CF: promotion ramps (Was: RE: CF: Long term experimental ideas)

[Hwei Sheng TEOH <hsteoh@cs.toronto.edu>]

Attached after this mail is a tentative list I've come up with so far, of
possible "promotion ramps" or promotion sequences for monsterous players. Note
that I haven't actually met many monsters in the game yet, so I can't really
tell right off what sequence would befit them. I haven't figured out most of
lake country yet (only got to ebony thief guild and wizard tower, haven't
solved any of the guild quests yet and got stuck on the other puzzles in
lake country), and with the recent problems with the pupland maps, I pretty
much can't go any further than I have. So I haven't encountered quite a few
monsters yet.

But with the monsters I know, now that I examined them in more detail, I'm not
so sure that *any* monster should be playable by the player.

Some, like acid blobs, are currently meaningless to play (can only last one
attack), unless we make some really innovative modifications to how acid blobs
work. We could have acid blob hit a monster, and leave a temporary acid pool
that becomes an acid blob again after a while. The temporary acid pool will be
defenseless against attacks; but as the level of the acid blob goes up, it
does more damage and thus can take out tougher monsters with one hit, and so a
player might be able to survive this way. This will be a totally radical way
to play, which I like, actually. But overdoing this will just make the code
too messy (one could argue, is all this complication really necessary?)

Some, like many under the animals category, doesn't seem to have a wide enough
scope to be interesting. Eg. how many quests could a cobra solve, and even if
you managed it, the artifacts would probably be totally useless anyway. And
this disadvantage doesn't come with any offsetting advantage, like the
beholder series has with magic. Arguably, we could make the poison attack much
more pronounced as the level increases, and perhaps add a `strangle' attack to
anacondas (when you achieve that promotion). But again, a lot of special-case
programming which may not add that much to the game.

The insect races might be interesting, but again, rather limited in their
scope. Unless, of course, we start a whole bunch of insect maps/quests for
insect players, but that sounds a little too far. (Might as well go play Sim
Ant or something!!)

With the monsters that seem interesting enough to be player-controlled, the
three humanoid series I came up with are an interesting way to enhance the
interest of the existing player classes. I particularly like the notion of
starting out as an apprentice, and eventually becoming an independent wizard. 
(Note that I'm not really differentiating between race/class here, since the
existing monsters aren't structured that way).

Anyway, feedback, comments/suggestions/criticisms/(flame?) are welcome...


T

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CF promotion ramps...

New monsters are written in parentheses.


angels:

angel --> light angel --> archangel	(are the last two actually
different??)
OR
(messenger) --> angel --> archangel


animals:

bat --> giant bat --> (vampire bat?)
snake --> cobra --> (anaconda?)
OR: snake --> serpent --> fire serpent
(puppy) --> dog --> big dog			(ala NetHack :-)
(hamster) --> mouse --> rat
scorpion --> (red scorpion) --> (giant scorpion)
shadowpup --> (adolescent shadow tiger?) --> shadow tiger


dragons:

(baby wyvern) --> wyvern --> chaos wyvern	(is this even sensible??)
dragon hatchling --> baby dragon --> dragon	(baby dragon is pretty
powerful:
						 should make them bigger)
OR: dragon hatchling --> young dragon --> dragon
elec dragon hatchling --> young elec dragon --> elec dragon
cold dragon hatchling --> young cold dragon --> cold dragon


faerie:

deathtree --> ent			(not sure how to make three stages)


giants:

ogre --> hill giant --> cyclops?	(don't see how you lose an eye! :-)
titan --> DK --> EDK			(does this make sense??)


imps:

imp --> big demon --> greater demon?	(this one looks a bit too drastic)
OR: imp --> big demon --> balrog?	(still kinda drastic)
demon --> raas --> big demon		(this one's iffy)


insects:

xan --> (???) --> byakie		(does this even make sense??)
ant --> warrior ant --> spitting ant	(not sure of the order--which is more
					 powerful??)
OR: ant --> work ant --> warrior ant
OR: ant larvae --> ant --> flying ant	(three degrees of liberation...)


humanoids:

(apprentice) --> conjurer --> wizard
(mental patient) --> madman --> wild pyromaniac
(pickpocket) --> thief --> (mastermind)		(ala Holmes' archenemy)


orc-races:

kobold --> orc --> goblin		(not sure if this is sensible)
OR: orc --> goblin --> gnoll
small troll --> (troll) --> big troll	(rename current troll to big troll)
OR: small troll --> troll -->gaelotroll


undead:

skeleton --> (elite skeleton) --> skeleton captain	(ala pirate myths)
ghost --> ghast --> nightmare
* --> lich --> demilich			(for whoever wants to sell their soul)


unnaturals:

unnaturals/slime:
slime --> green slime --> ???
(muddy pudding) --> brown pudding --> black pudding

unnaturals/beholder:
(floating eye) --> beholder --> dread
OR: beholder --> dread --> (chaos eye)	(some nasty beefed up Dread mutant --
					 maybe call it Cacodemon ala Doom)



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