Dungeon Master Forum

Some have been asked for before (buy Gmabit)

- Can monsters have seperate attack grapics for each attack (would be like assigning alternate graphics for north. west south on other things)
- Can monsters have a graphic or graphic set on movement?
- Can monsters have the ability to generate an action when they move (can generate some fun on the fly abilities like demolishing a wall infront of or open a door if you can have an action generated when they move)?

beowuuf wrote: - Can monsters have the ability to generate an action when they move (can generate some fun on the fly abilities like demolishing a wall infront of or open a door if you can have an action generated when they move)?

Ooh, this would be handy.

Perhaps the way to go here would be to allow every monster an "automatic attack method," executed every time the monster moves. This could either be a flag set on one of its three default ones, or a fourth extra attack method specified somewhere.

Of course, an "attack method" doesn't have to be an attack literally speaking, you can execute any action, so this should do what you want quite nicely and harmoniously with the existing monster mechanics.

Not sure what you mean by a "graphic set on movement". Can you explain how that would work / look?

Specifically, in RTC (and DM / CSB) monsters move in quantised steps, so it's not clear when the graphic would be shown / revert back to the normal one.

Hmm, yes for a little badly typed sentence it might be a lot of work!

There might be a graphic assigned for each of the three positions monsters currently use (wide striding legs, stretch blob) which would be drawn briefly as an interrupt between the monster being in one tile and another (as if the critter had been teleported and it's tile was not free for a moment) and drawn at an engine calculated offset of the two positions. I guess the monster speed would determine the length of time this is displayed for, and as a side product this means a critter in transit can't be attacked (nothing to hit!)

The graphics set would need be like the current animation list, except the engine would need to be able to assign the offset and display based on the amount of pictures allocated (to a maximum for having 1/6 per second i guess)

Oh, and of coruse to stop monsters and party from occupyign the square the monster will move to, you would need to block the destination square for a few ticks aswell : (

This all sounds hideously complex! Can we just get the alternate attack graphics and movement action instead? : )

Do you mean like the monsters in DM2 Wuuf?

I've been playing with animated monsters using the DM2 stuff, but only the animated attack really works in RTC.

To summarize.

A bitmap/anim for each attack. A bitmap/anim for each view, AND a second bitmap/anim for each view MOVING.

Is this about right?

Yesto the views, and kinda to DM2 - the monsters existed in DM2, whereas in RTC it would be a trick (as I expected)

*Copperman is confuzzed now

Done for V0.38 (the attack methods on movement and different bitmaps for each attack that is).

Can't say fairer than that! Cheers!

If we wanted inter square movement looks why, we'd play DM2 :)

Indeed so Wuff

BTW, whilst I was at it, I also split out the ranged attack methods from the close ones so you can have 3 different ranged attacks and 3 more different hand-to-hand ones if you want).

Of course, the DM/CSB monsters have the same attack methods for both ranged and close attacks, but the option is now there for more "interesting" new ones.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!

AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaHHHHHHHhhhhhhHHHH!

yummy noises

soft cooing

Hmm, if monsters can have 6 different attacks now, it might be a good place to bring up again the suggestion of broadening characters' action choices to 6 too:

Have a small column on the right border of the action box split off and add there a small mouth icon for "warcry", a small foor icon for "kick" and a small spread hand icon for "throw".