Mob ranks

Not every monster of the same level is equally dangerous. Each one has a rank, and the rank decides how tough it is, how hard it hits, how smart it fights and what it carries. The consider command shows the rank before you start the fight.

weakling -- easy prey. ordinary foe -- the usual monster of its level. veteran -- tougher and harder-hitting, protected by sanctuary (evil ones by dark shroud), quick on its feet. Expect a hard fight. champion -- fights like a warrior. A veteran or a champion needs good gear. boss -- the master of its area. legend -- few have walked away from this fight. A boss or a legend falls either to the best gear and full preparation, or to a group.

The higher the rank, the fewer dirty tricks work. A champion, boss or legend can't be charmed (charm person, befriend, attract other, control undead, dominate), summoned (summon) or thrown out of its lair (teleport, disperse) -- unless it already follows you.

A boss or a legend never dies from a single blow or spell: power word kill, disintegrate, witch curse, banishment and other instant kills fail, sleep, sconce and paralysis don't take hold, and assassinate only wounds instead of breaking the neck. And a vorpal weapon that takes heads off fails only against a legend.

A champion, boss or legend also carries defenses of its own on top of what its race gives: a champion resists one damage type such as fire, cold, poison or sound, a boss two, a legend three. A boss or a legend may be fully immune to one of them, and a legend always has one weak spot as well. They are never the damage the monster itself strikes with, and they change at the start of every month. Consider names them along with the rest of the monster's immunities, resistances and vulnerabilities. A few kinds of damage have no type at all, and nothing resists those, not even a full immunity.

Waiting it out doesn't work either. Poison, plague and blindness still land on a veteran or stronger, but wear off sooner. A champion, boss or legend can't be poisoned as deep and shakes poison and plague off the way a hero does. Fire is no hiding place: a boss or legend doesn't burn in a blaze at all, a veteran or stronger remembers who set the blaze and comes for them, and an idle champion, boss or legend stamps the flames out.

From veteran up, monsters fight with their heads: they curse and weaken their enemies, strip their protective spells, pick the most dangerous spell for the moment and save their strength for when they need it. They also make mistakes now and then.

A boss or a legend changes the fight as it bleeds, and every change of phase is an event: at set moments of the fight it has its say and does something at once -- calls servants, hides under a ward, marks a victim for a deadly blow, scares heroes off, throws one out of its lair or starts closing its wounds. Once it is badly hurt it turns to control: it knocks the tank down and disarms him, blinds and silences casters, strips protective spells and brings out its signature move.

A crowd of charmed servants is no shield against a boss or a legend. Every so often it turns on the whole retinue at once: it batters every pet in the room, tries to scare them off so they run away or vanish from view, or kills them outright, golems and other summoned servants included.

A pet gets a saving throw against each of these, by the kind of attack (fear, charm, dispel or teleport for the scare, the damage type for the killing blow), and a pet that saves stands there unhurt. A pet that fails is thrown away, somewhere in the world, but it stays yours: ask it where it is on the group channel. A master who sends the pack in and dozes off nearby is a foe all the same and gets woken up the hard way. And however many hands try to knock a boss or a legend off its feet, it cannot be knocked down again right away.

Near death it panics: no more healing spells, only damage, at whoever it picks. A champion panics near death too. Bosses and legends hit more often, those that don't cast sometimes break through a shield and a parry, and they know no fear.

From champion up, a monster whose body or magic has an element also strikes with it: some of its blows carry that acid, fire, frost or drain of life. The higher the rank, the more of its blows carry it. These blows can be dodged and parried like any other, and an immunity to that element turns them aside. A monster with a weapon in hand keeps the weapon's blows and brings out its element only in its extra strikes. A boss or a legend now and then lands a blow of pure force instead, and nothing resists it.

Beasts fight with what nature gave them: claws that draw blood, fangs, hooves that trample the fallen, a snake's coils you can't run from, a spider's web. From veteran up, thieves blackjack and stab in the back, vampires bite and heal from it, ninjas strangle and break necks, and druids cast their own spells. Monsters of the same kind stand up for each other, and the smart ones pick up gear left on the floor and wear it.

The higher the rank, the better the spoils. Veterans drop more trophies, and champions, bosses and legends always leave a share worth having.

In a group every hero who is there for the kill and took a real part in the fight gets a share of their own (a pet's damage counts for its master), and the room hears who dealt how much; alone, the share is yours.

Each such monster pays a hero only once in a good while: whoever took a loot set from it gets no random loot from it for some time. Only a paid kill counts: helping a raid while you wait, or with too small a share, does not. quest trophies shows which foes already paid you and when each pays again, and consider tells you the same about the foe in front of you.

Weapons and armor come in that share only from a foe of your level or higher. A lower-level one drops only recipes, scrolls, rare metals and gems, and not always, so a champion like that may leave nothing.

A legendary piece of armor from a boss or a legend bears its name and keeps a mark of it: a resistance to its blows, rarely a full immunity when it strikes with an element, or one of its spells that sometimes fires in battle.