Monster generators

[Big-J-Q]

It seems to me that monster generators generate monsters with pre-determined health. That is, if in dung. def. file I have put generator's health to HEALTH=(123), monsters generated by that generator have 123 hit points, right?

It would be great, if you added an option to generate monsters with party-level health. I mean, like HEALTH=(PARTY_LEVEL), when:

- with a loser-party the generator would generate wimpy monsters that the party could actually almost defeat.

- with an overpower-party the generator would generate Overkill monsters, which would be of some challenge to the party. (Monsters that don't die by the first punch)

[Lunever]

Yes, but even if this will be possible, it should be used only very sparingly, because if you overuse this, you can't really easily increase the difficulty of a dungeon from level to level continuously anymore and a player has no reason anymore to build a strong party for every success in character advance also strengthens the enemy and hence is in vain.
But I'd like to have a random factor included in monster's Health, like the good old hit dice of D&D, although maybe more elaborated consisting at least of a constant and a random part.
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[beowuuf]

I agree with having that option - you are forgetting wandering monsters. In dungeons going back to a level you will have wimpier creatures that you can beat easily...a generator like this just means the scale is kept right so incidental fights are still fun.

Plus it would allow creating a fair dungeon for different styles of play...it's no use creating a dungeon well balanced, if someone is just going to train on a lower level and kill all the creatures later with ease.

And i also agree with the adding randomness into the generation - like you can state the health, and state an optional number for a spread

So (123,10) would mean you get a spread from 113 to 133

[cowsmanaut]

isn't this already in here.. the ability to raise the difficulty? Makes monsters stronger and more of them.. I think it's set in the init file?

Though I think it was also supposed to be in the map that you (as the dungeon creator) could set it yourself rather than depend on the user to set it themselves. I rmember there was a thread about this a long while back..

[beowuuf]

But that's for the player, not the characters, plus it indisriminantly scales the dungeon - this would allow a generator to alter in-game key points

ie you want the big bad to be the big bad no matter the party strength

I dunno, i think its a cool idea to add more flexibility to the current tweaks a designer can do : )

[George Gilbert]

There is already a random spread in the health of generated monsters. If you specify a health of X they will be created with a health with a triangular probability distribution between X-X/2 and X+X/2.