(This is the "Dungeon Designs" column from the March 1992 issue of the Eamon Adventurer's Guild newsletter.  Copyright 1992 Eamon Adventurer's Guild, 7625 Hawkhaven Dr., Clemmons, NC 27012-9408.  You may reproduce this freely as long as this credit remains attached to the article.)


Back to the Basics: Monsters

by Tom Zuchowski

A "monster" in Eamon is defined as any animate denizen of the dungeon.  This includes friends, foes, bystanders, people, wild animals, pets, and all other categories of creatures.  The monster routines support weapon-carrying monsters, natural weapons such as claws and teeth, and unarmed monsters who can't fight until they are able to find a weapon.

Monsters can be individuals or groups.  A group can be a pack of wolves, an orc patrol, a horde of locusts, or whatever.  Groups are important; they permit the author to include many more monsters without filling up the database (which quickly uses up memory and disk space and makes the game run slower).  Groups can also make the game play better, as it makes the list of monsters in the room much shorter.  If you've ever played an Eamon in which there were 12 or 15 monsters in the room, then you know what I am talking about!

In version 7.0, a monster's fighting ability is determined by his Agility (AG) and his armor.  The higher the Agility, the better he can fight.  The weight of his armor lowers his fighting ability, but it also protects him.  Lastly, his Hardiness (HD) defines how many hits he can take before he dies.  Be careful not to select numbers that are too high.  If the monsters are too strong then the player will keep getting killed out and will give up in disgust before he gets the chance to see all of your adventure.  Here's a rule of thumb that isn't too far off: for the most difficult fights, a character with a fairly strong HEAL spell, chain mail and shield, and a 2D6 weapon should get killed no more than 50 percent of the time.  Of course, this balance will be affected by whatever companions you have given the player by the time the confrontation takes place.

One item that seems to confuse many new authors is how to define the room location of an artifact that is a monster's weapon.  The artifact's "room number" should be the negative of the monster's number, minus 1.  For example, a weapon being carried by monster #5 should have a room number of (- 5 - 1) or -6. Also, a monster can carry any artifact, not just weapons.  You can start him out with as many artifacts or weapons as you please.

Let's do a few examples. First, lets do a generic sword, artifact #8, that our monster will carry. Next, let's do a simple orc, and let's make him monster #4. (NOTE: the following is not a complete printout of everything that you will see on the screen.  There are quite a few on-screen menus during data input so that you don't have to memorize such things as the weapon type of a sword.)

ROOM-0   ART.-7   EFF.-0   MONS.-3

YOUR CHOICES ARE--
  1. ADD NEW ROOM,ARTIFACT,EFFECT, OR
      MONSTER

 2. (etc.)

ENTER KEY FOR YOUR CHOICE (1-7) 1
DO YOU WANT TO ADD A ROOM, ARTIFACT,
  EFFECT, OR MONSTER (HIT KEY, RAEM) A

ENTER ARTIFACT NAME:
SWORD

ARTIFACT DESCRIPTION:
YOU SEE A PLAIN IRON SWORD.

VALUE : 10     (not worth a lot)
TYPE : 2       (weapon)
WEIGHT : 5     (not too heavy)
ROOM : -5      (carried by monster #4)
ODDS : 10      (ordinary weapon)
W.TYPE : 5     (sword)
DICE : 1       (not a real good sword)
SIDES : 4      (not a real good sword)



ROOM-0   ART.-8   EFF.-0   MONS.-3

YOUR CHOICES ARE--
  1. ADD NEW ROOM,ARTIFACT,EFFECT, OR
      MONSTER

 2. (etc.)

ENTER KEY FOR YOUR CHOICE (1-7) 1
DO YOU WANT TO ADD A ROOM, ARTIFACT,
  EFFECT, OR MONSTER (HIT KEY, RAEM) M

ENTER NAME:
SMALL ORC

ENTER DESC--
YOU HAVE SURPRISED A SMALL ORC!  EVEN
THOUGH HE'S SMALL, HE'S MAD AS HECK AND
HE IS READY TO TAKE YOUR HEAD OFF.

ENTER HD: 8         (he's pretty scrawny)
ENTER AG: 16        (he's pretty quick, though)
ENTER # MEMBERS: 1  (he's not a group monster)
ENTER COUR: 175     (he's fairly determined to kill
     you. A courage value of less than 100 makes him
     more likely to run away, and a value of more
     than 100 makes him more likely to chase you if
     you FLEE.)
ENTER ROOM: 14      (you'll find him in room 14)
ENTER WEIGHT: 80    (he's a little guy)
ENTER ARMOR: 1      (light armor)
ENTER WEAPON #: 8   (do NOT use neg. number here)
ENTER DICE: 1       (doesn't matter-he doesn't use
     natural weapons, so his dice and sides will be
     determined by the weapon he is carrying)
ENTER SIDES: 4      (doesn't matter)
ENTER FRIEND: 1     (an enemy)


OK, now let's do a group monster, a pack of rats.  Remember that the data for group monsters is always that of just a single member of the group:


ROOM-0   ART.-8   EFF.-0   MONS.-4

YOUR CHOICES ARE--
  1. ADD NEW ROOM,ARTIFACT,EFFECT, OR
      MONSTER

 2. (etc.)

ENTER KEY FOR YOUR CHOICE (1-7) 1
DO YOU WANT TO ADD A ROOM, ARTIFACT,
  EFFECT, OR MONSTER (HIT KEY, RAEM) M

ENTER NAME:
RAT            (always use singular name)

ENTER DESC--
THE ROOM IS CRAWLING WITH RATS!

ENTER HD: 1         (easy to kill with one blow)
ENTER AG: 20        (fast and hard to hit)
ENTER # MEMBERS: 18 (18 rats in the pack)
ENTER COUR: 30      (a bunch of little cowards)
ENTER ROOM: 22      (you'll find them in room 22)
ENTER WEIGHT: 1     (real small)
ENTER ARMOR: 0      (none)
ENTER WEAPON #: 0   (natural weapons--teeth)
ENTER DICE: 1       (these values are used here)
ENTER SIDES: 2      (a single rat bite isn't
     that dangerous)
ENTER FRIEND: 1     (another enemy)


That pretty much covers basic data entry.  If you keep your weapons straight and pick the right numbers for good balance in the fighting, you've got it nailed down.  Be sure to print out the manual!  You will find it a valuable reference when plotting and populating your dungeon.

Think long and hard before using dead bodies in your adventure.  It is not an error that the 7.0 DDD comes with dead bodies disabled with a REM!  Only very rarely do dead bodies do anything but take up tons of valuable memory and disk space and slow down the program execution.  Dead bodies complicate late data additions while fine-tuning your adventure.  And they are very difficult to do
that read well with group monsters.  Really, the only time that bodies are worth implementing is if you want to use their descriptions to print death scenes when monsters die.  But if all you have to say is YOU SEE A DEAD MONSTER, then your adventure will be much better without them.