Design a monster.

[Wasabi]

I found out about the Rusalka from playing Quest for Glory 4: Shadow of Darkness a long time ago.

 

Name: Rusalka

 

Description:

 

" In Slavic mythology, a rusalka is a female ghost, water nymph, succubus, or mermaid-like demon that dwelt in a waterway. According to most traditions, the rusalki were fish-women, who lived at the bottom of rivers. In the middle of the night, they would walk out to the bank and dance in meadows. If they saw handsome men, they would fascinate them with songs and dancing, mesmerize them, then lead them away to the river floor to their death. "

 

" Rusalki can also come from unbaptized children, often those who wereborn out of wedlock and drowned by their mothers for that reason. Baby rusalki supposedly wander the forest begging to be baptised so that they can have peace. They are not necessarily innocent, however, and can attack a human foolish enough to approach them."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusalka

 

Abilities:

• Mind Control: Force your party member(s) to attack you and your group.
• Bonded: Her health is shared and added as well between the mind controlled party member(s).

Attributes:

• High resistance to fire based attacks.
• Low: Strength
• High: Health, Agility

[BruceVC]

I found out about the Rusalka from playing Quest for Glory 4: Shadow of Darkness a long time ago.

 

Name: Rusalka

 

Description:

 

" In Slavic mythology, a rusalka is a female ghost, water nymph, succubus, or mermaid-like demon that dwelt in a waterway. According to most traditions, the rusalki were fish-women, who lived at the bottom of rivers. In the middle of the night, they would walk out to the bank and dance in meadows. If they saw handsome men, they would fascinate them with songs and dancing, mesmerize them, then lead them away to the river floor to their death. "

 

" Rusalki can also come from unbaptized children, often those who wereborn out of wedlock and drowned by their mothers for that reason. Baby rusalki supposedly wander the forest begging to be baptised so that they can have peace. They are not necessarily innocent, however, and can attack a human foolish enough to approach them."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusalka

 

Abilities:

• Mind Control: Force your party member(s) to attack you and your group.
• Bonded: Her health is shared and added as well between the mind controlled party member(s).

Attributes:

• High resistance to fire based attacks.
• Low: Strength
• High: Health, Agility

 

Nice, I am big fan of any siren\succubus\nymph type creature. Some good lore you posted

 

They always add this allure yet danger element  to a game

[aluminiumtrioxid]

I think a nullophage (a creature which feeds on physical, emotional or metaphorical voids) would be pretty cool. I can't quite wrap my head around how it would be dangerous enough to warrant a combat encounter, though. (Even considering that it would crap echoes of the things that created those voids...)

[JFSOCC]

maybe it's not the creature itself, but the creatures it creates? the echoes, which are dangerous?

[Lephys]

What about a mental-based creature with the ability to (if not resisted/saved against) cause mass hallucination in your party (maybe it's even a time-limit thing? You know... "Don't let it release those spores, which takes it a good 30 seconds to do!"), so that, to the player, on-screen, the party appears to be in a completely different setting, fighting some completely different (and far more frightening) foe. Once you defeat the foe in HallucinationLand, that breaks the trance, and you're back to reality, where you still have to finish off the actual creature.

 

Maybe, in the Hallucination, you start with full health/stamina, and the amount of health you lose in that hallucinated battle translates into a portion of your health lost in the main fight (for example, if a character "dies" in the hallucination, but the rest of the party defeats the hallucination, then that "dead" character comes back to reality with a 30% chunk taken out of their reality health/stamina total. But, if they only got down to half health before the hallucination was defeated, they'd only suffer 15% of their total health in damage.)

[maggotheart]

Now that we have engagement zones, how could they be used to make interesting monsters for the game?

 

We could have creatures with multiple appendages capable of engaging many targets, perhaps even the whole party. I was thinking of a simple example, a lizard man warrior with four arms who would make a great guard because he could engage twice the number of targets as a normal fighter. Or, there could be monsters that specialize in strikes of opportunity, making them even more deadly than normal - a giant snake or spider, or even a great cat. There could be monsters with greatly expanded engagement zones, or moving/odd engagement zones - perhaps some sort of tentacled beast or a flying animal who dive bombs opponents, but its harder to determine what is a safe area of the map.

[rjshae]

^^^^ What about swarms? Would they have a single engagement slot? Or do they automatically engage all adjacent enemies?

[maggotheart]

For swarms, how about you can actually run directly through the cloud instead of around it, but the entire area that it covers is considered its zone of engagement.

[maggotheart]

Zones of engagements are a fighter-only ability, but we could have them on all sorts of different kinds of monsters - how about a monster that can make ranged disengagement attacks? For example, a swamp monster that shoots spines could have a greatly expanded zone of engagement to reflect that he is able to easily throw spines at all enemies moving nearby. I'm not sure how this would work with, say, the mages Grimoire Slam ability, since they would not be in range to use it, there would be no way for a mage to easily break engagement, making the monster extremely dangerous. Should monsters be able to do that, or should they more closely reflect the character class ability and be restricted to melee distance?

[JFSOCC]

Vortex Pillar.

 

The Vortex Pillar is a guardian creature.

The Vortex pillar's zone of control is twice the size of that of a humanoid.

It can attack all party members individually at the same time. It has ranged vortex attacks dealing piercing damage, though not much damage is dealt.

Near the vortex pillar (zone of control) all creatures (both hostile and friendly) are slowed, this effect increases the closer to the vortex you are. (aura effect)

All creatures near the Vortex Pillar (melee range) suffer gradual life drain. This effect also increases the closer to the vortex you are (also aura effect)

All creatures within range of the Vortex Pillar's zone of control must pass a strength check, or be 'engaged' with the vortex, unable to break away from the forces pulling them ever closer.

Whenever a ranged attack from the vortex pillar hits, there's a 5% chance that a character is stunned for 2 seconds. If this is inside the zone of control of the Vortex Pillar, the character is sucked into the vortex and will take additional damage over time until the Vortex is destroyed or the character dies. This effectively removes the party member from combat.

 

The vortex pillar is slow. The Vortex sounds like the screaming winds of a tornado, and near it no abilities requiring sound will work. The Vortex Pillar has much health, has a powerful defence, and a slight health/stamina regeneration. It is an endgame monster which threatens the player by bogging the party down in a position unfavourable to the party and favourable to the vortex. Long range damage dealing and staying out of its way are really the only ways to defeat it. A party which studies the vortex will find that it slowly moves towards the lowest health party member. This can be used to lure the Vortex along a preferred path.

Edited March 1, 2013 by JFSOCC

[maggotheart]

Vortex Pillar.

 

 

Great idea! There could be some interesting tactical situations with a monster like this. Characters who suffer a disengagement attack could also be swallowed whole, increasing the 'black hole' concept of the monster.

[rjshae]

Zones of engagements are a fighter-only ability...

 

Mmm... nope. It's any combatant with a melee weapon.

[Lephys]

 

 

Zones of engagements are a fighter-only ability...

 

Mmm... nope. It's any combatant with a melee weapon.

 

 

This. I like the exploratory nature of your idea, maggotheart, but a ranged form of the engagement mechanic would be really tricky. I mean, what if you go behind a tree and break line of sight? Do you automatically take a negative-disengagement attack from the ranged creature? Or, what if you step out of the creature's range? It hits you no matter what? And, in that case, just keep everyone inside its range (which is probably pretty far, like an archer or something, so that doesn't really present much of an "Oh no, make sure you don't disengage passively!" challenge.)

[maggotheart]

 

 

Zones of engagements are a fighter-only ability...

 

Mmm... nope. It's any combatant with a melee weapon.

 

This. I like the exploratory nature of your idea, maggotheart, but a ranged form of the engagement mechanic would be really tricky. I mean, what if you go behind a tree and break line of sight? Do you automatically take a negative-disengagement attack from the ranged creature? Or, what if you step out of the creature's range? It hits you no matter what? And, in that case, just keep everyone inside its range (which is probably pretty far, like an archer or something, so that doesn't really present much of an "Oh no, make sure you don't disengage passively!" challenge.)

 

You're probably right. Just trying to provoke some discussion

[rjshae]

I'm still wondering about attack forms with a reach ability. Will those have extended Engagement capabilities? What about Ropers, Ents, and giants with long limbs?

[Dragoonlordz]

 

Stats all set as minimum possible. No armour or weapons. Cannot move.

 

It's abilities are "trash talk" or "huff and puff".

 

It's a monster that is static and cannot defend itself so it tries to intimidate anyone who comes near it by way of verbal abuse and making threats it cannot possibly in in reality carry out in essence all bark no bite. Bit like black night from monty python's holy grail after had his legs and arms chopped off or like the talking rocks in whispered world adventure game.

Edited March 3, 2013 by Dragoonlordz

[JFSOCC]

lol, does it have a "SCARY aura" which causes fear and confusion in its enemies? that'd be hilarious.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Let's call it Foul mouth!

 

I loved the magic mouth spell of D&D of yore, and this is like a renegade version of it, it's got a life of its own and babbling blubber to go with it.

 

"Read my lips!"

"Not if I can avoid to."

Edited March 4, 2013 by IndiraLightfoot

[BruceVC]

 

Stats all set as minimum possible. No armour or weapons. Cannot move.

 

It's abilities are "trash talk" or "huff and puff".

 

It's a monster that is static and cannot defend itself so it tries to intimidate anyone who comes near it by way of verbal abuse and making threats it cannot possibly in in reality carry out in essence all bark no bite. Bit like black night from monty python's holy grail after had his legs and arms chopped off or like the talking rocks in whispered world adventure game.

 

Yeah I like this beast, what about if its only defense was powerful illusions? So then it could try to intimidate people with a form of subterfuge

 

Let's call it Foul mouth!

 

I loved the magic mouth spell of D&D of yore, and this is like a renegade version of it, it's got a life of its own and babbling blubber to go with it.

 

"Read my lips!"

"Not if I can avoid to."

 

 

" Foul Mouth"

 

Good name and appropriate

[JFSOCC]

Razorleaf tree. (tribute to Patrick Rothfuss)

 

A tree overlooking a small hill in the country side. anything which comes to close will rouse it and it will shake, the leaves which fall float and twirl around and are razor sharp, causing slashing damage. The tree for gameplay purposes has infinite leaves.

 

At it's base is something the player might want to have. It will have to battle crushing damage from falling branches and slashing damage from the falling leaves. The base is strewn with skeletons of various grazing animals unlucky enough to encounter the angry tree.

 

The tree its canopy is wide and it takes damage only at its base, making ranged combat possible but not riskless.

[BruceVC]

Razorleaf tree. (tribute to Patrick Rothfuss)

 

A tree overlooking a small hill in the country side. anything which comes to close will rouse it and it will shake, the leaves which fall float and twirl around and are razor sharp, causing slashing damage. The tree for gameplay purposes has infinite leaves.

 

At it's base is something the player might want to have. It will have to battle crushing damage from falling branches and slashing damage from the falling leaves. The base is strewn with skeletons of various grazing animals unlucky enough to encounter the angry tree.

 

The tree its canopy is wide and it takes damage only at its base, making ranged combat possible but not riskless.

 

Good idea, it might be interesting to have some intelligence with this creature. Like a Treant

[Tsuga C]

Like a Treant

Or an ironmaw (Planescape).

[Nonek]

Null.

 

There is a man who stands on the street corner, dressed in the rags of a beggar and stinking of sweat and urine he would seem to be just another member of the great unwashed masses, but something is different about him. Maybe it is his thousand yard stare, his stillness, the thugs who do not bother him or maybe the space that everybody maintains from his presence. He stands out, even on the most crowded of streets, and he is repellent. Even watching him causes your ire to rise, and disgust to build in your throat, something about him is deeply unnatural.

 

A Cipher passing by will suffer far worse symptoms, he will grow sick and dizzy, and have to take cover behind the walls of his art while the dead eyes of the Null turn in his direction. The man thing will begin to walk through the parting crowds intent on his prey and the Cipher will try to run, not fight or strike out but just get away, for what he sees coming towards him is simply death. Nothing living stands there, there is no soul inhabiting that body, only a terrible will and a hint of some cancerous presence.

 

If the Null should lose its prey then it will simply come to a stop and stand waiting once more, patient and still. If the creature should touch the Cipher however, with as little as a finger, then they shall duel for a single moment of eternity, and if the creature wins then two Null shall stand where there was once one, before walking of in opposite directions. If the Cipher manages to stave off the creatures mental assault and maintain the sanctity of his mind, then the Null will stand idly by and wait for a less stubborn foe, while the Cipher staggers away sickened and weak.

 

The Cipher will not talk about it, only the ocassional mad man has muttered ought of the Null. Telling tales of minds that were overtaken by the darkness beyond the stars, of wills broken reaching too far into their own souls and beholding the infinite, of a parasitical gestalt entity that swarms and multiplies under the very noses of humanity. Lies, fever dreams or truth who can tell?

[BruceVC]

Null.

 

 

Telling tales of minds that were overtaken by the darkness beyond the stars, of wills broken reaching too far into their own souls and beholding the infinite, of a parasitical gestalt entity that swarms and multiplies under the very noses of humanity. Lies, fever dreams or truth who can tell?

 

"Telling tales of minds that were overtaken by the darkness beyond the stars, of wills broken reaching too far into their own souls"

 

I like this description

[IndiraLightfoot]

Nonek: Your null is the opposite of null and void. Great stuff!