Swordsman & Hunt Tweaks

The swordsman’s rage now also also applies to bow attacks (both the trigger and the benefit). Full Swing II now has a 30% chance to cleave (from 20%), and Full Swing III a 50% chance (from 40%). The swordsman will no longer parry after using his bow.

The monster density of hunts will now increase more slowly. However the likelihood of a monster being your quarry will be much lower at the beginning of the hunt. So you might want to sneak through the first few rooms till your quarry are easier to find. The probability of a monster being quarry is 20% in the first room and goes up 5% each room, up to a max of 75%.

Here’s the new hunt formula:

3 + 0-X monsters, where X is the room count divided by 2 (rounded up) capped at 14. Rooms are capped at 10 monsters. The chance that a monster is quarry is (15 + room_count*5)%, capped at 75%.

The goal of starting with a lower percentage of quarry is to provide a more varied experience, where at the beginning you are trying to find they quarry and doing more sneaking. It’s more like the dungeon, where you start off not wanting to fight everything. Curious what you think.

A small glitch: The rage should also end with a bow hit. Otherwise it is possible to stack rages with the bow (to infinity?).

I played Ettins and rats today both on 60 and “liked” both runs. Ettins still seem a bit OP. I can imagine to kill 100 rats in an outstanding run with a high level char. For Ettins I cannot imagine that. My 60 Ettins already felt significantly above average (luck and so on), rats not. It seems to be OK that an Ettin hunt is more difficult than a rat hunt, but maybe one could therefore increase the EXP. E.g. for every level beyond 9 we not only get scrolls, but also a factor of two EXP for the hunt. That way 60 Ettins would compare to 100 rats and 100 Ettins would be that epic as it seems to be.

Okay, with this, room 14 is where 10-monster rooms can start to occur, while room 31 is where the odds of such rooms reach 50%. Seems reasonable in general, though for 3-HP monsters, I suggest slowing it down more (maybe X=room_count/3 in that case).

From room #2 onward most of the monsters seemed to be today’s quarry – in several rooms there were no other monsters at all.
Was this just luck or are Frogs in the Stinking Marshes simply counted towards both groups of monsters (native and quarry)? If it was not luck but the second option, is this really intended behaviour?

I kept thinking: Good thing frogs can’t move through water … ;-)

An idea for the Hunts in general: Show the room number somewhere on the screen.
This could be done as part of the interface (e.g. next to the quarry counter) or as some auto-generated element in the background.

I think frog hunt today was very easy. One point less against frogs as part of the tuning? I got my first hit after 45 frogs (with human and without big “luck”), from then on I had a lot of bad luck and nevertheless achieved 88.

Spirit Chaser -

The abundance of frogs was probably a combination of luck and, yes, the fact that frogs are native to the marshes. However, the second point should not have made too much difference (the native monsters had a 1/6 chance of being a frog; trolls are more common, those are 1/3.)

But it’s a good point - quarry will be more common in regions where the quarry are also native to the region. It’s not really “intended”, just a side-effect of the design.

The simplest way to address it would be to create a larger variety of native monsters in each region, that way the percentage of native quarry will be less relative to the native monsters that are not quarry. (More hunts would end up with native quarry, but the effect on any given hunt would be less.)

Do you like the idea that each region has a larger variety of native monsters? Or do you like it now, where the region is limited to a handful of native monsters which are more consistent with the region’s theme?

I didn’t play today’s hunt. But I’m quite happy with the monsters matching the theme, even if it does mean that there is a chance sometimes of more or less quarry monsters. Some hunts will be harder than others. It’s the same for everybody that day. It’s the same every time for that combination. Bare Hand’s point about XP is fair. But lower ranking players might like an easier hunt on occasion, to have a chance to level up a little quicker.

Also, doesn’t the range of monsters in the theme largely dictate whether it’s a higher or lower weapon bonus? If every monster was in every theme, then all the themes would be the same, wouldn’t they? Just with different (excellent) artwork in the background.

Perhaps the Monster manual could say which monsters live where.

OK I played the frogs now. Not particularly well near the end, and I got 84. 100 felt like it was on, if I’d played better at the end. I thought the game progression and the monster distribution was OK. The frogs are quite weak defensively even at medium size and critically there are no spell casting or missile throwing frogs. So if you think that 100 is too many for a strong player to get in a hunt, then I’m with Bare Hand on this one - I think it might be that +3 is overpowered for frogs. Or you could just clock it up as an “easy” hunt.