Section 7 - Editing Monster Types

Your default scenario comes with 187 premade monster types, number 1 to 187, and you can add as many more as you want. Like terrain types, you can customize the monster types to suit your scenario. Click on Edit Monster Types to bring up a list of creatures, and click on a monster type to bring up the monster editing window. This window has these options:

• Monster Name: The name of the creature.
• Level: Determines how much morale and skill the creature has. You should make this at least 1.
• Health: Number of health points.
• Armor: The damage from each weapon blow is reduced by a random amount from 1 to this number.
• Skill: Determines chance of hitting and gives an extra damage bonus.
• Speed: Number of action points monster gets each turn.
• Mage Spells, Priest Spells: Strength of spells creature casts. This is from 0 - 7, 0 meaning no spells and 7 meaning the strongest spells.
• Attack Damage Number of Dice and Sides: The amount of damage the monster does when it hits. For example, if a blow does eight dice of damage, each of which has 11 sides, the program generates 8 random numbers from 1 to 11, adds them up, and does that much damage. A monster can have up to 3 different attacks.
• Attack Types: Press Choose to select an attack type (e.g. bite, claw, etc.)
• Monster Type: Press Choose to pick a monster type (e.g. human, insect, demon, etc.).
• Treasure: Determines how much treasure the monster leaves when killed (0 - none, to 4 - lots). Don't have common creatures leave treasure of type 3 or 4.
• Default Talking Picture: Press Choose to select the default picture the player sees when talking to this character. This can be changed for individual creatures when editing towns.
• Default Attitude: Select the attitude the monster has when first placed (which can be changed when the monster is placed, using the Edit Monster button).

The monster type can also have a wide variety of special abilities. To edit them, press the Abilities button.

Editing Monster Abilities

The monster abilities screen has a wide variety of options.

• Special Abilities - Press Add to add a new special ability. Press Edit to edit the parameters of an existing special ability. If there are more than four special abilities, use the arrow buttons to navigate through them. Abilities are listed in the Monster Abilities section, later in this chapter. They are also covered in more detail in the Appendix.
• Summon Type - Determines whether the monster can be summoned by the mage's summoning spells. Type 1 monsters are easy to summon, while Type 3 monsters require much more powerful spells. If No Summon is selected, spells never summon the monster.
• Item To Drop When Killed, Chance of Dropping - The number of an item to place when the monster is killed (like a spider fang when a spider is killed in Exile), and the chance to place it (0 - 100).
• Monster Resistances - When the monster takes damage from fire, cold, magic, or poison, specify what percentage of the damage will be taken. The percentage can be more than 100.
• Invisible - Monster can't be seen. You can select a graphic for this creature, but it's only seen when editing the town, not playing the scenario.
• Mindless - Creature is immune to fear.
• Amorphous - Creature is immune to assassination.
• Invulnerable - Creature practically immune to damage.
• Guard - Creature is a guard. When the party commits a crime and makes the town hostile, it becomes stronger and will immediately seek out the party to kill them (even if it started out immobile).
• Special Node When Seen - When the party sees a monster of this type for the first time, this special node will be called. Click the Create/Edit button to edit the special node.
• Vocalization - Occasionally when a monster of this type is onscreen, the specified sound will be played. For example, use this to make a dog occasionally bark at you.

Monster Abilities:

When adding a new ability, you will be given a list of abilities to choose from. Some abilities will bring up an additional dialog for more information after you've chosen them.

• No Ability - No special ability.
• Missile abilities (Throw darts, Shoot arrows, etc.) - Monster fires missiles.
• Petrification Ray - Monster fires ray which has chance of turning victim to stone.
• Spell Point Drain Ray - Monster fires ray which drains spell points.
• Heat Ray - Monster fires ray which does fire damage.
• Paralysis Ray - Monster fires ray which paralyzes target.
• Breathes Fire - Monster has a breath weapon that deals fire damage.
• Breathes Frost - Monster has a breath weapon that deals cold damage.
• Breathes Electricity - Monster has a breath weapon that deals magic damage.
• Breathes Darkness - Monster has a breath weapon that deals unblockable damage.
• Breathes Stinking Clouds - Monster fires clouds of stinking cloud.
• Breathe Sleep Clouds - Monster fires sleep clouds.
• Acid Spit - Monster spits globs of acidic spittle.
• Shoots Webs - Monster fires globs of web.
• Poisonous - Monster does poison damage along with its primary attack.
• Acid Touch - When hitting in combat, victim is covered with acid.
• Disease Touch - When hitting in combat, victim is diseased.
• Web Touch - When hitting in combat, victim is webbed.
• Sleep Touch When hitting in combat, victim falls asleep.
• Dumbfounding Touch - When hitting in combat, victim is dumbfounded.
• Paralysis Touch - When hitting in combat, victim has chance of being paralyzed.
• Petrification Touch - When hitting in combat, victim has chance of being turned to stone.
• Death Touch - When hitting in combat, victim has chance of dying.
• Experience Draining Touch - When hitting in combat, victim loses experience.
• Icy Touch - When hitting in combat, victim takes cold damage.
• Icy and Draining Touch - When hitting in combat, victim loses experience and takes cold damage.
• Stunning - When hitting in combat, victim is slowed.
• Steals Food - When hitting in combat, victim loses food.
• Steals Gold - When hitting in combat, victim loses gold.
• Splits When Hit - When hit, monster splits into two weaker creatures. Don't give creatures like this too many health points.
• Permanent Martyrs Shield - Anyone hitting creature in combat takes damage.
• Absorb Spells - When the monster would normally take damage from magic, it instead gains health.
• Summon (%5, %20, %50 chance) - The extra value is the number of the creature this creature occasionally summons. The chance is the chance each turn of the creature appearing.
• Radiate Fields - The monster occasionally surrounds itself with a field of the selected sort. The extra value is the chance of the creature doing so on any given turn.
  If a creature radiates fire fields, you probably shouldn't put it near creatures who aren't immune to fire.
• Special Ability (Advanced) - On its turn, the monster sometimes calls a special node as its action, which can do anything a special node can do. This can be used to create special abilities that are otherwise not supported - for example, you could use this to make a monster that can teleport.
• Special when hit (Advanced) - When you hit the monster with a weapon, a special node is called.
• Death Triggers Scenario Special (Advanced) - The extra value is the number of a scenario special node, which is called when a creature of this type is killed.
• Custom Ability (Advanced) - Most of the abilities listed above are pre-made templates for ease of use. However, the ability system is quite a bit more flexible. If you prefer, you can create an ability yourself that doesn't quite fit into the above categories. See the appendix for details on how to do this.

Some Monsters Should be Left Alone

Certain monster types are summoned by mage or priest spells, and should be left alone. These monster types are Guardian, Demon, Snake, Asp, Mung Rat, Shade, and Deva. You can easily tell that you're editing one of these monsters by looking at the non-editable "Summoned By" field at the bottom of the Edit Monster Type dialog.