Attack and Porter Minions

[Chaos Awakes]

Is it possible to create monsters that attack other monsters?

I ask because this would be the only thing stopping me creating the DM2 attack minions. If a monster could be set to attack "the party", "monsters" or "both" then you could use an action to create an attack minion on the tile in front of you (assuming it is empty) and it would head off to attack your enemies.

Porter minions would be good too. Currently, you can create a cloned monster with no attack methods using an action but it will still follow the party around. It should be possible to create a monster that ignores the party and wanders randomly. This way, that monster could be given no attack methods except the ability to steal things off the floor. It could then fetch things for you from the other side of pits and stuff - you'd just kill it when it came back and collect what it was carrying.

[Lunever]

This has been discussed in several other threads recently and George already has announced a couple of measures for 39. Since 39 will be according to George released rather soon, we might soon try to make 39's new functionalities to create minion spells.

[beowuuf]

It has just been covered in the suggestion forum, please look there.

You can add to that topic agreeing/disagreeign with the suggested refiniement, since as it stands monsters either attack all other types or not, you can't give 'sides' to creatures. Currently monsters can be told not to attack the party - I personally haven't tried deselectign both flags and observing monster behaviour though

[George Gilbert]

Yes, this all now works for V0.39.

Monsters that can't attack anything will just wander about aimlessly (if you then give them a pickup attack method on movement then they'll hoover up any items and you can kill them for it).

Monsters that attack other monsters will only attack monsters that attack the party - which gives you the behaviour you want for minons (I think!).

[Lunever]

Ok, sounds minion-compatible, but can I do in 39 what'd be central for my dungeon idea: 2 armies shooting at each other and at the party? Or would the white knights then not only shoot at the black knights and the party but also at each other because the other white knights also attack the party?

[Chaos Awakes]

Lunever has a point here, that would be quite useful. But then we get back to the "sides" issue in the other thread.

[George Gilbert]

Ok, sounds minion-compatible, but can I do in 39 what'd be central for my dungeon idea: 2 armies shooting at each other and at the party? Or would the white knights then not only shoot at the black knights and the party but also at each other because the other white knights also attack the party?

No, because monsters will never attack their own type (otherwise a monster might attack itself!).

[Lunever]

Ok, so I can do what I intend, as long as I don't try to make one side consist of mixed monsters, like drow priestesses and driders vs. gold-elves and human paladins, right?

[George Gilbert]

Yep...

[Lunever]

It's already a great leap ahead, yet I still vote for having Sophias bloody brilliant idea of sides implemented. But CA is right, that brings us back to the other thread. Thanx anyway!

[Ameena]

I couldn't find which thread it was that discussed this kind of stuff before so apologies for posting in here lol. So if we've now got mobs that will attack only other mobs, or only the party, what about mobs that won't attack the party unless you attack them first (like the wolves in DM2 or wasps in Stonekeep)? So you could be walking happily through the middle of their territory and have them just walking past you and ignoring you, but if you attack just one of them, all of them will suddenly become hostile. And if you trained another mob (of another species) onto their territory, they may behave neutrally to it too but if it attacked them then, as with the party, they attack it and any members of its species (but not the party unless they attack too, but not if they attack the attacking species...hmm how confusing am I getting here...). Or there could be a species which was, like, the racial enemy of the neutral species and so both species would try to kick the crap out of each other on sight.
Or is this stuff possible already?

[George Gilbert]

I couldn't find which thread it was that discussed this kind of stuff before so apologies for posting in here lol. So if we've now got mobs that will attack only other mobs, or only the party, what about mobs that won't attack the party unless you attack them first (like the wolves in DM2 or wasps in Stonekeep)? So you could be walking happily through the middle of their territory and have them just walking past you and ignoring you, but if you attack just one of them, all of them will suddenly become hostile. And if you trained another mob (of another species) onto their territory, they may behave neutrally to it too but if it attacked them then, as with the party, they attack it and any members of its species (but not the party unless they attack too, but not if they attack the attacking species...hmm how confusing am I getting here...). Or there could be a species which was, like, the racial enemy of the neutral species and so both species would try to kick the crap out of each other on sight.
Or is this stuff possible already?

Yep, all of that can be done already (and there's an example showing how to do it in the V0.39 advanced actions dungeon).

[beowuuf]

For monster that don't attack unless attack, you clone one that drops a ferocious version of itself and disable the 'death cloud' so there is no sign of the previous one dying, just a pissed off monster

To have all attack, you can then call a 'swap_all_global' to alter all peaceful versions of the critter to angry versions of the ctritters too

All the more complex actions of monser versus monster could also be done using monster death generating actions, swaps and alternate versiosn too