. I'm now enlightened. Now why can't Umber Hulks
>be beetles?
>
The Umber Hulk is a monster from TSR's Dungeons & Dragons, and it isn't a
beetle. The bad news is that if TSR find out about it they might force
Angband off the net until all the D&D specific monsters are removed.
Paul K.
My newsfeed is losing posts. Please email any replies if you want to be sure I see them.
Mischa E Gelman
Paul Andrew King <pa...@morat.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>The Umber Hulk is a monster from TSR's Dungeons & Dragons, and it isn't a
>beetle. The bad news is that if TSR find out about it they might force
>Angband off the net until all the D&D specific monsters are removed.
>
>Paul K.
TSR would probably NOT mind if it was on only TSR-sponsored sites(their
aol site, MPGN, their web page which should come out in 7Billion years,
etc). Then, that would reduce the availability of it(till they get
theirweb site, it would noly be on aol(aol users) and mpgn (6 users at a
time). But to avoid any nasty problems in the future, I think Angband
should either can the DND stuff(lots of it-from DFs to Vecna to Tiamat
and the DND stat system) or put it on a T$R site. That is, once people
think T$R may catch on to the existence of Angband.
--
The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, roman nor an empire.
Jonathan Dean
>My spies tell me that Ben Harrison (be...@omni.voicenet.com) wrote:
>| For Angband 2.7.9, I am making some *minor* changes to the monster
>
>| The "umber hulk" (U) was turned into a beetle (K)
>
>
>Ok...everyone, just picture this for a minute:
> Big 7' dirt devouring, gaze confuing, monstrosity.
> Small, tiny, bettle slithering across the ground.
>These are supposed to be the same...and every is okay about this?
Why are people assuming that if it is a beetle that it must be small?
Lets take the Killer Slicer Beetle for example. From what you have
said, I would have to conclude that it is between 2-3" long, since it
is a beetle and, obviously, all beetles are small. I have a hard time
imagining such a tiny insect doing two attacks for 5d8 damage and
absorbing over 100 points of damage in return.
I would think that something that was about 6' long or bigger could easily
do that much damage. Sure, there are no beetles that are over six feet
long, but all I have to say to that is "magic."
>[Now if only my AD&D characters could do this...]
Um, this is not D&D, and there is no reason to make sure that any monster
that appears in Angband conform to what is described to D&D, or vice
versa. If you take a look at the description as it already exists then
you may notice that it is not describing some sort of monsterous humanoid,
but a beetle, and a "huge" beetle at that.
So, if your D&D characters start thinking that their Umber Hulks are small
bugs that only need to be stepped on, then their heads should be checked,
assuming that is they survive being mangled by what is obviously a figment
of their imagination.
Andrew Solovay
Ben Harrison <be...@voicenet.com> wrote:
>In article <495c7j$5...@news.map.com>, j...@map.com wrote:
>
>> In <benh-21119...@philly30.voicenet.com>, be...@omni.voicenet.com (Ben Harrison) writes:
>
>> >The old "giant grey ant lion" is now a "giant grey ant"
>>
>
>Exactly. So now all "a" monsters are "ants". Really big ants. With
>huge teeth.
Alternately, we could keep "ant lions", but have them be "K" instead
of "a"...
...if'n people really like "ant lions", that is.
--Andrew Solovay <sol...@netcom.com>
"Heaven produces myriads of things to nourish man;
Man never does one good to recompense heaven.
Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!"
--- The Ancestress' Epitaph
Andrew Solovay
Ben Harrison <be...@omni.voicenet.com> wrote:
>For Angband 2.7.9, I am making some *minor* changes to the monster
>list...
>
Okay. Two suggestions, one minor, one major. But both should be easy
to do-- I could do 'em myself, and mail you the patch.
Minor: The "Mind flayer" should be "h" (humanoid), not "p"
(human). Humans don't have tentacled mouths.
Major: Two monster names/classes have long bothered me: "Gnomes" and
"Dark Elves".
In Tolkien, "Gnome" is an archaic name (from "Book of Lost Tales") for
the Noldor-- that is, for exiled High Elves. (Gnome" comes from the
Greek word for "wisdom".) So Tolkien "gnomes" are nothing like the
short, dwarflike beings in "Angband"-- in Angband terms, gnomes are
"High Elves".
Furthermore, in Tolkien, "Dark Elves" are Elves that never saw the
light of the Trees-- in Angband terms, a "Dark Elf" is a
plain-old-Elf, as distinct from a High Elf. They are not evil, or
especially susceptible to light-- indeed, Luthien and Legolas were
both "Dark Elves".
Suggested fix: Why not change both the character race "gnome", and all
"gnome" and "dark elf" monsters, to "petty-Dwarves"? There are already
three petty-Dwarf uniques in Angband. We could change "gnome mage" to
"petty-dwarf trickster" or somesuch; and change "Dark Elf
Mage/Priest/Sorceror/Whatever" to "Petty Dwarf Mage/Priest/Sorceror/
Whatever". The only effect on balance would be that petty-dwarves
ought not to be susceptible to light; but that's a minor change.
Whaddya think? If you (Ben) approve, I can snarf the latest 2.7.9, and
come up with patches to make this change.
--Andrew Solovay <sol...@netcom.com>
"Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat."
--- John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy, 1981-7
M Miles
F flying insects
I Insects (beetles,centipedes,etc)
l lice(and ticks)
K Kreatures of KAOS, like, say Jabberwocks, Umberhulks, Bandersnatches...
If U is a lot of letter for one creatre, k isn't much better.
I was thinking that kobold murderer (clear, hit to poison, cast spells to
trap and teleport short distances). kobold shamans. Add another unique
(Murder Lord, or something). Maybe add goblins and snotlings (just to
tick of the warhammer people, too).
Greg Legowski
Mischa E Gelman <megs...@pitt.edu> wrote:
>But to avoid any nasty problems in the future, I think Angband
>should either can the DND stuff(lots of it-from DFs to Vecna to Tiamat
I might be remembering my mythology wrong, but I'm pretty sure Tiamat is a
figure in the Babylonian mythos, and not a T$R creation. Of course, she still
doesn't really fit in Angband anyway, and the specific interpretation of her
as a really huge powerful multicolored dragon is probably T$R's...
>and the DND stat system) or put it on a T$R site.
The DND "stat" system has become very common in a lot of different games, so
if T$R objected to that there's a lot of targets for them to worry about...
--
Greg Legowski http://www.lm.com/~gregleg/
Cliff Stamp
In article <49g00n$e...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, flan...@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (flanagan john thomas) writes:
|>Thomas Stockheim (to...@hathi.informatik.rwth-aachen.de) wrote:
|>
|>: As well ,there are some dragons that seem to be missing ...
|>: Why are there no baby gold and bronze dragons ?
|>: And where is the great wyrm of acid and the great wyrm of poison ?
|>: I know, stupid names, but I would like to have them ...
|>
|>Perhaps call them Great Vitriol Wyrm and Great Bane Wyrm, respectively.
|>The great bane wyrm would be REALLY nasty without poison resistance...
Excellent idea.
|>A Great Chromatic Wyrm would be way too nasty...
Just make it deep, we need something to challenge 50 lev chars.
|> besides, we already have
|>Tiamat.
So? We have unique dragons that breath fire and Great Hell Wyrms.
--
Cliff Stamp "The higher we soar, the smaller we seem to
sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca those who cannot fly" - Friedrich Nietzsche"
Leejay Wu
2.7.9 Minor cha.. by flanagan john thomas@ux4
>
> : As well ,there are some dragons that seem to be missing ...
> : Why are there no baby gold and bronze dragons ?
> : And where is the great wyrm of acid and the great wyrm of poison ?
> : I know, stupid names, but I would like to have them ...
>
> Perhaps call them Great Vitriol Wyrm and Great Bane Wyrm, respectively.
> The great bane wyrm would be REALLY nasty without poison resistance...
>
> Tiamat.
...maybe a Great Wyrm, with, say, gravity breath and tunneling --
...i.e. a Great Earth Wyrm... ;-)
--Leejay Wu- PGP keyprint: F3 FC EB 0E 2C 31 F3 08 96 A2 B4 E2 5A 3E 47 6A --
| <fue...@cmu.edu> ...there is no light but for darkness... conflict brings |
| truth... I speak for none but myself... finger for GC, W3 URLs, PGP stuff |
--Carpe carp --- Information is power ---- this .sig last revised 950925 ---|
Craig Lewis
>
>> A Great Chromatic Wyrm would be way too nasty... besides, we already have
>> Tiamat.
>
>...maybe a Great Wyrm, with, say, gravity breath and tunneling --
>
>...i.e. a Great Earth Wyrm... ;-)
Oh, please, NO. There's no resistance to gravity.
Even if the max damage was capped relatively low, it'd be breathing for
that max damage for a LONG time. As far as I can recall, the only
monsters that have gravity breath are gravity hounds and the Aether
monsters (which won't do it very often).
Stephen S. Lee
In article <49q1do$h...@bubba.nmsu.edu>,
The max damage is currently capped relatively low, but it's still a nasty
attack ... well, there are two other monsters that have it, aether
vortices (which for some reason cannot breathe disenchantment ... does
anyone out there know why?), and Kavlax the Many-Headed (one reason why
he's one of the more dangerous uniques).
--
Stephen S. Lee (le...@fas.harvard.edu)
If love is chemistry, and sex is physics, then what is biology?
Larry Craighead
asol...@kmassucc3-sun.us.oracle.com (Andrew Solovay) writes:
>Minor: The "Mind flayer" should be "h" (humanoid), not "p"
>(human). Humans don't have tentacled mouths.
Yes, true.
>Major: Two monster names/classes have long bothered me: "Gnomes" and
>"Dark Elves".
>
>In Tolkien, "Gnome" is an archaic name (from "Book of Lost Tales") for
>the Noldor-- that is, for exiled High Elves. (Gnome" comes from the
>Greek word for "wisdom".) So Tolkien "gnomes" are nothing like the
>short, dwarflike beings in "Angband"-- in Angband terms, gnomes are
>"High Elves".
>
>Furthermore, in Tolkien, "Dark Elves" are Elves that never saw the
>light of the Trees-- in Angband terms, a "Dark Elf" is a
>plain-old-Elf, as distinct from a High Elf. They are not evil, or
>especially susceptible to light-- indeed, Luthien and Legolas were
>both "Dark Elves".
Remember something here - you are presuming this game is entirely
Tolkein, which it is not by a longshot.
>Suggested fix: Why not change both the character race "gnome", and all
>"gnome" and "dark elf" monsters, to "petty-Dwarves"? There are already
>three petty-Dwarf uniques in Angband. We could change "gnome mage" to
>"petty-dwarf trickster" or somesuch; and change "Dark Elf
>Mage/Priest/Sorceror/Whatever" to "Petty Dwarf Mage/Priest/Sorceror/
>Whatever". The only effect on balance would be that petty-dwarves
>ought not to be susceptible to light; but that's a minor change.
I think this would lose some game environment. As a Dragonlance fan, I
love the mental picture of those gnomes screwing around with magic. It
would get better if they had a 50% chance of spell backfiring. :)
Dark elves have an entirely different meaning in many other worlds.
Generally they are elves who have become evil.
>Whaddya think? If you (Ben) approve, I can snarf the latest 2.7.9, and
>come up with patches to make this change.
>
>--Andrew Solovay <sol...@netcom.com>
>
>"Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat."
> --- John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy, 1981-7
Matt Craighead
Ben Harrison
> In article <benh-21119...@philly30.voicenet.com>,
> Ben Harrison <be...@omni.voicenet.com> wrote:
> >For Angband 2.7.9, I am making some *minor* changes to the monster
> >list...
> >
> >Suggestions, as always, are welcome.
>
> Okay. Two suggestions, one minor, one major. But both should be easy
> to do-- I could do 'em myself, and mail you the patch.
>
> Minor: The "Mind flayer" should be "h" (humanoid), not "p"
> (human). Humans don't have tentacled mouths.
Good suggestion. The "p" for Mind flayer's was pissing me off too.
Personally "h" looks wrong as well, but it is better than "p".
> Major: Two monster names/classes have long bothered me: "Gnomes" and
> "Dark Elves".
>
> In Tolkien, "Gnome" is an archaic name (from "Book of Lost Tales") for
> the Noldor-- that is, for exiled High Elves. (Gnome" comes from the
> Greek word for "wisdom".) So Tolkien "gnomes" are nothing like the
> short, dwarflike beings in "Angband"-- in Angband terms, gnomes are
> "High Elves".
>
> Furthermore, in Tolkien, "Dark Elves" are Elves that never saw the
> light of the Trees-- in Angband terms, a "Dark Elf" is a
> plain-old-Elf, as distinct from a High Elf. They are not evil, or
> especially susceptible to light-- indeed, Luthien and Legolas were
> both "Dark Elves".
Well, "dark elf" seems to induce a lot of complaints, doesn't it?
> Suggested fix: Why not change both the character race "gnome", and all
> "gnome" and "dark elf" monsters, to "petty-Dwarves"? There are already
> three petty-Dwarf uniques in Angband. We could change "gnome mage" to
> "petty-dwarf trickster" or somesuch; and change "Dark Elf
> Mage/Priest/Sorceror/Whatever" to "Petty Dwarf Mage/Priest/Sorceror/
> Whatever". The only effect on balance would be that petty-dwarves
> ought not to be susceptible to light; but that's a minor change.
Because "Gnome" is a nice shourt familiar name that (to many people)
implies a very short wrinkled humanoid that makes a good mage.
But "petty-Dwarf" is long, ugly, stupid, and imples "less than a dwarf".
Playing a "Petty-Dwarf Mage" lacks a certain "punch", don't you think?
> Whaddya think? If you (Ben) approve, I can snarf the latest 2.7.9, and
> come up with patches to make this change.
>
> --Andrew Solovay <sol...@netcom.com>
>
> "Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat."
> --- John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy, 1981-7
--- Ben ---
Ben Harrison
> >For Angband 2.7.9, I am making some *minor* changes to the monster
> >list, in preparation for Angband 2.8.0, and to clean up some minor
> >annoyances. Note that many of the changes listed below can be "undone"
> >(visually) by the use of "pref" files, just like "skeletons" can still
> >be made to "look" like "animate skeletons" if so desired.
> >
> >The "ticks" (t) were combined with the "spiders" (S)
>
> Spiders and scorpions go together (they're both arachnids) but ticks
> are bloodsucking parasitic *insects* - like lice. They'd probably be
> better under (l).
I thought I looked up tick and they also had eight legs. (?)
The "I" and "l" monsters are (conveniently) all multipliers, but
if ticks were added they would not be. Perhaps I will use "I" for
non reproducing insects and "l" for reproducing ones, or maybe
it is not important to have this distinction. (?)
>
> >The "umber hulk" (U) was turned into a beetle (K)
> >The "jabberwock" (J) was turned into a "chaos beetle" (K)
>
> It's about time, actually. The umber hulks should have always been
> beetles, and not that I dislike Lewis Carroll, but if there are
> jabberwocks, there should also be bandersnatchi and vorpal swords and
> boojums. The only problem is their colors (brown and shimmering) are
> already shared with brown and iridescent beetles. Could re- name and
> color the brown beetle to black, and allow the chaos beetles to be
> mistaken for iridescents... <grin>
>
> [Hmm... my newsfeed went down for a while so I'm a bit tardy posting
> this, and in the meantime an arguement seems to have broken out over
> whether umber hulks are beetles or not. Now, I have a copy of the
> original monster manual from ADnD, so I'm aware it was originally
> based on a humanoid hulk with a beetle-like head, but the *Angband*
> destcription: 'It is like a huge beetle with glaring eyes and large
> mandibles capable of slicing through rock.' seems to indicate a
> *beetle*.]
My reasoning exactly. I have even updated the description a tad
to be even more exact. Circular argument, yes, I admit..
>
> >The "major demons" (&) changed symbol (U)
> >The "minor demons" (I) changed symbol (u)
> >The "giant flea"/"hummerhorn"/"fruit fly" became "insects" (I)
> >The "louse" is still a "louse" (l) and "resembles" an insect (I)
> >The "townspeople" (p) were changed into a new "race" (t)
> >
> >The "F" symbol (giant fly) is now defined as "Dragon Fly"
> >
>
> Making townspeople a new race - why? so they can be summoned? <grin>
The townspeople have a *completely* different "color scheme" than
normal "people" you encounter in the dungeon. If you summon "p"
monsters in town, it looks weird.
> If you just want to break apart the 'p' crowd, it might be more
> reasonable to separate them into armored and unarmored humans, perhaps
> even breaking armored into heavily and lightly (hard and soft /
> warriors and rogues) armored humans, which would not be an artificial
> distinction. I don't know which letters you'd use, though.
Another advantage of using "t" for townspeople.
> >Some of the old "red" monsters became "pink" if they drain strength
> >Some of the old "fire" monsters became "red" in name when possible
> >
> >The old "giant red ant" is now a "giant pink ant"
> >The old "giant red ant lion" is now a "giant red ant"
> >The old "giant grey ant lion" is now a "giant grey ant"
> >
>
> That'd be nice - but pink? Yetch. I assume you're changing them to
> that odd color used by nexus hounds and qulythugs, which you could
> also call orange (at least on ibms).
Well, on machines using the new "color definitions" the "pink" is
really "bright red" (like on some mage books). But "pink" sounds
better than "the light red beetle". :-)
> >The old *low-level* "Ethereal hound" is now a "clear hound"
> >The "clear hound" is "ATTR_CLEAR" and is described as "translucent"
> >The *deep* "Ethereal hound" is no longer described as "clear"
> >
>
> A clear pack animal. Cool, even though I rather liked having two breeds
> of ethereal hounds.
With *completely* different semantics? What a hack... :-)
> >Some new monsters will probably be added in Angband 2.8.0, such as
> >Ogre captains, Greater Balrogs, Black Trolls, Vampire Queens, and
> >Giant Werewolfs, to name a few. Also, the "unique" monsters will
> >probably be extracted from the "normal" monster list, and defined
> >as "unique instances" of various "base classes", much as "artifacts"
> >are currently handled. Since this will probably result in the use
> >of the same attr/char for the "unique" and "base" monsters, and for
> >"consistency", some new "base" monsters will probably be created,
> >such as the ones mentioned above, and also Skeletal Lord, Greater
> >Balrog, Young Hobbit, Master Mage, and some others.
> >
> >Suggestions on the "base" class for the various uniques, as well as
> >suggestions for new uniques, are welcome, but note that I will *NOT*
> >be removing any monsters (normal or unique) at this time.
> >
>
> Not bad. I'm looking forward to meeting Skeletal Lords. But how
> about changing a few of the other names - Giant/Greater/etc just don't
> have much style. How about a Werewolf Sire, (plain) Balrogs and Balrog
> Lords, and Ancient Sorcerors (instead of master mages - 'as old as the
> hills, and as powerful').
>
> And don't forget the dwarven king (Fundin Bluecloak). Or should that
> be ** KING **? :)
>
> Also, I think you were looking for names for the mimics (suggesting
> lesser/greater/master) - how about Bottle Mimics, Ring Mimics, and
> Scroll Mimics (it *is* what they're mimicking, after all).
I was actually using "Mimic (potion)", "Mimic (scroll)", and "Mimic (ring)".
> >Note that Angband 2.7.9 is probably going to be an EXTREMELY *beta*
> >version, as it is really just there to assist in the conversion to
> >Angband 2.8.0 which is going to be rather extreme, and thus, perhaps,
> >Angband 2.8.0 itself will turn out to be an *extremely* beta version.
> >
>
> Another argument to re-release 2.78 (stable, but still beta) as 2.79,
> with the *enchant* and object overflow bugs fixed, and perhaps the
> artifact rarity adjusted (not really a bug, but it has a sizeable
> effect on gameplay).
>
> >
> >Suggestions, as always, are welcome.
> >
> >--- Ben ---
> >
>
>
> That's quite a game you've got,
> -Pat
--- Ben ---
wenchi liao
>In article <49v048$v...@usenetp1.news.prodigy.com>, BRR...@prodigy.com (Patrick Tracy) writes:
>
>> The best solution may be to use 'I' for the miscellaneous insects that
>> don't have another category. The ants and centipedes have well-
>> established categories that don't needed breaking up.
>
>I'd say that the ants are good, but the centipedes dead-end too early.
>Perhaps there should be a centipede unique? If not, maybe the centipedes
>should be integrated into a general insects category.
>
>"Khaflach the Many-Legged" ?? :-)
or Kafka the Insect Lord...summons insects and polymorphs them to
different humanoids :-) .
[stuff about ascii representations...]
>
Julian Bean
In article <benh-02129...@philly206.voicenet.com> be...@voicenet.com
(Ben Harrison) writes:
>In article <49kv99$8...@inet-nntp-gw-1.us.oracle.com>, sol...@netcom.com (Andrew Solovay) wrote:
>
>> In article <benh-21119...@philly30.voicenet.com>,
>> >For Angband 2.7.9, I am making some *minor* changes to the monster
>> >
>> >Suggestions, as always, are welcome.
>>
>> to do-- I could do 'em myself, and mail you the patch.
>>
>> Minor: The "Mind flayer" should be "h" (humanoid), not "p"
>> (human). Humans don't have tentacled mouths.
>
>Good suggestion. The "p" for Mind flayer's was pissing me off too.
>Personally "h" looks wrong as well, but it is better than "p".
>
Jules
Andrew Doull
> Thomas Stockheim (to...@hathi.informatik.rwth-aachen.de) wrote:
>
> : As well ,there are some dragons that seem to be missing ...
> : Why are there no baby gold and bronze dragons ?
> : And where is the great wyrm of acid and the great wyrm of poison ?
> : I know, stupid names, but I would like to have them ...
>
> Perhaps call them Great Vitriol Wyrm and Great Bane Wyrm, respectively.
> The great bane wyrm would be REALLY nasty without poison resistance...
>
> A Great Chromatic Wyrm would be way too nasty... besides, we already have
> Tiamat.
>
Actually, I would suggest Great Sea Wyrm (Acid) and Great Plague Wyrm (Poison)
which sound slightly more consistent with the other worm types. I also have
Great Celestial Wyrm (Etheral), Great Chromatic Wyrm, Great Worm of Time and
Space and Great Wyrm of Power. Much more fun than those high level Q's. Of
course, nothing I have played has ever got that deep (Best, 41st Level Dunedain
Paladin who decide to keep Caspanion instead of PDSM and then ran into a Great
Wyrm of Balance)...
A.D.Venturer
Patrick Tracy
>> >The "ticks" (t) were combined with the "spiders" (S)
>>
>> Spiders and scorpions go together (they're both arachnids) but ticks
>> are bloodsucking parasitic *insects* - like lice. They'd probably be
>> better under (l).
>
>I thought I looked up tick and they also had eight legs. (?)
>
Damn, you're right. They're mites and mites are tiny arachnids. It's
amazing how transparent these gaps in the memory can be; I didn't even
know it was there. My apologies.
While they may not be related from the biological standpoint, they are
very similar in appearance and ecological niche to lice, and so could
be lumped together. Perhaps use 'p' for 'parasite' - oops, that's
already used by a two-legged variety. :)
Actually, this is all quite odd. Mites are *small* - almost below
the human threshold of sight. Yet, in Angband, they're bigger and
stronger than the lice. Which are tougher than beggars. I never did
like the idea of lice in the dungeon. Reminds me of grade school
(another type of dungeon?). :) Oh, well.
>The "I" and "l" monsters are (conveniently) all multipliers, but
>if ticks were added they would not be. Perhaps I will use "I" for
>non reproducing insects and "l" for reproducing ones, or maybe
>it is not important to have this distinction. (?)
I don't think the distinction between multipliers and non-multipliers
is important. Currently, the categorizion of letters is either by
form (Morgoth is a giant, not a demon), or essential nature (the
nightwing is a wraith, not a bat), and it seem the latter's only
purpose is to allow for summonings and other specifications by letter
in the code (pits/nests, too). Keeping them apart simply because one
is smaller and breeds and the other is much tougher is like separating
shambling mounds from the rest of the fungi because they move.
The best solution may be to use 'I' for the miscellaneous insects that
don't have another category. The ants and centipedes have well-
established categories that don't needed breaking up.
And from a GUI standpoint, it wouldn't be a bad idea to eliminate
either 'I' or 'l' - they *are* too similar with most typefaces, though
your solution of making them close cousins is also good.
Hmm... it's backtracking a bit, but why separate the dragon flies from
the rest of the flying insects at all? I've always pictured them as
colored insects with magical powers, though how they'd breathe is a
bit of a stickler. The description seems to fit this interpretation,
as well. Do you picture them as tiny little toy dragons? just fly-
sized dragons?
>> If you just want to break apart the 'p' crowd, it might be more
>> reasonable to separate them into armored and unarmored humans,
perhaps
>> even breaking armored into heavily and lightly (hard and soft /
>> warriors and rogues) armored humans, which would not be an artificial
>> distinction. I don't know which letters you'd use, though.
>
>Another advantage of using "t" for townspeople.
On the general issue of freeing up letters for use renaming,
distributing them a bit more regularly, and so on, I did a search on
some recent spoilers (v2.78) and came with with the following list of
over- and under- represented letters someone out there might find
interesting.
Under:
u
x
N
? 1
= 1
! 1
J 1
U 1
B 1/3
t 2
X 2
l 2
Y 2
2
M 3
z 3
V 3/4
k 3/4
y 3/5 *
L 3/5 *
r 4
q 4
$ 5 *
b 5 *
O 5/6 *
n 5/6 *
A 5/8 *
Over:
W 11/20 *
D 18/24 *
Z 20 *
R 23/25
d 29/30
p 48/63
There are about 10 monsters per available symbol, depending on
whether blank and non-alphabetic symbols are included. I used a
factor of two to determine whether a symbol was acceptably populated,
which works out to cut offs at 5 and 20. Asterisks mark all symbols
that may or may not fall into one of the categories, depending on
whether uniques are included, as well as all those on the borderline.
Subjectively, the special symbols (mimics, trappers, etc) are just
fine with only one or two members.
Some possible changes:
'Y' could be freed (for the proposed trees - 'Y'avanna's children?),
by lumping it with 'O' - they're all large bestial humanoids.
'R' could split up, spawning off the 'S'erpents, which might even
absorb the 'n'agas. Spiders/scorpions could then be renamed
'U'ngoliant's brood.
'M' and 'L' and 'z', could, in some combination, be combined. Mummies
and liches are both preserved corpsed, and might be the best match.
Given their history, it might be better to keep 'L' - that letter,
both in Moria (emperor liches) and Angband (black reavers) has
inspired much awe. Then, of course, 'M' would be free - 'M'orgoth?
The one creature who *deserves* his own letter...
'V'ampires could be put in with the 'b'ats. After all, the Tolkien
version was more bestial, and it makes as much sense as werewhatevers
in 'C', 'r', and 'w', despite their human traits.
Aside from 'Y', trees/Hurons/etc could also be 'N'atural creatures or
creatures of nature, or 'V'egetation.
The drakes might be split from the rest of the dragons. Perhaps 'k',
if were eliminated or dumped in with the orcs.
'p' *should* be split up. Perhaps 'u'narmored humans, such as mages,
mystics, and a selection of priests. The warriors (and some priests)
could be 'x' (x marks the spot?), or even 'k'nights.
And I know it would cause havok with summoning, but all the demons
could be dispersed. Vrock 'B', Nalfeshnee 'q', Marilith 'n', Erinyes
'H', Glabrezu 'I' or 'K', Hezrou 'R', lemures 'w', quasits/imps/manes/
homunculus in with the yeeks (twisted little manikins), balrog in with
the ogres, giants, or serpents (say giant), Bodak human, humanoid or
ogre (say ogre), and I have no idea what the hell a Tengu is, but
maybe yeeks.
And because they're so damn hard to notice (especially the black and
gray ones - I often miss the shambling mounds, and they *move*), the
mushrooms can all be lumped in with the icky things. Fung'i'! You can
squint and pretend the 'i's a mushroom, too. This should also include
the edible varieties.
Oh, not a suggestion, but check out the birds - there are *twice* as
many unique 'B's as normal monsters <grin>. It's a potentially broad
category, severly under-utilized. The other under-utilized category
is 'q' - as well as elephants and horse breeds, there could be boars
(Nalfeshnee?) and bears and more. Instead, there's four, and dozens
of insects, and *how* many worm masses and molds and jellies and and
and... :)
Well, that's all I can think of. This'll be too radical for some
people's blood, but even one or two could be interesting.
-Pat
Graeme Russ
: list, in preparation for Angband 2.8.0, and to clean up some minor
: annoyances. Note that many of the changes listed below can be "undone"
: (visually) by the use of "pref" files, just like "skeletons" can still
: The "jabberwock" (J) was turned into a "chaos beetle" (K)
Yeah, as long as it just as bad :-)
: The "major demons" (&) changed symbol (U)
: The "minor demons" (I) changed symbol (u)
I hope you don't reserve & for something else. I always thought they
looked just how text demons should look like.
Graeme Russ : c942...@alinga.newcastle.edu.au
Andrew Doull
be...@voicenet.com (Ben Harrison) wrote:
I would much rather 't' was used for trees, which should be added as a new
monster. Tolkein has a tradition of using monstrous trees (Ents etc.) and
besides which, I have really enjoyed playing with them in my version of
Angband. To date I have the following tree monsters:
Apple Tree (town monster)
Crab Apple Tree
Black Willow
Thorn Tree
Mandrake
Wormwood
Black Oak
Kudzu
Black Ent
Probably the best thing about them has been the challenge that they have posed
to the borg. Because they all have at least 100 hp (And increase in multiples
of 100), it has required a number of programming fixes (Which have made the
borg smarter, rather than hackier) to correct them. In particular, crab
apple trees would leave the borg for dead, because they had high hp (100), and
did very low damage so it thought the risk was neglible even as it was very
low on hit points. Thorn trees would kill the borg 100 % (They are fast and
fire arrows) until it started calculating danger for monsters at any range
(Based on the fire a missile code). Black willows (Casting blindness) would
leave it utterly confused until I added code for invisible monsters and blind
fighting (Which are treated as the same case). I can't wait until it runs into
Wormwood (High hp, slow tunnelling breeder) and Kudzu (High hp, fast breeder).
My borg is running a very successful Half-troll warrior (lvl 30) at the
moment. I have also ran a Dwarf warrior, who ran into a Greater Vault
very early on (I
was at the beach) including three Ringwraiths and Waldern, and survived to tell
the tale. This was before I implemented Teleport Away code too.
I have solved part of the mushroom hack, by setting a do_mushroom flag as a
part of message parsing. This is also used to detect invisible monsters and
fight monsters while blind by setting a do_invisible flag. I have rewritten
all the various try to teleport/identify/heal using various techniques as a
general borg_attempt function using a big case statement on a variable passed to
it (Such as SU_HEAL, SU_ID_FULLY etc.) and making the best choice as to what to
use. Borg_attempt has a sister function borg_supply which evaluates the
quantity and quality of supplies for the given variable eg. SU_HEAL tells
the
borg how much hit points it can heal. Additional information is stored in
auto_spells, parsed from the extended spell descriptions, or through cheating,
to determine the power of spells in this regard.
The borg makes correct choices as to whether to hit a monster with a bolt spell
or melee attack, and the best out of bolt spells and firing missiles to use. It
also reduces the power of spells it uses against weak creatures although this
is hacky. Ball spells are also used against monster groups although this is
also slightly hacky. There are a number of other changes. (It dives faster).
This is on 2.7.8, and I would love to share the code except I have no E-mail
access.
A.D.Venturer
Joseph W. DeVincentis
Andrew Doull <ado...@cs.auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>(flanagan john thomas) wrote:
>> Thomas Stockheim (to...@hathi.informatik.rwth-aachen.de) wrote:
>> : And where is the great wyrm of acid and the great wyrm of poison ?
>> : I know, stupid names, but I would like to have them ...
>> Perhaps call them Great Vitriol Wyrm and Great Bane Wyrm, respectively.
>> The great bane wyrm would be REALLY nasty without poison resistance...
>Actually, I would suggest Great Sea Wyrm (Acid) and Great Plague Wyrm (Poison)
>which sound slightly more consistent with the other worm types. I also have
>Great Celestial Wyrm (Etheral), Great Chromatic Wyrm, Great Worm of Time and
>Space and Great Wyrm of Power.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So *that's* where Power Dragon Scale Mail comes from!
Cliff Stamp
In article <49q1do$h...@bubba.NMSU.Edu>, cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) writes:
|>In article <ckjjvd_00...@andrew.cmu.edu>, fue...@CMU.EDU says...
|>>
|>>> Tiamat.
|>>
|>>
|>>...i.e. a Great Earth Wyrm... ;-)
|>
|>Oh, please, NO. There's no resistance to gravity.
Yes.
|>Even if the max damage was capped relatively low, it'd be breathing for
|>that max damage for a LONG time.
Correct, so it would be a challenge for even high level creatures. Make
it really deep 4000 ft.
There should be some monsters that you really don't want to mess with,
I mean I have had characters that were so powerful I could clone Great
Wyrms of Balance.
Shawn McHorse
>Having a great wyrm that can breathe ANYTHING that can't be resisted is NOT
>a good idea. Note that there is no really high hit point creature that
>routinely breathes impact, gravity, or time. There's a good reason for
>that.
Oh, it wouldn't be all _THAT_ bad. Notice how low the damage maximums are for
breath attacks that cannot be resisted. A Great Wyrm of Time would only be
hitting you for 150hp each time it breathed. Of course, the side effects are
something different...:->
Shawn McHorse
smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu
An Austin NorthCross-Dresser
Myrddin
->This is on 2.7.8, and I would love to share the code except I have no E-mail
->access.
->
->A.D.Venturer
You obviously have usenet access, post it here.
I would love to read over your code. I have made some modifications to borg
code too, but not nearly as extensive as you claim to have done.
Please, show us your work.
Myrddin Emrys mailto:myr...@uscyber.com
Craig Lewis
says...
>> : Why are there no baby gold and bronze dragons ?
>> : I know, stupid names, but I would like to have them ...
>>
>> Perhaps call them Great Vitriol Wyrm and Great Bane Wyrm, respectively.
>> The great bane wyrm would be REALLY nasty without poison resistance...
>>
>> Tiamat.
>>
>
>which sound slightly more consistent with the other worm types. I also have
>Great Celestial Wyrm (Etheral), Great Chromatic Wyrm, Great Worm of Time and
>course, nothing I have played has ever got that deep (Best, 41st Level Dunedain
>Paladin who decide to keep Caspanion instead of PDSM and then ran into a Great
>Wyrm of Balance)...
Having a great wyrm that can breathe ANYTHING that can't be resisted is NOT
a good idea. Note that there is no really high hit point creature that
routinely breathes impact, gravity, or time. There's a good reason for
that.
Great Time Wyrm would also be incredibly obnoxious. Even with, say, Calris,
one of the better anti-dragon weapons around, it takes several rounds to
kill any great wyrm. Do you want all your stats hit 4 or 5 times?
>A.D.Venturer
--
[This sig intentionally left blank.]
Jason Holtzapple
->
->> Whaddya think? If you (Ben) approve, I can snarf the latest 2.7.9, and
->> come up with patches to make this change.
->>
->> --Andrew Solovay <sol...@netcom.com>
->--- Ben ---
You could always call them "Noegyth Nibin," their Sindarin name. :)
--
Jason Holtzapple * http://www.paranoia.com/~jth/
Even a good thing is not as good as nothing.
Mischa E Gelman
No no no-too many letters left over:
A-Animals
P-People
M-Monsters(Other)
U-Undead and Supernatural
And lowercase for weak, uppercase for strong
There-nice and simplified. Don't you think we're getting a bit carried
away with these groupings???
>'P' would also work well. I picture a Sasquatch being closer to a frost
>giant than an ogre, but maybe that's just me.
Not bad suggestion.
>Or you could make skeletons 'U'ndead, and have 's'nakes. This may not be
>such a good idea, though, because then you'd have to use 'U' for some of
>the boken skulls and what-not lying around, which wouldn't look right.
See my comment earlier
>Anyway, liches deserve their own letter.
Hey-some actual keeping of categories w/ under 50 occupants? COOL
>> Aside from 'Y', trees/Hurons/etc could also be 'N'atural creatures or
>> creatures of nature, or 'V'egetation.
>
>Angband takes place in a dungeon. Ever seen a tree in a cave? It sounds
>silly.
Ever seen Angels in a dungeon? Use your imagination.
--
Something you can only hear on Scooby Doo:
This mystery is getting mysteriouser every second
J. Endicott
>In article <49q1do$h...@bubba.NMSU.Edu>, cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) writes:
>|>In article <ckjjvd_00...@andrew.cmu.edu>, fue...@CMU.EDU says...
>|>>
>|>>...i.e. a Great Earth Wyrm... ;-)
>|>
>|>Oh, please, NO. There's no resistance to gravity.
>Yes.
Absolutly. If not with gravity breath, then tunneling and shards, maybe
with some sort of stone-to-mud breath, can cause earthquakes(Falling Rock
Zone!)...of course, if there was a Great Earth Wyrm, there should be ancient
earth dragons, ect.
On the same note, why is there no resistance to gravity? (Other than
feather-fall). If there was, the number of creatures with gravity breath
could increase. And since speed is the most unbalancing feature of the
game...
>--
> Cliff Stamp "The higher we soar, the smaller we seem to
> sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca those who cannot fly" - Friedrich Nietzsche"
--
jon = je0...@uhura.cc.rochester.edu
"Life is, the crummiest book I've ever read/There isn't a hook, just a lot of
cheap shots"
Aaron Mandelbaum
>>> > If you just want to break apart the 'p' crowd, it might be more
>>> > reasonable to separate them into armored and unarmored humans,
>perhaps
>>> > even breaking armored into heavily and lightly (hard and soft /
>>> > warriors and rogues) armored humans, which would not be an
>artificial
>>> > distinction. I don't know which letters you'd use, though.
I think that's pretty arbitrary. I mean, they're all people, armor or not.
It'd make more sense to distinguish between spell using/non-spell using
people.
>>> Another advantage of using "t" for townspeople.
>>I would much rather 't' was used for trees, which should be added as a
>new monster. Tolkein has a tradition of using monstrous trees (Ents etc.)
>You could also use 'Y' (Yavanna's children). It's easy enough to move
>the Yeti and Sasquatch, and it actually looks more like a tree than the 't'.
It looks more like a tree, but the derivation is pretty obscure. I'm partial
to " myself, but that's just from playing Omega. :)
>You posted the r_info for most of these earlier, didn't you?
Can you post it again? Or e-mail it to me? Assuming, of course, that you
don't mind them showing up in my next version. :) (which'll be after 2.7.9
is released. I don't want to do another job on a beta version [shudder])
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Ken King
>==========Mischa E Gelman, 12/6/95==========
>
>>Or merge birds and flies into 'F'lying creatures?
>
>No no no-too many letters left over:
>A-Animals
>P-People
>M-Monsters(Other)
>U-Undead and Supernatural
>And lowercase for weak, uppercase for strong
>
>There-nice and simplified. Don't you think we're getting a bit carried
>away with these groupings???
>
Far from it, I wish we had more symbols to identify specific creatures.
Without that, every time i see a creature, I have to do a look to see
whether or not I even want to approach it. How tedious that would
be.
>
>>'P' would also work well. I picture a Sasquatch being closer
to a frost
>>giant than an ogre, but maybe that's just me.
>Not bad suggestion.
>
>>Or you could make skeletons 'U'ndead, and have 's'nakes. This
>may not be
>>such a good idea, though, because then you'd have to use 'U'
for some of
>>the boken skulls and what-not lying around, which wouldn't look right.
>See my comment earlier
>
>>Anyway, liches deserve their own letter.
>Hey-some actual keeping of categories w/ under 50 occupants? COOL
>
>>> Aside from 'Y', trees/Hurons/etc could also be 'N'atural creatures or
>>> creatures of nature, or 'V'egetation.
>>
>>Angband takes place in a dungeon. Ever seen a tree in a cave?
>It sounds
>>silly.
>Ever seen Angels in a dungeon? Use your imagination.
>
>
>--
>Something you can only hear on Scooby Doo:
> This mystery is getting mysteriouser every second
Ken King
AT&T Global Information Solutions - Shared Development & Services
Kennet...@DAYTONOH.attgis.com
Patrick Tracy
>>
>> > If you just want to break apart the 'p' crowd, it might be more
>> > reasonable to separate them into armored and unarmored humans,
perhaps
>> > even breaking armored into heavily and lightly (hard and soft /
>> > warriors and rogues) armored humans, which would not be an
artificial
>> > distinction. I don't know which letters you'd use, though.
>>
>> Another advantage of using "t" for townspeople.
>>
>
>I would much rather 't' was used for trees, which should be added as a
new
>monster. Tolkein has a tradition of using monstrous trees (Ents etc.)
and
>besides which, I have really enjoyed playing with them in my version of
>Angband. To date I have the following tree monsters:
You could also use 'Y' (Yavanna's children). It's easy enough to move
the
Yeti and Sasquatch, and it actually looks more like a tree than the 't'.
>Apple Tree (town monster)
You posted the r_info for most of these earlier, didn't you? I played
with
them a bit, and liked your changes. A few comments, though. Given
their
levels, the earlier ones had too many hit points. The apple trees were
fine (no damage), but perhaps the others might be better more along the
lines of the jellies. They just took too long to kill. The thorn trees
are
*lethal*. Their speed and the fact they are always bunched - you can't
lure them into corridors to nuke them one by one - means they can do
damage fast. And their massive hit points made it very hard kill. The
same
with the spell casting types. They were more of a nuisance, not worth
fighting at all, though this is not all bad (love those magic mushrooms ;
).
>A.D.Venturer
-Pat
Shawn McHorse
>Huh? Isn't Feather Fall == Resist Gravity in 2.7.x?
>No wonder those grav hounds have been kicking my ass... :/
Nope.
Feather fall is _THE_ most useless "resistance" there is. Glancing at the
source, there are exactly THREE places where feather fall comes into play.
Falling into a pit, falling into a spiked pit, and falling through a trap
door. Sure makes that Ring of Feather Falling worth getting, eh? :->
William Tanksley
>> creatures of nature, or 'V'egetation.
>Angband takes place in a dungeon. Ever seen a tree in a cave? It sounds
>silly.
Well, I can't recall the last time I saw a demon or dragonfly in a cave at
100', either. :)
At the same time, there is reason behind adding trees. You see, in the
Tolkien mythos trees were either phenominally powerful (the Two Trees) or
symbols of phenominal power (the White Tree). Thus, Morgoth would have HAD
to gain some and corrupt them. And what better way than by changing them
from light-dwellers to carnivores?
I also like using Y for trees, by the way. I originally wanted 't', but 'Y'
actually works better because of the size (those trees are pretty big!).
One thing about trees, though-- should they be summonable? Should trees
resist being displaced (by monsters that can do that), and if they are
displaced, should they die (torn up by the roots)?
-Billy
Aaron Mandelbaum
>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) writes:
>|>In article <ckjjvd_00...@andrew.cmu.edu>, fue...@CMU.EDU says...
>|>>...maybe a Great Wyrm, with, say, gravity breath and tunneling --
>|>>...i.e. a Great Earth Wyrm... ;-)
>|>Oh, please, NO. There's no resistance to gravity.
>Yes.
Huh? Isn't Feather Fall == Resist Gravity in 2.7.x?
No wonder those grav hounds have been kicking my ass... :/
>|>Even if the max damage was capped relatively low, it'd be breathing for
>|>that max damage for a LONG time.
>Correct, so it would be a challenge for even high level creatures. Make
>it really deep 4000 ft.
But should it hit to cause earthquakes?
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Patrick Tracy
>>>> > If you just want to break apart the 'p' crowd, it might be more
>>>> > reasonable to separate them into armored and unarmored humans,
>>perhaps
>>>> > even breaking armored into heavily and lightly (hard and soft /
>>>> > warriors and rogues) armored humans, which would not be an
>>artificial
>>>> > distinction. I don't know which letters you'd use, though.
>
not.
>It'd make more sense to distinguish between spell using/non-spell using
>people.
Well, you can't break it up further by type - a human's a human, and
especially in Angband with sword and armor wielding mages, and
rogues with various spells, the distinction is a matter of degree and
gets arbitrary. At least whether they're wearing armor is something
that should be readily apparent to the adventurer.
>>>> Another advantage of using "t" for townspeople.
>>>I would much rather 't' was used for trees, which should be added as a
>>new monster. Tolkein has a tradition of using monstrous trees (Ents
etc.)
>>You could also use 'Y' (Yavanna's children). It's easy enough to move
>>the Yeti and Sasquatch, and it actually looks more like a tree than the
't'.
>
>It looks more like a tree, but the derivation is pretty obscure. I'm
partial
>to " myself, but that's just from playing Omega. :)
It's not that obscure - no more than the artifacts, the uniques, all the
other Tolkien-flavor of the game. There seems to be strong support
for generally increasing the Tolkienization of hte game, and this fits
right in. Though, if done this way, the 'U' for spiders (Ungoliant's
brood) should probably be used so it's not an isolated occurence.
And I don't think you should look to Omega for ideas on user
interface.... :)
>>You posted the r_info for most of these earlier, didn't you?
>
>Can you post it again? Or e-mail it to me? Assuming, of course, that you
>don't mind them showing up in my next version. :) (which'll be after 2.7.
9
>is released. I don't want to do another job on a beta version
[shudder])
I'd look to see the updated version meself...
>--
>Aaron Mandelbaum
-Pat
Aaron Mandelbaum
>There are about 10 monsters per available symbol, depending on
>whether blank and non-alphabetic symbols are included. I used a
>factor of two to determine whether a symbol was acceptably populated,
>which works out to cut offs at 5 and 20. Asterisks mark all symbols
>that may or may not fall into one of the categories, depending on
>whether uniques are included, as well as all those on the borderline.
>Subjectively, the special symbols (mimics, trappers, etc) are just
>fine with only one or two members.
I don't think there's any problem with over-utilized symbols. All humans and
dragons, at least, look more or less alike. Maybe you could split the snakes
from the lizards (into 'S'?), move the spiders and scorpions to 'insects',
and then make nagas snakes as well. It's a more visually accurate *and*
mnemonic symbol.
>Some possible changes:
>'Y' could be freed (for the proposed trees - 'Y'avanna's children?),
>by lumping it with 'O' - they're all large bestial humanoids.
Sounds good. I'd describe the group as 'trees', though, so non-Tolkien nuts
can just assume it's because they look like trees.
>'R' could split up, spawning off the 'S'erpents, which might even
>absorb the 'n'agas. Spiders/scorpions could then be renamed
>'U'ngoliant's brood.
Er... let's not go overboard on the Tolkien naming, here. Spiders and
scorpions are small scuttling insects, and probably belong with ants in 'a'.
Or else move all of those to 'i', like one variation did. If you do that,
icky things could be lumped in with jellies.
>'M' and 'L' and 'z', could, in some combination, be combined. Mummies
>and liches are both preserved corpsed, and might be the best match.
>Given their history, it might be better to keep 'L' - that letter,
>both in Moria (emperor liches) and Angband (black reavers) has
>inspired much awe. Then, of course, 'M' would be free - 'M'orgoth?
>The one creature who *deserves* his own letter...
Maybe combine them into 'U', for undead. Or 'U' and 'u' for greater and
lesser undead. That would free up 's' for spiders and scorpions (should be
smaller than snakes) and follows the 'D'-'d' precedent.
>'V'ampires could be put in with the 'b'ats. After all, the Tolkien
>version was more bestial, and it makes as much sense as werewhatevers
>in 'C', 'r', and 'w', despite their human traits.
Ick. The were-whatever actually change form, while vampires *look* human.
Lump it in with 'U'ndead.
>Aside from 'Y', trees/Hurons/etc could also be 'N'atural creatures or
>creatures of nature, or 'V'egetation.
If vampires were moved, 'V'egetation might be good.
>The drakes might be split from the rest of the dragons. Perhaps 'k',
>if were eliminated or dumped in with the orcs.
The drakes could be eliminated entirely, and all the dragon types
standardized to baby-young-mature-ancient-wyrm.
>'p' *should* be split up. Perhaps 'u'narmored humans, such as mages,
>mystics, and a selection of priests. The warriors (and some priests)
>could be 'x' (x marks the spot?), or even 'k'nights.
I think p should stay how it is. We humans are one big happy family. :)
>And I know it would cause havok with summoning, but all the demons
>could be dispersed. Vrock 'B', Nalfeshnee 'q', Marilith 'n', Erinyes
>'H', Glabrezu 'I' or 'K', Hezrou 'R', lemures 'w', quasits/imps/manes/
>homunculus in with the yeeks (twisted little manikins), balrog in with
>the ogres, giants, or serpents (say giant), Bodak human, humanoid or
>ogre (say ogre), and I have no idea what the hell a Tengu is, but
>maybe yeeks.
I really like that idea... demons come in all shapes+sizes, after all, and
currently you don't really get a feel for what they look like. Make sure you
have them all be, say, light red, to distinguish them -- they're *wierd*
looking birds and insects and ogres...
>And because they're so damn hard to notice (especially the black and
>gray ones - I often miss the shambling mounds, and they *move*), the
>mushrooms can all be lumped in with the icky things. Fung'i'! You can
>squint and pretend the 'i's a mushroom, too. This should also include
>the edible varieties.
How about 'm'ushrooms and 'm'olds.
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Julian Bean
In article <adm4.2615...@po.cwru.edu> ad...@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum)
writes:
>BRR...@prodigy.com (Patrick Tracy) writes:
>
>>There are about 10 monsters per available symbol, depending on
>>whether blank and non-alphabetic symbols are included. I used a
>>factor of two to determine whether a symbol was acceptably populated,
>>which works out to cut offs at 5 and 20. Asterisks mark all symbols
>>that may or may not fall into one of the categories, depending on
>>whether uniques are included, as well as all those on the borderline.
>>Subjectively, the special symbols (mimics, trappers, etc) are just
>>fine with only one or two members.
>
>I don't think there's any problem with over-utilized symbols. All humans and
>dragons, at least, look more or less alike. Maybe you could split the snakes
>from the lizards (into 'S'?), move the spiders and scorpions to 'insects',
>and then make nagas snakes as well. It's a more visually accurate *and*
>mnemonic symbol.
I take your point well, but all dragons alike - yeah, I'm always confusing
Kavlax with Pseudodragons. Sure, Kavlax has seven (?) heads and wings, but
heck....
Jules
>
>--
>Aaron Mandelbaum
>
Abigail
>
> In article <adm4.2614...@po.cwru.edu> ad...@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum) writes:
> >No wonder those grav hounds have been kicking my ass... :/
>
>
> Feather fall is _THE_ most useless "resistance" there is. Glancing at the
> source, there are exactly THREE places where feather fall comes into play.
> Falling into a pit, falling into a spiked pit, and falling through a trap
> door. Sure makes that Ring of Feather Falling worth getting, eh? :->
Actually I prefer a set of boots.... Some steel boots of feather falling :)
Or maybe we should have a new artifact: Air Nikes [1,+0], feather falling
and aggravate monster....
Abigail
Shawn McHorse
>Or maybe we should have a new artifact: Air Nikes [1,+0], feather falling
>and aggravate monster....
Aggravate monster? What, do they light up at each step or something? :->
Abigail
>
> In article <30C746C0...@uni4nn.iaf.nl> Abigail <abi...@uni4nn.iaf.nl> writes:
> >Or maybe we should have a new artifact: Air Nikes [1,+0], feather falling
> >and aggravate monster....
>
> Aggravate monster? What, do they light up at each step or something? :->
No, but there have been incidents where kids have robbed from
their Air Nikes....
Abigail
Ben Harrison
> In article <adm4.2614...@po.cwru.edu> ad...@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum) writes:
> >Huh? Isn't Feather Fall == Resist Gravity in 2.7.x?
> >No wonder those grav hounds have been kicking my ass... :/
>
> Nope.
>
> Feather fall is _THE_ most useless "resistance" there is. Glancing at the
> source, there are exactly THREE places where feather fall comes into play.
> Falling into a pit, falling into a spiked pit, and falling through a trap
> door. Sure makes that Ring of Feather Falling worth getting, eh? :->
>
> Shawn McHorse
> smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu
> An Austin NorthCross-Dresser
It would be interesting (I guess) to allow Feather Fall to resist
gravity attacks. Thoughts?
--- Ben ---
Ben Harrison
> In article <49dt82$q...@alamo.cs.utsa.edu>,
> smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Shawn McHorse) wrote:
>
> >
> >*shrug* I never had any idea at all what an Umber Hulk was "supposed" to look
> >like. Let's see what the Umber Hulk description from 2.7.8 has to say on the
> >subject: "It is a huge beetle with glaring eyes and large mandibles capable of
> >slicing through rock." Ok. I'm now enlightened. Now why can't Umber Hulks
> >be beetles?
> >
> The Umber Hulk is a monster from TSR's Dungeons & Dragons, and it isn't a
> beetle. The bad news is that if TSR find out about it they might force
> Angband off the net until all the D&D specific monsters are removed.
Oh please. I would not be surprised if Angband has been around long enough
to claim that its very existance has "public-domain-ified" the D&D monsters
that it contains.
>
> Paul K.
>
> My newsfeed is losing posts. Please email any replies if you want to be sure I see them.
--- Ben ---
Scott R. Godin
be...@voicenet.com (Ben Harrison) wrote:
>> Feather fall is _THE_ most useless "resistance" there is. Glancing at the
>> source, there are exactly THREE places where feather fall comes into play.
>> Falling into a pit, falling into a spiked pit, and falling through a trap
>> door. Sure makes that Ring of Feather Falling worth getting, eh? :->
>It would be interesting (I guess) to allow Feather Fall to resist
>gravity attacks. Thoughts?
Sounds logical to me! :)
--
Scott R. Godin | Internet: sgo...@chelsea.ios.com
Sales |
Sam Ash Professional | The 4th 'R' is Respect.
My opinions are my own. If you want to complain to my company about them, please tell me, so I can laugh.
Mike Marcelais
| In article <4a5o55$b...@alamo.cs.utsa.edu>, smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Shawn McHorse) wrote:
| > In article <adm4.2614...@po.cwru.edu> ad...@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum) writes:
| > >Huh? Isn't Feather Fall == Resist Gravity in 2.7.x?
| > >No wonder those grav hounds have been kicking my ass... :/
| >
| > Nope.
| >
| > Feather fall is _THE_ most useless "resistance" there is. Glancing at the
| > source, there are exactly THREE places where feather fall comes into play.
| > Falling into a pit, falling into a spiked pit, and falling through a trap
| > door. Sure makes that Ring of Feather Falling worth getting, eh? :->
| >
| > Shawn McHorse
| > smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu
| > An Austin NorthCross-Dresser
| It would be interesting (I guess) to allow Feather Fall to resist
| gravity attacks. Thoughts?
It does make sense and gives use to a basically useless ability.
--
+------------------------+----------------------------+
| Mike Marcelais | mrma...@eos.ncsu.edu |
| Moonstone Dragon | Magic: The Gathering Judge |
| -==(UDIC)==- | Author of ChrHack 2.3 |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
Craig Lewis
>
>In article <4a5o55$b...@alamo.cs.utsa.edu>, smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Shawn Mc
>Horse) wrote:
>
>> Feather fall is _THE_ most useless "resistance" there is. Glancing at the
>> source, there are exactly THREE places where feather fall comes into play.
>> Falling into a pit, falling into a spiked pit, and falling through a trap
>> door. Sure makes that Ring of Feather Falling worth getting, eh? :->
>>
>gravity attacks. Thoughts?
Probably work. Quick check thru the spoilers indicates not many artifacts
have this (curiously, they're all weapons, other than rings of power).
And only one is generally attractive...Balli Stonehand. (Orome might
not be bad for a priest.) It'd make them, and the ring, something
to think about, esp when you're on those areas where grav hounds
are fairly common.
Another possibility is to allow FF to counter the slow effect. May
not be critical, but desirable.
>--- Ben ---
Craig Lewis
>
>
>>I think that's pretty arbitrary. I mean, they're all people, armor or
>not.
>>It'd make more sense to distinguish between spell using/non-spell using
>>people.
>
>Well, you can't break it up further by type - a human's a human, and
>especially in Angband with sword and armor wielding mages, and
>rogues with various spells, the distinction is a matter of degree and
>gets arbitrary. At least whether they're wearing armor is something
>that should be readily apparent to the adventurer.
But as you say: mages wear armor. A mage might wear Mithril Chain,
it wouldn't cause any problems. Or DSM.
Who cares how you identify each class? Really, pick the method that works
for you, and let it go. Don't try to force YOUR method on me, tho;
let's just leave all the humans the way they are now. Part of the
game is *imagination*...the more you overdefine stuff that doesn't
need definition, the more you inhibit this.
>>>You could also use 'Y' (Yavanna's children). It's easy enough to move
>>>the Yeti and Sasquatch, and it actually looks more like a tree than the
>'t'.
>>
>>It looks more like a tree, but the derivation is pretty obscure. I'm
>partial
>>to " myself, but that's just from playing Omega. :)
>
>It's not that obscure - no more than the artifacts, the uniques, all the
>other Tolkien-flavor of the game. There seems to be strong support
>for generally increasing the Tolkienization of hte game, and this fits
>right in. Though, if done this way, the 'U' for spiders (Ungoliant's
>brood) should probably be used so it's not an isolated occurence.
I'd disagree. Many of the references are in the main body of LotR,
or in the Sil in the active parts...it's a lot easier to remember Ringil
from the battle of Fingon and Morgoth (*Fingon* might not be right,
but there are a number of elves with very similar names, so I confuse
them), or Draugluin from the tale of Beren and Luthien, than to remember
a small detail from the creation myth sections.
>
>
>-Pat
Paul Andrew King
be...@voicenet.com (Ben Harrison) wrote:
>In article <ACE13B0F...@morat.demon.co.uk>, pa...@morat.demon.co.uk (Paul
>Andrew King) wrote:
>> >
>> The Umber Hulk is a monster from TSR's Dungeons & Dragons, and it isn't a
>> beetle. The bad news is that if TSR find out about it they might force
>> Angband off the net until all the D&D specific monsters are removed.
>
>Oh please. I would not be surprised if Angband has been around long enough
>to claim that its very existance has "public-domain-ified" the D&D monsters
>that it contains.
>
TSR can make a case out of it and that's all that they need. Their tactics
are to *threaten* legal action. Site administrators can't justify
defending against a lawsuit and cave in.
Craig Lewis
>
>woole...@rcwusr.bp.com wrote to us all:
>>In article <49v048$v...@usenetp1.news.prodigy.com>, BRR...@prodigy.com (Patrick
> Tracy) writes:
>>> creatures of nature, or 'V'egetation.
>
>>silly.
>
>Well, I can't recall the last time I saw a demon or dragonfly in a cave at
>100', either. :)
>
>At the same time, there is reason behind adding trees. You see, in the
>Tolkien mythos trees were either phenominally powerful (the Two Trees) or
>symbols of phenominal power (the White Tree). Thus, Morgoth would have HAD
>to gain some and corrupt them. And what better way than by changing them
>from light-dwellers to carnivores?
And even more basic: Ents and Huorns. Remember how Isengard fell.
And Old Man Willow in the Old Forest. Semi-sentient trees in Mirkwood.
Plenty of references to sentient, evil trees in both LotR and the
Hobbit.
>I also like using Y for trees, by the way. I originally wanted 't', but 'Y'
>actually works better because of the size (those trees are pretty big!).
>
>One thing about trees, though-- should they be summonable? Should trees
>resist being displaced (by monsters that can do that), and if they are
>displaced, should they die (torn up by the roots)?
Again, Ents and Huorns...yes, summonable; maybe get a better save vs.
displacement, I mean if they're that big they're HEAVY, but I don't
care much either way; and no, they shouldn't die. These are *mobile*
trees here, but even if they were stationary, they wouldn't die immediately.
If you gave them the equivalent of a mortal wound, that would make sense.
>-Billy
Steve Tiilikainen
>>Oh please. I would not be surprised if Angband has been around long enough
>>to claim that its very existance has "public-domain-ified" the D&D monsters
>>that it contains.
>>
>TSR can make a case out of it and that's all that they need. Their tactics
>are to *threaten* legal action. Site administrators can't justify
>defending against a lawsuit and cave in.
<gripe>
*sigh*
Why would they beef about a game that is so "public-domain"
that even the source code is available for any and all
tinkering?! We're not selling the damn game.
If TSR is *so* worried that people aren't going to buy their
RPG's because we play source code that we download and compile,
then they should get off their lazy asses and 'build a better
mousetrap.' A large company like TSR that is rapidly (IMO)
losing its market share in the gaming environment can't afford
to antagonize people who are interested in their products.
While some MUDs are run for-profit (which is wrong if they use
copyrighted ideas), the non-profit one I was on got me
*interested* in TSR's AD&D in the first place.
grr. Oh well. Come what may, I'll always own a copy of Angband.
</gripe>
Sorry about that...now for my Angband-related question...
How do the level feelings get generated? I understand how pits,
vaults, and greater vaults figure into the equation, but how do
the various types of artifacts/egoitems/out-of-depth items get
factored in?
--Steve
Joel Kamentz
>
>woole...@rcwusr.bp.com wrote to us all:
>>In article <49v048$v...@usenetp1.news.prodigy.com>, BRR...@prodigy.com
(Patrick Tracy) writes:
>>> Aside from 'Y', trees/Hurons/etc could also be 'N'atural creatures or
>>> creatures of nature, or 'V'egetation.
>
>>Angband takes place in a dungeon. Ever seen a tree in a cave? It sounds
>>silly.
>
>Well, I can't recall the last time I saw a demon or dragonfly in a cave at
>100', either. :)
>
>At the same time, there is reason behind adding trees. You see, in the
>Tolkien mythos trees were either phenominally powerful (the Two Trees) or
>symbols of phenominal power (the White Tree). Thus, Morgoth would have HAD
>to gain some and corrupt them. And what better way than by changing them
>from light-dwellers to carnivores?
>
>actually works better because of the size (those trees are pretty big!).
>
>One thing about trees, though-- should they be summonable? Should trees
>resist being displaced (by monsters that can do that), and if they are
>displaced, should they die (torn up by the roots)?
>
It's a little different, but I like the idea of adding trees. If a single
dungeon room can fit, oh, 50 giants, or a bunch of dragons, surely it
can hold a shrubbery.
Um, do trees drop torches when killed the way creeping coins drop cash? :)
Do trees multiply/grow?
If I use a wand of scare monster, does it become a petrified tree? hehe
Joel
Shawn McHorse
>I'd disagree. Many of the references are in the main body of LotR,
>or in the Sil in the active parts...it's a lot easier to remember Ringil
>from the battle of Fingon and Morgoth (*Fingon* might not be right,
>but there are a number of elves with very similar names, so I confuse
>them), or Draugluin from the tale of Beren and Luthien, than to remember
>a small detail from the creation myth sections.
No, Fingon is not right. That was Fingolfin. Check out Morgoth's description.
It should say something about "Fingolfin's eight mighty wounds". And while
we're on the subject of that battle I had a thought about Grond. The Earthquake
brand is obviously from the description of that battle (It should say something
about the hammer creating giant pits or something every time Fingolfin leaped
out of its way). But the key thing to notice is that the pits are created every
time the hammer _misses_. So the earthquake brand really should only take
effect when he misses, not when he hits. Just something to think about...
Patrick Tracy
>>>I think that's pretty arbitrary. I mean, they're all people, armor or
>>not.
>>>It'd make more sense to distinguish between spell using/non-spell
using
>>>people.
>>
>>Well, you can't break it up further by type - a human's a human, and
>>especially in Angband with sword and armor wielding mages, and
>>rogues with various spells, the distinction is a matter of degree and
>>gets arbitrary. At least whether they're wearing armor is something
>>that should be readily apparent to the adventurer.
>
>But as you say: mages wear armor. A mage might wear Mithril Chain,
>it wouldn't cause any problems. Or DSM.
>
>Who cares how you identify each class? Really, pick the method that
works
>for you, and let it go. Don't try to force YOUR method on me, tho;
>let's just leave all the humans the way they are now. Part of the
>game is *imagination*...the more you overdefine stuff that doesn't
>need definition, the more you inhibit this.
Well, first, the human category is heavily overpopulated, and it'd be
useful to break it up. It's a badly designed interface that hides
information arbitrarily from the user - why can you tell apart all the
obscure monster types, but still not know if that's a black knight, or a
death knight; or an illusionist or Wormtongue or a mind flayer?
The real reason I'd like to fix this is that I've playing with r-info
and
testing the effect of adding ESCORT flags to various creatures - and it
blows up on humans. It makes sense to give a general escort flag to an
orc captain, but it looks odd to have hardened warrior with rogues and
mages and priests and warriors all in one motley band.
Actually, it works fine for priests - religions draw a broad following -
and
mages (only sorcerers got an escort), but I'd still be useful to break
it
by the class lines, so a master rogue will get an escort of bandits and
novice rogues and brigands, and swordsmen will be surrounded by
novice warriors.
So I've come around to dividing them by 'class', which I orignally
opposed.
But I *do* think they could use a division, unlike what you seem to be
suggesting.
>>>>You could also use 'Y' (Yavanna's children). It's easy enough to
move
>>>>the Yeti and Sasquatch, and it actually looks more like a tree than
the
>>'t'.
>>>
>>>It looks more like a tree, but the derivation is pretty obscure. I'm
>>partial
>>>to " myself, but that's just from playing Omega. :)
>>
>>It's not that obscure - no more than the artifacts, the uniques, all
the
>>other Tolkien-flavor of the game. There seems to be strong support
>>for generally increasing the Tolkienization of hte game, and this fits
>>right in. Though, if done this way, the 'U' for spiders (Ungoliant's
>>brood) should probably be used so it's not an isolated occurence.
>
>I'd disagree. Many of the references are in the main body of LotR,
>or in the Sil in the active parts...it's a lot easier to remember
Ringil
>from the battle of Fingon and Morgoth (*Fingon* might not be right,
>but there are a number of elves with very similar names, so I confuse
>them), or Draugluin from the tale of Beren and Luthien, than to
remember
>a small detail from the creation myth sections.
Oh, come on. She created the Two Great Trees, and is second only to
Varda and Tulkas in terms of prominence in the mythology. And 'active'
parts of the Silmarillion - actually, from a storytelling standpoint,
it's quite
dry, and only those interested in the mythological basis of the whole
set of legends tend to wade through the whole thing because without
it, it's like reading something in a foreign language, or reading hte
myths
of a separate culture cold, without an introduction to the general
premises and figures.
>--
>[This sig intentionally left blank.]
-Pat
Tabor J. Wells
:woole...@rcwusr.bp.com wrote to us all:
:>In article <49v048$v...@usenetp1.news.prodigy.com>, BRR...@prodigy.com (Patrick Tracy) writes:
:>> Aside from 'Y', trees/Hurons/etc could also be 'N'atural creatures or
:>> creatures of nature, or 'V'egetation.
:>Angband takes place in a dungeon. Ever seen a tree in a cave? It sounds
:>silly.
:Well, I can't recall the last time I saw a demon or dragonfly in a cave at
:100', either. :)
:At the same time, there is reason behind adding trees. You see, in the
:Tolkien mythos trees were either phenominally powerful (the Two Trees) or
:symbols of phenominal power (the White Tree). Thus, Morgoth would have HAD
:to gain some and corrupt them. And what better way than by changing them
:from light-dwellers to carnivores?
:I also like using Y for trees, by the way. I originally wanted 't', but 'Y'
:actually works better because of the size (those trees are pretty big!).
Why not move Troll to 't' and use 'T' for Tree?
--
______________________________________________________________________________
Tabor J. Wells twe...@netcom.com
Just another victim of the ambient morality twe...@nesl.edu
______________________________________________________________________________
Opinions expressed in this message are my own and do not necessarily
represent those of my employer, the New England School of Law
Patrick Tracy
>In article <benh-08129...@philly233.voicenet.com>, benh@voicenet.
com says...
>>
>>In article <4a5o55$b...@alamo.cs.utsa.edu>, smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu
(Shawn Mc
>>Horse) wrote:
>>
>>> Feather fall is _THE_ most useless "resistance" there is. Glancing
at the
>>> source, there are exactly THREE places where feather fall comes into
play.
>>> Falling into a pit, falling into a spiked pit, and falling through a
trap
>>> door. Sure makes that Ring of Feather Falling worth getting, eh? :-
>
>>>
>>It would be interesting (I guess) to allow Feather Fall to resist
>>gravity attacks. Thoughts?
>
>Probably work. Quick check thru the spoilers indicates not many
artifacts
>have this (curiously, they're all weapons, other than rings of power).
>And only one is generally attractive...Balli Stonehand. (Orome might
>not be bad for a priest.) It'd make them, and the ring, something
>to think about, esp when you're on those areas where grav hounds
>are fairly common.
>
>Another possibility is to allow FF to counter the slow effect. May
>not be critical, but desirable.
Perhaps, but only for the inertia/gravity slows - the spell slow I
always
thought was some aspect of paralysis (and NO - don't take it away
from free action). The rest of the gravity effects - the stun and blink -
are better suited to sound and nexus resist.
I actually like the idea of having, albeit scarce, resistances to all
the
effects. With this, I think that time is the only one that is not
resistable -
and that might be okay, since it is somewhat special - or elves might
resist it, and also give that property to at least the One Ring (might
be
interesting to have it as a unique property).
>>--- Ben ---
Jeremy Evans
jdka...@eos.ncsu.edu "Joel Kamentz" writes:
> It's a little different, but I like the idea of adding trees. If a single
> dungeon room can fit, oh, 50 giants, or a bunch of dragons, surely it
> can hold a shrubbery.
There could be some new monsters (uniques?), as well,
located in the middle of the room.
The Knights of NI ;-)
Humblest apologies.
Jez
--
This mind intentionally
left blank.
Patrick Tracy
>How do the level feelings get generated? I understand how pits,
>vaults, and greater vaults figure into the equation, but how do
>the various types of artifacts/egoitems/out-of-depth items get
>factored in?
Grab a current copy of dungeon.spo from export.andrew.cmu.
Basically, items count 1 point (and there's about 10 points
between feelings, 20 for the better feelings) for each level out
of depth. Monsters count half that. Some of the better items
get an additional bonus on top - dragon mail counts 20 or 30,
regardless of your depth.
>--Steve
-Pat
Aaron Mandelbaum
>>>>>You could also use 'Y' (Yavanna's children). It's easy enough to
>move
>>>>>the Yeti and Sasquatch, and it actually looks more like a tree than
>the
>>>'t'.
>>>>It looks more like a tree, but the derivation is pretty obscure. I'm
>>>partial
>>>>to " myself, but that's just from playing Omega. :)
>>>It's not that obscure - no more than the artifacts, the uniques, all
>>>the other Tolkien-flavor of the game.
All the other Tolkien flavor of the game is just that -- flavor. But giving
trees the horribly NON-mnemonic symbol of Y is insane.
>>>There seems to be strong support
>>>for generally increasing the Tolkienization of hte game,
There was strong support for making a more tolkienized VARIANT.
>>> and this fits
>>>right in. Though, if done this way, the 'U' for spiders (Ungoliant's
>>>brood) should probably be used so it's not an isolated occurence.
[shudder] What in god's name is wrong with using symbols people can
remember? Let me guess, all wizards should be 'I', for Istari.
>>I'd disagree. Many of the references are in the main body of LotR,
>>or in the Sil in the active parts...it's a lot easier to remember
>Oh, come on. She created the Two Great Trees, and is second only to
>Varda and Tulkas in terms of prominence in the mythology. And 'active'
>parts of the Silmarillion - actually, from a storytelling standpoint,
>it's quite
>dry, and only those interested in the mythological basis of the whole
>set of legends tend to wade through the whole thing because without
>it, it's like reading something in a foreign language, or reading hte
>myths
>of a separate culture cold, without an introduction to the general
>premises and figures.
Exactly. No one in their right mind would read the silmarillion past the
first page or two, so having a reference like 'Yavanna's Children' is *BAD*.
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Aaron Mandelbaum
>>Another possibility is to allow FF to counter the slow effect. May
>>not be critical, but desirable.
>Perhaps, but only for the inertia/gravity slows - the spell slow I
>always
>thought was some aspect of paralysis (and NO - don't take it away
>from free action).
'Drain energy from your muscles' sounds like partial paralysis to me...
> The rest of the gravity effects - the stun and blink -
>are better suited to sound and nexus resist.
Actually, I was thinking it might be neat to have feather fall reduce damage
from gravity to 0, and negate any stunning or slowing (does it even do
that?), but leave in the blink.
"Gravity warps around you! You float gently to the ground."
Having it work against inertia also makes some sense, but I'd vote against
it. It's a different thing entirely.
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Ken King
>==========Shawn McHorse, 12/10/95==========
>>or in the Sil in the active parts...it's a lot easier to
>>from the battle of Fingon and Morgoth (*Fingon* might not be right,
>>but there are a number of elves with very similar names, so I confuse
>>them), or Draugluin from the tale of Beren and Luthien, than
to remember
>>a small detail from the creation myth sections.
>
Speaking of elves, I noticed this weekend that one of the shopkeepers
is named Dar-el (or something like that, dont remember for sure), There
is only 1 elf that I can think of that had a hyphenated name - Gil-Galad.
I think it would be apropriate to come up with a different name for this
shopkeeper.
Ken King
AT&T Global Information Solutions - Shared Development & Services
Kennet...@DAYTONOH.attgis.com
Shawn McHorse
>All the other Tolkien flavor of the game is just that -- flavor. But giving
>trees the horribly NON-mnemonic symbol of Y is insane.
Why is it non-mnemonic? Hell, 'Y' even looks somewhat like a tree. And lets
not start the whole argument about Tolkien again. The very name of the game
is straight from Tolkien. This is hardly just "flavor".
>Exactly. No one in their right mind would read the silmarillion past the
>first page or two, so having a reference like 'Yavanna's Children' is *BAD*.
I suggest you take this comment about the Sil and shove it straight up your
own asshole. Sorry to be terribly rude, but without the Silmarillion Angband
as we know it would not even exist. Care to point out a reference in LotR
for the fortress "Angband"?
Shawn McHorse
>Speaking of elves, I noticed this weekend that one of the shopkeepers
>is named Dar-el (or something like that, dont remember for sure), There
>is only 1 elf that I can think of that had a hyphenated name - Gil-Galad.
"Lyar-el the Comely", in fact. I can think of a bunch of other hyphenated
Elvish names. They were all names of Men, however. But the names themselves
were Elvish...:-> Examples: Tar-Alcarin, Tar-Amandil, Tar-Anárion,
Tar-Ancalimë, Tar-Ancalimon, <lots and lots of other Númenóreans>,
and Gil-Estel (name of Eärendil after he became a star).
>I think it would be apropriate to come up with a different name for this
>shopkeeper.
Malindil `Lover of Gold'
Certainly a fitting Elvish name...:->
Shawn McHorse
smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu
Ken King
>==========Shawn McHorse, 12/11/95==========
I knew that many of the Numenorean kings had hyphenated names, but
I didn't realize they were elvish. Lyar-el is definitely one of
the stingiest
shopkeepeers so a name change to Malindil 'lover of gold' certainly
would be apropriate!
> Shawn McHorse
> smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu
Patrick Tracy
>>>>>>You could also use 'Y' (Yavanna's children). It's easy enough to
>>move
>>>>>>the Yeti and Sasquatch, and it actually looks more like a tree than
>>the
>>>>'t'.
>>>>>It looks more like a tree, but the derivation is pretty obscure. I'm
>>>>partial
>>>>>to " myself, but that's just from playing Omega. :)
>>>>It's not that obscure - no more than the artifacts, the uniques, all
>>>>the other Tolkien-flavor of the game.
>
>All the other Tolkien flavor of the game is just that -- flavor. But
giving
>trees the horribly NON-mnemonic symbol of Y is insane.
What about weapons of Westernesse? Or the uniques?
Mnemonically, it's better than 'K' for beetles, or 'Z' for hounds -
which are actually two of the more clever letter-associations in the
game. And I won't even mention qulythugs and yeeks...
There are 52 (upper/lowercase) letters used in English. And some are
more heavily used than others. There have to be some compromises.
Most of the letters involve stretches of some sort. And anyway, the
letter scheme works by association - not mnemonics. We know what an
orange 'Z' is when we see it - we don't think 'hmm... zephyr hound &
pink - nexus or vibration!). At best, the mnemonic level is a
learning tool, but anyone with half a brain learns what monsters
are associated with what letters more quickly than, say, learning all
the obscure game commands, or even before basic tactics. It's not an
issue. Appearance (it *looks* like a tree) is as important, and
functionality (maximizing the information presented at a glance - the
red 'o' is an orc shaman, not an orc shaman or a snaga or a ogre or
anything else) is *much* more important.
Y's got the advantage that it's the letter that looks most like a
tree, and while the derivation may seem to you to be obscure, it is
entirely appropriate within the milieu.
>>>>There seems to be strong support
>>>>for generally increasing the Tolkienization of hte game,
>
>There was strong support for making a more tolkienized VARIANT.
Bullshit. Some of the more extreme changes would be farmed out
into a variant or dropped, but there are quite a number of fairly
minor changes (from a gameplay and balance standpoint) that seemed
to draw fairly broad support. Changing the unique dragons to
Ancalagon, the Great Worm of the Withered Heath, Glorund, and so on
won't break anyone's chops, even those somewhat attached to Tiamat,
and will add a great deal to consistency.
Hey, 2.78 isn't just a good game, right? It's perfect! Let's not
make *any* more changes. This talk of 2.79 and 2.80 - they're
kidding, right?
>>>> and this fits
>>>>right in. Though, if done this way, the 'U' for spiders
(Ungoliant's
>>>>brood) should probably be used so it's not an isolated occurence.
>
>[shudder] What in god's name is wrong with using symbols people can
>remember? Let me guess, all wizards should be 'I', for Istari.
Why? I assume by wizard you mean mages and sorcerers - because there
is exactly one Istari in the game at the moment (Saruman). Istari
means 'wise' and refers to specific agents of the Valar, all of them
Maiar (i.e. not human). Tolkien regreted calling Gandalf a wizard.
On the other hand, changing A'ngels to A'inur, and renaming the devas
and the solar and planetar (Hindu and Gygaxian mythology) into various
Maia and Istari makes sense, and would add to the consistency of the
game.
>>>I'd disagree. Many of the references are in the main body of LotR,
>>>or in the Sil in the active parts...it's a lot easier to remember
>>Oh, come on. She created the Two Great Trees, and is second only to
>>Varda and Tulkas in terms of prominence in the mythology. And
'active'
>>parts of the Silmarillion - actually, from a storytelling standpoint,
>>it's quite
>>dry, and only those interested in the mythological basis of the whole
>>set of legends tend to wade through the whole thing because without
>>it, it's like reading something in a foreign language, or reading hte
>>myths
>>of a separate culture cold, without an introduction to the general
>>premises and figures.
>
>Exactly. No one in their right mind would read the silmarillion past the
>first page or two, so having a reference like 'Yavanna's Children' is
*BAD*.
Yep. Then we can get rid of Ringil, Angrist, Dor-lomin, Carcaroth -
even Morgoth. There are still a few questions from newbies who think
that Sauron is the final monster. The artifacts, a decent percentage
of the monsters, and most of the uniques are *based* on the Sil.
I remember the first time I read LotR. I hated it. I still think it
sucks. The only place where Tolkien even demonstrated an iota of
storytelling was the Hobbit - and that was, well, cute. It's not like
the Sil is the only place in Tolkien that can be dry going. Frodo,
Sam, and Gollum slogging through the swamps was painful.
LotR is also close to the classic insider's book. So much of the
background either required extensive outside knowledge (the Sil - and
it wasn't published until 20 years later), or the dedication of a
fanatic to root out.
On the other hand, I thought the Silmarillion was great. For many of
the same reasons that other people like the LotR (I like it direct).
Once you got past that tedious creation section, it was up there with
the Kalevala, the Ramayana, Metamorphoses, and some fo the other great
epics in scope (although they were written better, and dispensed with
his overly simplistic theology). I imagine you've never heard of them.
Angband can't be separated from the insider element without losing
much of its richness. Too much of that 'flavor' you've noticed
depends on it. And using 'Y' for trees/huorns is almost tranparent.
>--
>Aaron Mandelbaum
Is it just me, or is the incidence of flaming going *way* up?
-Pat
Aaron Mandelbaum
>In article <adm4.2639...@po.cwru.edu> ad...@po.cwru.edu (Aaron
>Mandelbaum) writes:
>>trees the horribly NON-mnemonic symbol of Y is insane.
lets>not start the whole argument about Tolkien again. The very name of the
game>is straight from Tolkien. This is hardly just "flavor".
Names are flavor, I don't care what they're attached to. I mean, until
I read this group I figured they'd made up all the artifact names and just
made them sound 'Tolkienesque'. But things like moster symbols are part of
the game play and shouldn't be obscure.
Anyway, yeah, Y looks enough like a tree, but it should be described as
'trees'. It was the suggestion of 'Ungoliant's Children' for spiders that
really ticked me off. [shudder]
>>Exactly. No one in their right mind would read the silmarillion past the
>>first page or two, so having a reference like 'Yavanna's Children' is *BAD*.
>I suggest you take this comment about the Sil and shove it straight up your
>own asshole. Sorry to be terribly rude, but without the Silmarillion Angband
>as we know it would not even exist.
Yes it would. But it'd be called 'Kazad Dum' or whatnot.
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
William Tanksley
>In article <4adv7b$h...@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>, wtan...@sdcc15.ucsd.edu says...
>>>> Aside from 'Y', trees/Hurons/etc could also be 'N'atural creatures or
>>>> creatures of nature, or 'V'egetation.
>>At the same time, there is reason behind adding trees. You see, in the
>>Tolkien mythos trees were either phenominally powerful (the Two Trees) or
>>symbols of phenominal power (the White Tree). Thus, Morgoth would have HAD
>>to gain some and corrupt them. And what better way than by changing them
>>from light-dwellers to carnivores?
>>I also like using Y for trees, by the way. I originally wanted 't', but 'Y'
>>actually works better because of the size (those trees are pretty big!).
>>One thing about trees, though-- should they be summonable? Should trees
>>resist being displaced (by monsters that can do that), and if they are
>>displaced, should they die (torn up by the roots)?
>It's a little different, but I like the idea of adding trees. If a single
>dungeon room can fit, oh, 50 giants, or a bunch of dragons, surely it
>can hold a shrubbery.
A 'shrubbery'? You mean some shrubbery? And isn't a shrub a short bush?
Well, at any rate, we'll need some of those as well as the huge trees.
>Um, do trees drop torches when killed the way creeping coins drop cash? :)
That's a worthy question. Right now most of the monsters don't drop
corpses, but it would certainly make sense-- the only trouble is that it
would add to the programming complexity.
If they do, though, it would be logical to also have them drop edibles
(food, mushrooms, etc), with some of them (Wormwood for example) always
being poisoned.
>Do trees multiply/grow?
Some of them; Kudzu and wormwood. Most trees grow too slowly to notice.
>If I use a wand of scare monster, does it become a petrified tree? hehe
Groan. :)
>Joel
-Billy
Patrick Tracy
>>>All the other Tolkien flavor of the game is just that -- flavor. But
giving
>>>trees the horribly NON-mnemonic symbol of Y is insane.
>>Why is it non-mnemonic? Hell, 'Y' even looks somewhat like a tree.
And
>lets>not start the whole argument about Tolkien again. The very name of
the
>game>is straight from Tolkien. This is hardly just "flavor".
>
>Names are flavor, I don't care what they're attached to. I mean, until
>I read this group I figured they'd made up all the artifact names and
just
>made them sound 'Tolkienesque'. But things like moster symbols are part
of
>the game play and shouldn't be obscure.
>
>Anyway, yeah, Y looks enough like a tree, but it should be described as
>'trees'. It was the suggestion of 'Ungoliant's Children' for spiders
that
>really ticked me off. [shudder]
Then use 'Yavanna's children (trees)'. It's only a mnemonic - it's
useful
as long as it's explained,
(Or 'Ungoliant's brood (spiders)').
>>>Exactly. No one in their right mind would read the silmarillion past
the
>>>first page or two, so having a reference like 'Yavanna's Children' is
*BAD*.
>>I suggest you take this comment about the Sil and shove it straight up
your
>>own asshole. Sorry to be terribly rude, but without the Silmarillion
Angband
>>as we know it would not even exist.
>
>Yes it would. But it'd be called 'Kazad Dum' or whatnot.
Moria?
The reason the original designers went to Angband was that it gave
them a *much* broader mythological pool to draw from. There just
aren't enough artifacts and uniques from LotRs to fill a game. Even
Angband has to resort to non-Tolkien monsters and spells because
there aren't enough.
>--
>Aaron Mandelbaum
-Pat
Shawn McHorse
>There is only one problem i see ...
>High elves have Feather Fall from the beginning ... this is no big deal
>now, but it would certainly be unbalancing with that change, so it should
>be removed.
High-elves now have Resist Light as an intrinsic instead of Feather Fall.
Not a problem.
Thomas Stockheim
>In article <4a5o55$b...@alamo.cs.utsa.edu>, smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Shawn McHorse) wrote:
>> In article <adm4.2614...@po.cwru.edu> ad...@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum) writes:
>> >Huh? Isn't Feather Fall == Resist Gravity in 2.7.x?
>> >No wonder those grav hounds have been kicking my ass... :/
>>
>> Nope.
>>
>> Feather fall is _THE_ most useless "resistance" there is. Glancing at the
>> source, there are exactly THREE places where feather fall comes into play.
>> Falling into a pit, falling into a spiked pit, and falling through a trap
>> door. Sure makes that Ring of Feather Falling worth getting, eh? :->
>>
>> Shawn McHorse
>> smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu
>> An Austin NorthCross-Dresser
>It would be interesting (I guess) to allow Feather Fall to resist
>gravity attacks. Thoughts?
A good idea ! Especially if Greath Earth Wyrms are introduced ...
but anyhow, i think most attack forms should have a resistance.
There is only one problem i see ...
High elves have Feather Fall from the beginning ... this is no big deal
now, but it would certainly be unbalancing with that change, so it should
be removed.
And how many artifacts have Feather Fall ?
If to many have it its to easy to get ... but some should have it.
Thomas
Shawn McHorse
>Is it just me, or is the incidence of flaming going *way* up?
>-Pat
It's not just you. *sigh*
At least we got past the latest round of savefiles vs. no savefiles.
Cliff Stamp
In article <4a2mj9$2...@bubba.NMSU.Edu>, cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) writes:
|>Having a great wyrm that can breathe ANYTHING that can't be resisted is NOT
|>a good idea. Note that there is no really high hit point creature that
|>routinely breathes impact, gravity, or time. There's a good reason for
|>that.
Just give them a decent max damage. That way they are not instant death
but still really hard to kill.
|>Great Time Wyrm would also be incredibly obnoxious. Even with, say, Calris,
|>one of the better anti-dragon weapons around, it takes several rounds to
|>kill any great wyrm. Do you want all your stats hit 4 or 5 times?
Uh, that is the point. There should be some monsters so nasty/deadly
that you don't want to fight.
I mean now, even the Wyrms are simple at thier level of course.
Now finding a few in a major vault at 1500 ...
--
Cliff Stamp "The higher we soar, the smaller we seem to
sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca those who cannot fly" - Friedrich Nietzsche"
Shawn McHorse
>>[flame deleted]
>>>Is it just me, or is the incidence of flaming going *way* up?
>>>-Pat
>>
>
>Neither are you. It was your flame I was reponding to.
Are we really flaming each other about flaming? "Meta-Flaming"?
This is getting really bad...:->
Adam Goodman
>>It's a little different, but I like the idea of adding trees. If a
single
>>dungeon room can fit, oh, 50 giants, or a bunch of dragons, surely it
>>can hold a shrubbery.
>
>A 'shrubbery'? You mean some shrubbery? And isn't a shrub a short bush?
>Well, at any rate, we'll need some of those as well as the huge trees.
Can we have quests to get the shrubbery? Bring them up to town and build
a two level thing with a path through the middle. Sent on the quest by
Roger the Shrubber! What fun!
Adam
P.S. Just kidding. Actually I like the whole tree idea.
Chuck Swiger
> It would be interesting (I guess) to allow Feather Fall to resist
> gravity attacks. Thoughts?
I thought that was already in the code...?
It is certainly a good idea if it isn't, I think.
-Chuck
--
Charles Swiger -- ch...@its.com | Information Technology Solutions, Inc.
--------------------------------+---------------------------------------
CrashCatcher Development, Systems and Networking Administrator
Ben Harrison
> In article <benh-08129...@philly233.voicenet.com>,
> be...@voicenet.com (Ben Harrison) wrote:
>
> >In article <ACE13B0F...@morat.demon.co.uk>, pa...@morat.demon.co.uk (Paul
> >Andrew King) wrote:
> >> >
> >> The Umber Hulk is a monster from TSR's Dungeons & Dragons, and it isn't a
> >> beetle. The bad news is that if TSR find out about it they might force
> >> Angband off the net until all the D&D specific monsters are removed.
> >
> >Oh please. I would not be surprised if Angband has been around long enough
> >to claim that its very existance has "public-domain-ified" the D&D monsters
> >that it contains.
> >
> TSR can make a case out of it and that's all that they need. Their tactics
> are to *threaten* legal action. Site administrators can't justify
> defending against a lawsuit and cave in.
And which site are they going to attack? One of the ftp sites? Every
one of the newsgroup sites? My personal machine? What?
>
> Paul K.
>
> My newsfeed is losing posts. Please email any replies if you want to be sure I see them.
--- Ben ---
Jim Mansfield
I have noticed a strange event using Ben's version 2.7.8 lately, and it
has happened on several occations:
I pick up a copy of Ethereal Openings sitting on the floor and it does
not stack with the other copies I have. There is no {cursed} inscription
on it, but I have not tried un-cursing it anyway just in case. Not only
does it happen in my pack, but it happens in my house as well - I
now have two stacks of E.O. there :-(
There seems on the surface to be nothing about the copies which would
make them different. I have tried dropping them and picking them up
again, first one pile, then the other, to no avail.
I am running a dwarf priest 39th level hanging around 2500 feet looking
for both poison resistance and hold life! drolem = teleport away ;-)
Any ideas what's up? Do you need more information like character
printouts?
Hope this helps,
-Jim
--
Jim Mansfield internet: mans...@ibd.nrc.ca
National Research Council of Canada Phone: (204) 984-5191
Institute for Biodiagnostics Fax: (204) 984-5472
http://www.ibd.nrc.ca/~mansfield/
Patrick Tracy
>[flame deleted]
>>Is it just me, or is the incidence of flaming going *way* up?
>>-Pat
>
>Well, YOU'RE certainly not helping.
Neither are you. It was your flame I was reponding to.
>--
>Aaron Mandelbaum >(Fe)
-Pat